Suchergebnisse

Nyhan and Reifler (2010, 2015) document a "backfire effect," wherein attempts to correct factual misperceptions increase the prevalence of false beliefs. These results are widely cited both in and outside of political science. In this research note, I report the results of a replication of Nyhan and Reifler's (2015) flu vaccine study that was embedded in a larger study about flu vaccines. The backfire effect was not replicated in my experiment. The main replication result suggests the need for additional studies to verify the backfire effect and identify conditions under which it occurs.

Abstract
In the USA, politics often dominates the conversation surrounding science and related technologies. We also live in times of high political polarization, leading to political debate over scientific discoveries and subsequent policy implications. Given these dynamics, there is much to be learned about the politicization of science, individuals' policy views, and the public's relationship with the communication and interpretation of scientific findings. Agencies are often responsible for facilitating scientific research and framing its policy relevance for decision makers and the public. This paper uses data from a large national public opinion survey to investigate citizen attitudes about government science agencies. We theorize that disparities between objective and self-assessed scientific knowledge coupled with ideological cues help frame citizen evaluations of agencies. We find that individuals' political ideologies and disparities between knowledge types shape citizen assessments of energy-related scientific agencies. These findings have important implications for our understanding of public acceptance of the work of government science agencies.

Investing in cryptocurrency has become more popular among Americans. Despite this, politicians and social scientists know almost nothing about the politics of cryptocurrency in the American public. By analyzing an original, nationally representative survey of 2500 American respondents, we create the first robust profile of the personalities, demographics, and political attitudes of cryptocurrency owners. We show that Americans who report hardship from inflation are more likely to own cryptocurrency, suggesting that when inflation is high, Americans may be more likely to use cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange and store of value. Americans who favor lower government spending and are more inclined toward conspiratorial thinking are also more likely to own cryptocurrency. Finally, there is a personality to cryptocurrency owners, with those open to new experiences more likely to own it and the conscientious less likely to own it. Our results have implications for how the American public may use cryptocurrency going forward.

Media stories on the economy tout automation as one of the biggest contemporary technological changes in America and argue that many Americans may lose their jobs because of it. Politicians and financial elites often promote a policy of Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a solution to the potential unemployment caused by automation, suggesting Americans should support UBI to protect them from this technological disruption. This linkage and basic descriptive findings are largely untested: we don't know much about whether Americans support UBI, see automation as a threat to their job, or connect the two in any meaningful way. Using a Mechanical Turk survey of 3600 respondents, we examine the relationship between Americans' perception of how much automation threatens their jobs, how much automation actually threatens their jobs, and their support for UBI. Our results indicate that while the public does not view automation as the same threat that elites do, Americans who believe their jobs will be automated are more likely to support UBI. These relationships, however, vary considerably by political party.

AbstractWe execute an original survey experiment to examine the extent and determinants of support for a nascent policy issue, universal basic income (UBI), in the American public. We explore the effects of how UBI is framed (either in the context of values or the context of policy), finding three key results. First, UBI is primarily a Democratic and liberal policy. Second, negative arguments against UBI move support for UBI more than positive arguments. Third, and surprisingly, respondents are equally affected by both policy‐driven and value‐driven arguments about UBI. In conclusion, an increase in messaging about UBI is likely to widen existing partisan differences in UBI support. These differences are unlikely to be won over by policy or values arguments.

Abstract
Science curious people—those who enjoy consuming science-related information—are less likely to hold politically polarized views about contentious science. Consequently, science curiosity is of great interest to scholars across the social sciences. However, measuring science curiosity via the science curiosity scale (SCS) is time intensive; potentially impeding its widespread usage. We present two new methods for reducing SCS administration time. One method presents respondents with a randomly selected subset of items ("Random Subset [RS] Method"). The other asks all respondents a core set of just four items ("Reduced-Form Method;" RF). In three nationally representative surveys, we assess the construct, convergent, and predictive validity of these alternatives. We find both versions to be well validated.

This is the final version as it appears for the citation: Haglin, Kathryn, Soren Jordan, Alison Higgins Merrill, and Joseph Daniel Ura. 2021. "Ideology and Specific Support for the Supreme Court." Political Research Quarterly 74 (4): 955-969. DOI:10.1177/1065912920950482 Corresponding author: Joseph Daniel Ura (jura@tamu.edu).

This is the final version as it appears for the citation: Haglin, Kathryn, Soren Jordan, Alison Higgins Merrill, and Joseph Daniel Ura. 2021. "Ideology and Specific Support for the Supreme Court." Political Research Quarterly 74 (4): 955-969. DOI:10.1177/1065912920950482 The page numbers here are consistent with the published version. Corresponding author: Joseph Daniel Ura (jura@tamu.edu)

We develop and assess an account of ideological asymmetries in public support for the Supreme Court. We find that specific support for the Supreme Court is more strongly negatively related to perceptions that the Court is overly liberal than perceptions that the Court is overly conservative. Our findings provide a more complete theoretical account of dynamics in specific support for the Supreme Court and indicate a mechanism behind the recent decline in the Supreme Court's public standing.