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The relationship between political threat, anxiety, and political engagement is the subject of a large but mixed body of evidence. While some researchers find that political threat and/or anxiety increase engagement with politics, others find that they lead to disengagement. In this article, I highlight two factors which explain when threat will increase political engagement: perceived control over the threat and individual differences in threat sensitivity. Using an experiment conducted during the 2016 US general election, I show that threats framed in high‐control, preventable terms increase both political interest and reported turnout relative to low‐control, inevitable framing—but only among those who are high in threat sensitivity. These changes in engagement are highly durable, lasting several weeks after participants were first exposed to the threat. I discuss the implications of these findings for political science and more broadly for elections and election outcomes in a political atmosphere that is often saturated with threatening rhetoric.

Theories of symbolic ideology view it as an affective orientation untouched by ideational content. Drawing on Shalom Schwartz's theory of basic human values, we propose that four bedrock values—universalism, openness to change, conservation, and self‐enhancement—shape symbolic ideology. We explore whether politically sophisticated and unsophisticated individuals ground symbolic ideological identities in cognitive values to a comparable degree. Using data from two nationally representative U.S. surveys, we find that universalism and conservation predict liberal‐conservative attachments for people at all levels of sophistication. By contrast, openness to change and self‐enhancement values appear to have little influence on symbolic ideology. The universalism and conservation effects hold controlling for multiple psychological and individual differences variables. These results suggest that ideational predispositions play a substantial role in shaping symbolic ideology.

Political knowledge is central to understanding citizens' engagement with politics. Yet, as surveys are increasingly conducted online, participants' ability to search the web may undermine the validity of factual knowledge measures. Recent research shows this search behavior is common, even when respondents are instructed otherwise. However, we know little about how outside search affects the validity of political knowledge measures. Using a series of experimental and observational studies, we provide consistent evidence that outside search degrades the validity of political knowledge measures. Our findings imply that researchers conducting online surveys need to take steps to discourage and diagnose search engine use.

AbstractThe American reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic is polarized, with conservatives often less willing to engage in risk-mitigation strategies such as mask-wearing and vaccination. COVID-19 narratives are also polarized, as some conservative elites focus on the economy over public health. In this registered report, we test whether combining economic and public health messages can persuade individuals to increase support for COVID-19 risk mitigation. We present preliminary evidence that the combination of messages is complementary, rather than competing or polarizing. When given a message emphasizing COVID-19's negative health and economic effects in a pilot study, conservatives increased their support for a broad range of risk-mitigation strategies, while liberals maintained high levels of support. A preregistered larger-n follow-up study, however, failed to replicate this effect. While complementary frames may be a promising way to persuade voters on some issues, they may also struggle to overcome high levels of existing polarization.

This study investigates the effects of social network disagreement on candidate preferences. Although much research has explored the effects of disagreement on political tolerance and disengagement, less work has examined the relation between disagreement and political reasoning. We predicted that because disagreement reveals conflicting points of view and motivates people to consider these views, it should promote more effortful reasoning—and thus increased reliance on policy preferences and decreased reliance on party identification when choosing between candidates. Using panel data from the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Presidential elections, we find that respondents in high-disagreement networks tend to shift their candidate preferences to align with their policy preferences regardless of their party identification. In low-disagreement networks, respondents tended to follow party over policy. In sum, the determinants of candidate preferences differ depending on individuals' social networks. In some cases, disagreement may promote more normatively desirable political decision-making.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with chronic disease may be at higher risk of dying from COVID-19, yet no association has been established between chronic illness and COVID-19 risk perception, engagement with nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), or vaccine acceptance. METHODS: We surveyed US residents who self-reported a chronic respiratory or autoimmune disease in February 2021. Respondents reported beliefs about the risk of COVID-19 to personal and public health, adoption and support of NPIs, willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and reasons for vaccination willingness. We evaluated the association between disease status and COVID-19 behaviors or attitudes, adjusting for demographic and political factors. RESULTS: Compared to healthy controls, chronic disease was associated with increased belief that COVID-19 was a personal (Respiratory = 0.12, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.10 - 0.15; Autoimmune = 0.11, CI = 0.08 - 0.14) and public threat (Respiratory = 0.04, CI = 0.02 - 0.06; Autoimmune = 0.03, CI = 0.01 - 0.06), and support for NPIs. Chronic respiratory disease was associated with willingness to be vaccinated (0.6, CI = 0.05 - 0.09). Personal protection was associated with vaccination (Respiratory = 1.08, CI = 1.03 – 1.13; Autoimmune = 1.06, CI = 1.01 – 1.11). Autoimmune disease was associated with fear of a bad vaccine reaction (1.22, CI = 1.06 - 1.41) among those unwilling to be vaccinated. CONCLUSIONS: In the US, chronic disease status is significantly related to risk perceptions of COVID, support of personal and community risk mitigation measures, and willingness to be vaccinated.

Multiple identity and identification terms are used in social science research on sexuality, including clinical terms such as "homosexual" and "heterosexual" and more colloquial terms such as "gay" and "straight." In this article, we show that far from being synonyms, these terms have consequences for attitudes about gay and lesbian rights. We begin by providing a historical overview of the terms "homosexual" and "gay and lesbian," showing the different connotations that social groups have come to associate with these terms. We then analyze a split-ballot experiment embedded in the 2012 American National Election Study (ANES) and show that group identity and authoritarianism shape attitudes toward "homosexual" rights differently than "gay and lesbian" rights.

AbstractResearch consistently highlights how systemic and social factors can adversely impact mental health, and the potential buffering effects of family support, yet raced sexual minorities are vastly underrepresented among these studies. As rates of suicide increase among Black people and remain high among men and those in gender and sexually diverse communities, this study sought to examine to relationships between family dynamics and suicidality among young Black men who have sex with men (MSM) in young adulthood. We used an online survey to conduct a logistic regression to examine family factors (family support, open family communication, other adult support, and other adult value), depression symptoms, and internalized homophobia on suicide attempts. The conceptualization of the study's design and interpretation of the results were informed by minority stress theory and the phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory. The results indicate that higher levels of family support and open family communication were associated with lower levels of suicidality. Implications for future research and applications for healthcare providers and human services professionals who support young Black MSM in emerging adulthood are discussed.

In an analysis of the 2012 presidential election, we sought to optimize two key desiderata in capturing campaign effects: establishing causality and measuring dynamic (i.e., intraindividual) change over time. We first report the results of three survey‐experiments embedded within a three‐wave survey panel design. Each experiment was focused on a substantive area of electoral concern. Our results suggest, among other findings, that retrospective evaluations exerted a stronger influence on vote choice in the referendum (vs. the choice) frame; that among White respondents, racial animosity strongly predicted economic evaluations for knowledgeable Republicans who were led to believe that positive economic developments were the result of actions taken by the Obama administration; and that information‐seeking bias is a contingent phenomenon, one depending jointly on the opportunity and motivation to selectively tune in to congenial information. Lastly, we demonstrate how the panel design also allowed us to (1) examine the reliability and stability of a variety of election‐related implicit attitudes, and to assess their impact on candidate evaluation; and (2) determine the causal impact of perceptions of candidates' traits and respondents' policy preferences on electoral preferences, and vice versa, an area of research long plagued by concerns about endogeneity.