A cautiously optimistic result on AI and disinformation. A week before 2024 UK elections 13% of all voters used AI to ask about political topics. A randomized trial found this may be good: using AI led to similar gains in true knowledge as doing web research, regardless of model & prompt used.

📣 MORAL APPEALS IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION 📣 New version of @twidmann.bsky.social and my working paper answering: * Have moral appeals increased over time? * Is the tendency to moralize ideologically patterned? * Are some topics consistently more moralized than others? osf.io/preprints/os...

We often hear from reviewers: "what about demand effects?" So we developed a method to eliminate them. Something weird happened during testing: We couldn’t detect demand effects in the first place! (1/8)

New preregistered report @jepsjournal.bsky.social "Thin" populism treatments manipulate perceptions of people-centrism + anti-elitism But: some treatments (e.g., "American people") affect perceptions of host ideology, complicating causal analyses of impact of populist rhetoric cup.org/4n3DvZm

colleagues in political science. the formal update to the Garand and Giles journal ranking survey is now live. many of you will receive an email momentarily inviting you to participate. in the event you do NOT receive an invitation, please see this website to self-enroll. thanks! sharing = caring!

Now Out on First View: "Can (Thin) Populism be Manipulated without Manipulating Host Ideology? Evidence from a Conjoint Validation Approach" www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

New JEPS: Debunking NIMBY Myths Increases Support for Affordable Housing, Especially Near Respondents' Homes www.cambridge.org/core/service... -correcting stereotypes/misperceptions re: affordable housing increases support for building it -Effects often *larger* for housing near people's homes

𝘈 𝘖𝘯𝘦-𝘗𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯 Statistical Power www.carlislerainey.com/blog/2025-08...

I expect this to be an important book. Congrats, @tanikar.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/book/60875

As the U.S. celebrates Labor Day, what do voters think about the working poor? In POQ, Benjamin Newman shows that most blame structural problems for poverty among workers – but that race and personal experience shape views too. Read now: doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

#OpenAccess from @jepsjournal.bsky.social - Do Immigrants’ Partisan Preferences Influence Americans’ Support for Immigration? - cup.org/4p2Xskp - @danielmcdowell.bsky.social & David A. Steinberg #FirstView

On Prolific, "we estimate that about 34% of online study participants use LLMs to answer open-ended questions atleast some of the time..." Seems like a very timely paper for behavioural scientists using online samples: osf.io/preprints/so... ; We really need more papers on this issue

Some people find politics interesting. Others do not. In a new paper, I show that appealing to MEANING increases political interest. In 6 experiments, connecting what people find meaningful in their lives to politics increases political interest. Link: osf.io/preprints/so...

Peterson & Jeong find that local media strengthens issue accountability. By reducing uncertainty about legislators’ policy positions, news makes voters more likely to evaluate politicians on issues, not just party lines. #MediaAndPolitics Read more: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

There's a new issue of the section newsletter out! This one's on sample considerations in experiments: professional survey-takers, LLM usage, rural contexts, and more! connect.apsanet.org/s42/newslett...

New job ad: Assistant Professor of Quantitative Social Science, Dartmouth College apply.interfolio.com/172357 Please share with your networks. I am the search chair and happy to answer questions!

Anyone have favorite options for printing SEM output in R like semTable that work for v4.5.1? My Googling has turned up little.

new in early view at Political Psychology -->

New publication, out in Political Analysis: There is an increasing array of tools to measure facets of morality in political language. But while they ostensibly measure the same concept, do they actually? I and @fhopp.bsky.social set out to see what happens.

Also, you don't need to live in Texas to attend! You just need to be willing to travel here!

New Post: "For Your Syllabus: Statistical Power" Add content on statistical power to your social science courses. Not just to methods courses. For substantive courses, Bloom's MDE (i.e., 80% power to detect 2.5*SE) is easy to teach and really helpful! www.carlislerainey.com/blog/2025-08...

TAMU will be hosting the Texas American Behavior Conference on Nov. 7-8 this year. Apply by Aug. 31 using the link below. Let me know if you have any questions! tamu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

TAMU will be hosting the Texas American Behavior Conference on Nov. 7-8 this year. Apply by Aug. 31 using the link below. Let me know if you have any questions! tamu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Another well-deserved award for Lucia! She's doing fantastic work and is on the market this fall!

🚨 Updated working paper! Ekin Dursun and I ask what instruments best manipulate emotions on surveys (osf.io/56h4g). We find that vignettes really work! They have large effects on emotions of interest & smaller effects on emotions *not* of interest. But as always, it's complicated.👇 (1/17)

NEW - Field Experiments Invoking Gloating Villains to Increase Voter Participation: Anger, Anticipated Emotions, and Voting Turnout - cup.org/45KpoSo - Gregory A. Huber, Alan S. Gerber, Albert H. Fang & John J. Cho #OpenAccess

Can embarrassment of one's party dampen partisanship and polarization? One would think. In a forthcoming paper at @poqjournal.bsky.social, Taylor Carlson, @stevenwwebster.bsky.social, and I examine what we call "partisan embarrassment," including looking at the ramifications of these feelings...

🚨Pre-print alert🚨 Research shows citizens in many Western democracies are increasingly affectively polarized––they feel warm toward their own party but quite cold toward opposing parties. But how does it feel to “feel warmly”? @katharinalawall.bsky.social, @mtsakiris.bsky.social & I asked. 🧵1/8

Inflation was a big issue--maybe even *the* issue--in 2024. But do citizens understand how to interpret inflation rates? Using some new data from @verasight.bsky.social, the answer seems to be largely: no. On top of that, Republicans show significantly less understanding than Democrats.

New preprint! We developed new measurement tools to examine moralization in ~2B Twitter/X & Reddit posts and ~5M traditional media texts. Key finding: moralization increased markedly on social media from 2013-2021; more than traditional media; associated with multiple user dynamics 🧵👇

New paper. What happens when a presidential candidate steps way out of line, not only with the public, but even with his own voters? And on a highly salient issue? Candidates typically don’t do that—they’re too strategic. But Trump isn’t. He’s good for social science. 🧵

Congratulations to Lucia Lopez on receiving a Russell Sage Foundation Dissertation Research Grant! 🎉 Lucia will be on the academic job market this year. You can learn more about her research at www.lucia-lopez.com. www.russellsage.org/awarded-proj...

I've seen editors of journals say this before but being on the other side can confirm: the easiest zero-cost way to speed up the review process is to quickly turn down requests to review that you can't do.

Contributing to the  lit on where to place moderators in an experiment (shoutouts 🧵), @tabithabonilla.bsky.social, Genni and I consider whether items measuring prejudice are subject to unique considerations. Does asking these questions pre-treatment affect the experiment? @psrm.bsky.social

Felt it useful to update my work on the bidirectional link between whites' partisanship & their views of Black folks with the recent ANES panel taking the tests to a new context and a new method to better tease out individual change. Results persist. We should stop treating racial attitudes as exog.

Things I've recently seen academics use AI for, all of which failed miserably: 1. Writing a journal review 2. Power analysis 3. Generating references. Please don't do this.

NEW - Beyond Observational Relationships: Evidence from a Ten-Country Experiment that Policy Disputes Cause Affective Polarization - cup.org/3Zvgchx - @noamgidron.bsky.social, James Adams, @rwillh11.bsky.social & @ttichelbaecker.bsky.social #OpenAccess

📢 The final piece of my dissertation is out in @polbehavior.bsky.social! Does being an ideologue matter for political disagreement—beyond how many issues are involved? It does, shaping both animosity and how people engage. 🧵https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-025-10049-z

The Experimental Research section of the American Political Science Association (@experimentsapsa.bsky.social) invites research proposals from post-prospectus PhD students for its Experimental Research Early-Career Fellowship program. Share this post! @apsa.bsky.social, @poscresearch.bsky.social

🚨🚨 NEW PRE-PRINT 🚨🚨 Prominent theories in political psychology argue that threat causes increases in conservatism. Early experimental work supported this idea, but many of these studies were (severely) underpowered, and examined only a few threats and ideological DVs. 1/n osf.io/preprints/ps...

Currently in FirstView: In “The Limits (and Strengths) of Single-Topic Experiments,” @scottclifford.bsky.social & @carlislerainey.bsky.social examine the generalizability of single-topic studies, focusing on how often confidence intervals capture treatment effects from a larger population of studies

I'm excited to announce a hybrid Expanding Empathy event on Political Divisions & Morality, next Friday April 25 from 11am-5pm EST, in person at Penn State & on Zoom. This event will bring together researchers in psychology, political science, communications, philosophy, sociology, anthropology. 1/n

Another failure of agree/disagree scales. Better to ask *how many* would be better off

Very important, thorough, and careful new paper strengthens Clifford, Sheagley, and Piston's (2021, APSR) evidence that pre-post designs don't attenuate treatment effects very much relative to the shrinkage in the standard errors. Measure outcomes before and after the treatment!

New working paper with two great coauthors!

Out now and open access at @polbehavior.bsky.social! Which factors do Americans use to evaluate episodes of political violence? link.springer.com/article/10.1... (with Kal Munis, @nicolehufman.bsky.social, Arif Memovic, and Jacob Ford) 🧵

Some new data in on support for political aggression and violence... First, we asked people who they think is doing the most harm in American politics. Clear agreement among Democrats but more variation among Republicans - and some surprising responses.

Some new data in on support for political aggression and violence... First, we asked people who they think is doing the most harm in American politics. Clear agreement among Democrats but more variation among Republicans - and some surprising responses.

New open-access pub in @jepsjournal.bsky.social with two great SBU grad students, @nicolehufman.bsky.social and Veronica Oelerich. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Excited to share that my paper on citizen-to-citizen persuasion, co-authored with Carlos Rueda-Cañòn and @tjryan02.bsky.social, was just accepted at the Journal of Politics @thejop.bsky.social . Link: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... 🧵