Taking Perspective: A Theory of Prejudice Reduction and Political Attitudes

This dissertation develops and tests Engagement, Perspective-Taking, and Re-calibration (EPR), a theory of how to reduce prejudice and its consequences on political attitudes. I theorize that an intervention that uses engagement to encourage perspective-taking reduces prejudice and re-calibrates the subject’s attribution of blame for America’s racial problems. This last step, “re-calibration,” shifts the target of blame from out-group members to the forces of racism and discrimination which alters political attitudes rooted in prejudice. I employ my theory of EPR to develop interventions to reduce anti-Black prejudice among U.S. citizens using online perspective-taking tasks. The interventions encourage participants to adopt the perspective of an African American individual who experiences racial prejudice and make choices regarding how to respond to the bias they encounter. Interventions designed according to EPR theory were evaluated in three randomized experiments in which participants completed either the perspective-taking treatment or a placebo task. I find that participation in the perspective-taking task significantly reduces multiple forms of racial prejudice including racial resentment, negative affect, and belief in anti-Black stereotypes. The largest effects were among those with the highest levels of baseline prejudice. These studies also show that reducing prejudice increases support for policies that would help African Americans, including government assistance to Blacks, additional changes to ensure racial equality, affirmative action, and reparations for slavery. Similarly, reducing prejudice increases support for the belief that Blacks are not treated fairly in American society, increases support for policing reforms, and increases support for the Black Lives Matter protests against police violence. My results demonstrate that a substantial amount of opposition to racial policies is rooted in racial animus. But neither animus nor opposition to racial policies are immutable, reducing prejudice through my technique increases support for policies to redress racial inequities. This dissertation offers two empirically evaluated interventions that may be used as low-cost bias reduction trainings to combat the rising hate-related incidents in the United States. More broadly, my results provide insight into the nature of racial prejudice and its impact on political attitudes

Covid-19 Spillover Effects onto General Vaccine Attitudes

Even amid the unprecedented public health challenges attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, opposition to vaccinating against the novel coronavirus has been both prevalent and politically contentious in American public life. In this paper, we theorize that attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination might "spill over" to shape attitudes toward “post-pandemic” vaccination programs and policy mandates for years to come. We find this to be the case using evidence from a large, original panel study, as well as two observational surveys, conducted on American adults during the pandemic. Specifically, we observe evidence of COVID-19 vaccine spillover onto general vaccine skepticism, flu shot intention, and attitudes toward hypothetical vaccines (i.e., vaccines in development), which do not have pre-existing attitudinal connotations. Further, these spillover effects vary by partisanship and COVID-19 vaccination status, with the political left and those who received two or more COVID-19 vaccine doses becoming more pro-vaccine, while the political right and the unvaccinated became more anti-vaccine. Taken together, these results point to the salience and politicization of the COVID-19 vaccine impacting non-COVID vaccine attitudes. We end by discussing the implications of this study for effective health messaging

Divisive or Descriptive?: How Americans Understand Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a flashpoint of elite political discord, yet how Americans actually perceive CRT is unclear. We theorize that Republican elites utilized a strong framing strategy to re-define CRT as an “empty signifier” representing broader racial and cultural grievances. Using a survey and a pre-registered experiment among US adults (N=19,060), we find that this strategy worked. Republicans exhibit more familiarity with CRT and hold more negatively valenced (and wide ranging) sentiments toward CRT, relative to Democrats. Moreover, compared to teaching the legacy of racism in schools, Republicans are significantly more opposed to teaching CRT while Democrats express greater uncertainty. Our findings suggest that by framing CRT as a broad term that envelopes many grievances (including those beyond the scope of CRT), Republicans have shaped a subset of Americans’ understanding of and attitudes towards CRT

The COVID States Project #76: Storming of the Capitol, one year later

The COVID states project conducted a survey and issued a report in the immediate aftermath of the storming of the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. Here, we revisit some of the opinions regarding January 6th, a year later

Evaluating the generalizability of the COVID States survey — a large-scale, non-probability survey

COVID-19 fundamentally changed the world in a matter of months. To understand how it was impacting life in the United States, we fielded a non-probability survey in all 50 states concerning people's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, designed to be representative at the state level. Here, we evaluate the generalizability of this study by assessing the representativeness and convergent validity of our estimates. First, we evaluate the representativeness of the sample by comparing it to baseline estimates and auditing the size of the weights we use to reduce bias. We find our sample is diverse and most weights are below levels of concern with the exception of Hispanic respondents. Second, we assess the convergent validity of our survey by evaluating how our estimates of attitudes, behaviors, and opinions compare to estimates from other surveys and administrative data. Third, we perform a direct comparison of our results to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s probability-based COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor. Overall, our estimates deviate from others by 1%-7% with the larger differences stemming from states with small populations and few other data sources and estimates from items with differing question wording or response choices. Here, we put forward a standard for evaluating the representativeness of surveys, non-probability or otherwise

The COVID States Project #98: Depression, anxiety, stress, and loneliness among young Americans

In our latest survey, 24% of Americans report levels of depression that would typically trigger a referral for evaluation and treatment. Among 18-24-year-olds, that number jumps to 44%, including 24% of 18-24-year-olds meeting the criteria for moderate to severe or severe depression. • The rate of depression among 18-24-year-olds is slightly down over the last 12 months, and down from its peak at 53% in June 2022. Percentages of 18-24-year-olds who say they are avoiding public places, avoiding contact with others, or wearing face masks outside the home are the lowest they have been in any of our surveys since the beginning of the pandemic. However, despite continuing to return to pre-pandemic life, the rate of depression among 18-24-year-olds has not declined in kind. Young respondents identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual are significantly more likely than older and heterosexual respondents to report symptoms of depression and anxiety and higher levels of stress. Sixty-three percent of 18-24-year-olds identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual meet the criteria for at least moderate depression, while 56% report symptoms of generalized anxiety. While young people report higher rates of depression across the board, young people with lower household incomes are the most likely to meet the criteria for depression. Forty-nine percent of 18-24-year-olds with a household income of under $25,000 meet the criteria for depression. Young women report higher levels of depression, stress, and anxiety than young men. Young respondents report higher levels of self-reported stress and anxiety (based on the GAD-2 questionnaire) than any other age group, a finding that has been consistent throughout all of our surveys

The COVID States Project #97: Twitter, Social Media, and Elon Musk

Key Takeaways 1. Comparing our October 2022 survey conducted immediately before Elon Musk purchased Twitter to our December 2022-January 2023 survey, the percentage of Americans who reported using Twitter dropped from 32.4% to 29.5%. This decline was driven by Democrats, 38% of whom reported using Twitter in our survey before Musk took over the company, which dropped to 33% after. 2. 53% of Republicans trust Elon Musk to do what is right either somewhat or a lot, compared to just 24% of Democrats. 3. Democrats were 15% more likely than Republicans to trust Twitter to do what is right before Musk purchased the site, but trust among Republicans and Democrats converged to equal levels following Musk’s takeover, with 34% of both parties trusting Twitter to do what is right. 4. Republicans perceived a significant decrease in bias against conservatives on Twitter and an increase in neutrality after Musk took over, while Democrats saw a significant increase in bias against liberals and a decrease in neutrality since Musk bought Twitter. 5. Respondents regardless of party viewed other social media platforms as more neutral than Twitter

The COVID States Project #95: Election fairness concerns among Americans

Concerns over the integrity of the US voting system have been a prominent feature of recent election cycles. For the past two years, President Trump and his supporters have falsely claimed that widespread voter fraud cost Republicans the win in the 2020 presidential race. A number of prominent 2022 political candidates have questioned the legitimacy of American elections. Repeated fraud allegations have also diminished the public trust in the fairness of US elections, especially among Republicans. In this report, we examine American beliefs about the fair conduct of the 2022 elections. Our data also captures the lingering concerns about the fairness of Donald Trump’s 2020 loss. Finally, we look at public opinion about participating in violent protests against the government

The COVID States Project #92: The Mar-A-Lago Search

This report contains some key takeaways, a brief write-up, some summary statistics, and a collection of open-ended responses surrounding public opinion of the August 8, 2022 FBI search of Donald Trump’s estate, Mar-A-Lago. Key takeaways • A large majority of Americans quickly became aware of the Mar-A-Lago search. Overall, 81 percent reported that they were aware of the search. Additionally, 82 percent of those who took the survey within a week after the search were already aware of it. • Overall, Americans approved of the search by a 51-27 margin. Another 22 percent neither supported nor opposed the search. • Democrats overwhelmingly supported the FBI search of Mar-A-Lago by an 84-3 margin. Over two thirds (69 percent) of Democrats strongly supported the search. • A strong majority of Republicans opposed the search by a 64-13 margin. Additionally, 47 percent of Republicans strongly opposed the search. • Independents were nearly twice as likely to support the search as they were to oppose it, with a 47-24 margin. Close to a third (32 percent) of independents strongly supported the search. • The intensity of Republican opposition to the search decreased slightly as time following the search increased. While Republican support for the raid remained very low in both cases, those strongly opposing the raid dropped from 54 percent of Republicans who responded within a week of the search to 46 percent of Republicans who responded at least one week after the search. Very few Republicans supported the search regardless of when they took the survey, but the percentage of those strongly opposing it dipped over time

The COVID States Project #64: Continued high public support for mandating vaccines

COVID-19 continues to surge in the United States and elsewhere, propelled by the highly contagious Delta variant. As of this writing (on September 29, 2021), about three quarters (76%) of the eligible U.S. population (age 12 and up) have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. This is likely not enough to achieve herd immunity in the United States. Though the specific number remains uncertain, a recent estimate by the Infectious Diseases Society of America suggests that over 80% of the entire population must be fully vaccinated to reach herd immunity. More worrisome, around 1 in 5 Americans, depending on the poll, continue to say they are either uncertain or will not get the vaccine. In our most recent survey wave (fielded from August 26 to September 27, 2021), 10% of respondents who indicated that they are not yet vaccinated claimed they are extremely unlikely to get it. Another 12% are “somewhat” unlikely to seek the vaccine. In recent weeks, the Biden administration has shifted tactics in its efforts to get as many Americans as possible vaccinated. The Administration had from the outset emphasized the benefits of getting vaccinated as its primary strategy for persuading reluctant Americans to do so. Yet, starting in September the prevailing strategy seemingly shifted from emphasizing carrots to sticks. On September 9th, President Biden issued an executive order requiring all federal employees and government contractors to be vaccinated, and also announced that the U.S. Department of Labor would require that all companies with more than 100 employees require vaccination or weekly testing, as well as provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated. The Biden Administration has also encouraged states and smaller companies to impose similar vaccine mandates. The question arises as to whether the persistence of the Delta variant has increased public support for making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory. In our April/May survey wave, six in ten respondents approved of the government mandating vaccines for everyone (see Report #52). This figure increased modestly, to 64% in our June/July survey (see Report #58). In this report, we update our assessment of public support for vaccine mandates, both nationally and across the 50 states, based on our September survey wave