Publications, Projects, and Working Papers
The most recent version of my CV can be found here (updated June 2025). Abstracts and links to my publications and pre-prints of select working papers can be found below.
My research sits broadly within political psychology and political behavior. I put a great deal of focus on research questions about how emotions and mental health/cognitive well-being influence political attitudes and behavior, including how people consume and use political information. A large portion of my work aims to address how poor cognitive well-being/mental health as a result of things like stress, stressors, anxiety, and depression is related to what types of political actions people are willing to partake in, what kind of political information people consume, and what kind of social attitudes people hold. Some of this work also introduces stress reduction interventions to better understand causal mechanisms between cognitive well-being and political outcomes. I also address the underlying theoretical mechanism of poor mental health taking away cognitive resources (e.g., diminishing executive function) by measuring attention and other facets of executive function with psychological tasks and eye-tracking technology.
Starting Fall 2025, I will be working on a five-year project on stress and politics. Official funding announcement by the funder is coming soon, at which point I will post more details.
I am also working on a book project examining the personal and contextual factors that influence how people think and behave during a time of crisis. This work uses a large-scale survey of 100,000+ people over two years to understand how individual traits, politics, and other context affects attitudes and behavior related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 Canadian Federal election that occurred during a tumultuous period of the pandemic. This work is coauthored with Eric Merkley and Peter Loewen. We have also published the first paper of this work.
I have a handful of other projects in more advanced stages that mostly center around emotion and perception and their effects on opinions and attitudes more broadly. These other projects include the effects of cognitive resilience in the face of stress on political mobilization, the role of emotion in aggressive responses to moral transgressions against political groups, how biological attribution of ideology influences prejudice and intolerance, how political appointments of someone accused of sexual assault influence perceptions of threats to women's rights, and the effects of ideological extremism on perception of one's own ideology and how this differentially affects voting behavior based on electoral system context.
I have training in a wide variety of methodological techniques including experimental design, advanced design-based causal inference, physiological measures, neuroscience techniques, and statistical learning.
Papers
Intersecting Identities and Perceptions of Judicial Misconduct (forthcoming)
With Kayla S. Canelo
Social Science Quarterly
Abstract:
Objective: Traditionally, the judicial branch of the government is the most favorably viewed branch of the United States government by the general public. Recent and highly publicized misconduct of judicial figures has jeopardized this public opinion favorability. In this paper, we test the public opinion consequences of judicial misconduct that occurs outside of the courtroom. Method: We implement a survey experiment where we manipulate the type of misconduct, the target of the misconduct (e.g., women, racial minorities, ethnic minorities), and the identity of the judge. We measure whether judicial misconduct that is discriminatory in nature shapes attitudes about whether the judge is a threat to the rights of minority groups and able to rule fairly in cases involving these groups (N = 3,160). Results: We find that people view judges accused of discriminatory misconduct as a threat to the rights of minority groups. Specifically, judges accused of discriminatory misconduct are viewed as less likely to side with the groups they target in cases concerning birth control, housing advertisements, and voting rights. These results mostly hold regardless the gender, race, and ethnicity of the judge. Conclusion: Judicial misconduct that is discriminatory in nature may harm beliefs about how judges perform their jobs, particularly when they are tasked with ruling on cases involving minority groups. Individual discriminatory action from judges shapes perceptions of bias in the judiciary.
Big-5 Personality Traits and Their Dynamic and Conditional Effects on COVID-19 Attitudes and Behaviors (Link)
With Eric Merkley
Politics and the Life Sciences
Abstract: There remain important questions about how personality shapes risk perceptions, willingness to engage in protective behaviors, and policy preferences during a changing pandemic. Focusing on the Big-5 and COVID-19 attitudes, we find associations between risk perceptions and negative emotionality and agreeableness, as well as between each Big-5 trait and protective behaviors and support for government restrictions. These associations are mostly stable over time, with instability pronounced for lockdown policy support, where agreeableness and conscientiousness diminish in importance as pandemic conditions improve. Negative emotionality, conscientiousness, and agreeableness reduce differences between the political left and right and between those who do and do not trust experts. We highlight the heterogeneous interplay between personality and political ideology to understand pandemic policy support, attitudes, and behaviors.
Affective Language in the Most Important Issues of the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Elections (Link)
With Alvaro Pereira Filho, Thomas Galipeau, and Amanda Friesen
International Journal of Public Opinion
Do people use more affective language to describe important new political issues compared to important traditional political issues? Information uptake and retrieval are often determined by affective tags attached to that information. In times of turmoil, such as pandemic and a controversial Canadian Federal Election in 2021, there may be more affective language deployed around issue information than when crises and controversies are lessened, which could influence how people consume, process, and use information. Using Canadian Election Study data, we describe how often people report new issues as more important in 2021 (vs. 2019) and used more affective language when describing new issues (vs. traditional issues) in both years.
Judges Behaving Badly: Judicial Misconduct and a Threat to Rights (Link)
with Kayla S. Canelo
Journal of Experimental Political Science
Unethical behavior among US judges, including sexual misconduct and other forms of discriminatory behavior, is becoming increasingly publicized. These controversies are particularly concerning given the important role judges play in shaping policy pertaining to individual rights. We argue that types of misconduct serve as a signal to the public about potential threats judges may pose to people, particularly groups of people who are marginalized. We use a survey experiment that introduces a judge who has engaged in misconduct to measure if the type of misconduct will influence attitudes on whether the judge poses a threat to the rights of women, racial minorities, and ethnic minorities. Interestingly, we find that judges accused of discriminatory misconduct toward one group are viewed as a threat to rights across the board and are seen as less able to rule fairly on matters pertaining to marginalized people more generally.
Dynamic Role of Personality in Explaining COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal (Link)
With Eric Merkley
Frontiers in Psychology
Vaccine hesitancy and refusal are threats to sufficient response to the COVID-19 pandemic and public health efforts more broadly. We focus on personal characteristics, specifically personality, to explain what types of people are resistant to COVID-19 vaccination and how the influence of these traits changed as circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic evolved. We use a large survey of over 40,000 Canadians between November 2020 and July 2021 to examine the relationship between personality and vaccine hesitancy and refusal. We find that all five facets of the Big-5 (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and negative emotionality) are associated with COVID-19 vaccine refusal. Three facets (agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness) tended to decline in importance as the vaccination rate and COVID-19 cases grew. Two facets (extraversion and negative emotionality) maintained or increased in their importance as pandemic circumstances changed. This study highlights the influence of personal characteristics on vaccine hesitancy and refusal and the need for additional study on foundational explanations of these behaviors. It calls for additional research on the dynamics of personal characteristics in explaining vaccine hesitancy and refusal. The influence of personality may not be immutable.
Political Uncertainty Moderates Neural Evaluation of Incongruent Policy Positions (Link) (Pre-print)
With Ingrid J. Haas and Frank J. Gonzalez
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
Abstract: Uncertainty has been shown to impact political evaluation, yet the exact mechanisms by which uncertainty affects the minds of citizens remain unclear. This experiment examines the neural underpinnings of uncertainty in political evaluation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During fMRI, participants completed an experimental task where they evaluated policy positions attributed to hypothetical political candidates. Policy positions were either congruent or incongruent with candidates' political party affiliation and presented with varying levels of certainty. Neural activity was modelled as a function of uncertainty and incongruence. Analyses suggest that neural activity in brain regions previously implicated in affective and evaluative processing (anterior cingulate cortex, insular cortex) differed as a function of the interaction between uncertainty and incongruence, such that activation in these areas was greatest when information was both certain and incongruent, and uncertainty influenced processing differently as a function of the valence of the attached information. These findings suggest that individuals are attuned to uncertainty in the stated issue positions of politicians, and that the neural processing of this uncertainty is dependent on congruence of these positions with expectations based on political party identification. Implications for the study of emotion and politics and political cognition are discussed.
Who Can Deviate from the Party Line? Political Ideology Moderates Evaluation of Incongruent Policy Positions in the Insula and Anterior Cingulate Cortex (Link)
With Ingrid J. Haas and Frank J. Gonzalez
Social Justice Research
Abstract: Political polarization at the elite level is a major concern in many contemporary democracies, which is argued to alienate large swaths of the electorate and prevent meaningful social change from occurring, yet little is known about how individuals respond to political candidates who deviate from the party line and express policy positions incongruent with their party affiliations. This experiment examines the neural underpinnings of such evaluations using functional MRI (fMRI). During fMRI, participants completed an experimental task where they evaluated policy positions attributed to hypothetical political candidates. Each block of trials focused on one candidate (Democrat or Republican), but all participants saw two candidates from each party in a randomized order. On each trial, participants received information about whether the candidate supported or opposed a specific policy issue. These issue positions varied in terms of congruence between issue position and candidate party affiliation. We modeled neural activity as a function of incongruence and whether participants were viewing ingroup or outgroup party candidates. Results suggest that neural activity in brain regions previously implicated in both evaluative processing and work on ideological differences (insula and anterior cingulate cortex) differed as a function of the interaction between incongruence, candidate type (ingroup versus outgroup), and political ideology. More liberal participants showed greater activation to incongruent versus congruent trials in insula and ACC, primarily when viewing ingroup candidates. Implications for the study of democratic representation and linkages between citizens’ calls for social change and policy implementation are discussed.
Morality is Relative: Anger, Disgust and Aggression as Contingent Responses to Sibling versus Acquaintance Harm (Link)
With Lukas D. Lopez, Karie Moorman, Sara Schneider, and Colin Holbrook
Abstract: Angry reactions to moral violations should be heightened when wrongs befall oneself in comparison to when wrongs befall acquaintances, as prior research by Molho and colleagues (2017) demonstrates, because aggressive confrontation is inherently risky and therefore only incentivized by natural selection to curtail significant fitness costs. Here, in three pre-registered studies, we extend this sociofunctional perspective to cases of wrongs inflicted on siblings. We observed equivalently heightened anger in response to transgressions against either oneself or one’s sibling relative to transgressions against acquaintances across studies, whereas transgressions against acquaintances evoked greater disgust and/or fear (both associated with social avoidance) in two of the three studies. Studies 2 and 3, which incorporated measures of tendencies to confront the transgressor, confirmed that the elevated anger elicited by self or sibling harm partially mediated heightened inclinations toward direct aggression. Finally, in Study 3 we compared tendencies to experience anger and to directly aggress on behalf of siblings and close friends. Despite reporting greater affiliative closeness for friends than for siblings, harm to friends failed to evoke heightened anger relative to acquaintance harm, and participants were inclined to directly aggress against those who had harmed their sibling to a significantly greater extent than when the harm befell their friend. These overall results broadly replicate Molho et al.’s findings and theoretically extend the sociofunctionalist account of moral emotions to kinship.
Peer-Reviewed Chapters
Anxiety in Politics (forthcoming)
Encyclopedia of Experimental Social Science
Neuroscience (forthcoming)
With Cayleb Stives and Olivia Neufeld
Encyclopedia of Political Communication
Abstract: Neuroscience provides researchers with a tools to examine psychological processes behind information processing important to political communication that cannot be measured by self-report or observational methods. This entry describes neuroscience and cognition methods (e.g. fMRI, EEG, eye-tracking) that can be beneficial for political communication research as well as their usefulness for different types of communication (e.g. visual, verbal, interpersonal). We also discuss how neuroscience can be used in substantive areas rapidly growing in importance, such as misinformation.
Doing it for Ourselves: Creating Space for, and by, Early Career Instructors (Link)
With Devon Cantwell-Chavez
Teaching Political Science and International Relations for Early Career Instructors
Abstract: The landscape of teaching in political science has dramatically transformed over the past decade due to increasingly diversifying campuses, COVID learning interruption, and emerging classroom technology. While more political science graduate programs are offering pedagogical training, these courses are often one-off classes covering the basics of teaching and learning. Rarely are graduate students able to study or train on cutting-edge dilemmas or issues in the classroom. In response to this unfilled need, one of the chapter coauthors co-founded the Western Political Science Association Inclusive Pedagogy and Teaching Virtual Community (WPSA ITVC). Since 2020, the community has been led by a majority of early career instructors (ECIs) and has held over two dozen events on topics related to increasing classroom accessibility and inclusivity, including workshops on trauma-informed education, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), generative AI, writing feedback, and preparing for the job market. In this chapter, we reflect on our position as co-chairs of the WPSA ITVC on the process of creating and supporting a learning community for ECIs as ECIs. We argue that peer-learning communities such as this enhance disciplinary collaboration on teaching and learning, close gaps in the accessibility of instructional training, and break down traditional hierarchies in the space of teaching and learning.
Psychophysiology in Political Decision Making Research (Link)
With Matthew V. Hibbing and Kathryn A. Herzog
Abstract: In the last decade, political science has seen a rise in the use of physiological measures in order to inform theories about decision-making in politics. A commonly used physiological measure is skin conductance (electrodermal activity). Skin conductance measures the changes in levels of sweat in the eccrine glands, usually on the fingertips, in order to help inform how the body responds to stimuli. These changes result from the sympathetic nervous system (popularly known as the fight or flight system) responding to external stimuli. Due to the nature of physiological responses, skin conductance is especially useful when researchers hope to have good temporal resolution and make causal claims about a type of stimulus eliciting physiological arousal in individuals. Researchers interested in areas that involve emotion or general affect (e.g. campaign messages, political communication and advertising, information processing, general political psychology) may be especially interested in integrating skin conductance into their methodological toolbox. Skin conductance is a particularly useful tool since its implicit and unconscious nature means that it avoids some of the pitfalls that can accompany self-report measures (e.g. social desirability bias and inability to accurately remember/report emotions). Future decision-making research will benefit from pairing traditional self-report measures with physiological measures such as skin conductance.
Selected In-Progress Work
A few selected projects:
Types of Anxiety in Political Information Consumption:
Pre-print of one paper: https://psyarxiv.com/3se54
Abstract: Political information consumption and use is influenced by the unique experiences of political anxiety of each person. Prior work on anxiety and information engagement has treated everyone as equally susceptible to experiencing situational anxiety over politics. In this study, I use a survey, cognitive behavioral task, and two experiments (one randomized, one selection) to demonstrate that individual-level psychological traits (e.g., trait anxiety) predispose certain people to experience situational anxiety about politics. These unique emotional experiences, because of individual-level traits, lead people to engage with more political information, particularly threatening political information. As a result, individuals use information they have gathered in different ways to engage with politics more directly. People whose psychological traits predispose them to experience anxiety about politics consume a greater amount of threatening political information and a greater desire to use this information to engage in the political process.
Cognitive Resilience Under Stress: A Tradeoff Between Mental Wellbeing and Mobilization
Co-authored with Elaine K. Denny
Abstract: We demonstrate that interventions promoting cognitive resilience to stress reduce anxiety, but this reduction in anxiety also mediates lower political engagement. First, we present results of a field experiment where students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution received randomized information about stress management strategies and resources. Over the following year, when pandemic stressors were particularly strong for the campus community, students from seminars that received our stress-management treatment scored on average 11% lower on an anxiety battery and also showed lower cognitive load. At the same time, however, lower anxiety and cognitive load resulted in lower political action, consistent with predictions from affective intelligence theory. Thus, the intervention both improved students' mental health outcomes and reduced their likelihood of becoming politically mobilized. A second survey experiment more precisely identifies the direct impact of cognitive resilience-promoting interventions on downstream anxiety and political action. Together, these studies raise the question of what healthy political engagement looks like if higher-anxiety environments increase participation, and mental wellness programming corresponds with less political engagement.
Political Socialiation in Immigrant Families
With Roberto Carlos, Matt Lamb, Tanika Raychaudhuri, Brian Gervais, and Alvaro Coral
This project examines political socialization within immigration families to better understand political communication and the role of children in family political socialization.
Ideology Attribution
Pre-print: https://psyarxiv.com/pkjh7/
Co-authored with Ingrid J. Haas
Abstract: Does attributing the roots of political ideology to biology influence political tolerance and how people feel about political outgroups? In this paper, we examine the effects of attributing political ideology to biology, as opposed to personal choices that are more malleable, on political prejudice, intolerance, and perceptions of political polarization. Using an experimental paradigm, we encouraged respondents to think about political ideology as either rooted in biology or as a personal choice that is not fixed. Results from two studies suggest that encouraging individuals to attribute political ideology to biology leads to decreased political prejudice, decreased political intolerance, and a perception of less political polarization.
Contextualizing Emotions
Funded by Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley
This project examines how a person's psychological immune system (i.e. a person's ability to handle emotions) influences their political participation, particularly as a result of their economic situation. I argue that people who live below the poverty line have an overloaded psychological immune system due to extra stressors people above the poverty line do not experience (or at least experience less of). I plan to use an experiment a psychological intervention in a community sample that contextualizes emotions about events in one's life to help facilitate the mental and emotional capacity to participate in politics. This project will be reregistered on OSF before data collection and anticipated to run through the calendar year of 2022.
Ideological Extremity and Electoral Systems
Funded by New America
Ranked choice voting (RCV) presents a more complex information environment for voters. Instead of evaluating preferences based on two main choices in the more commonly used plurality voting, RCV requires voters to make many additional considerations including comparing multiple candidates to themselves as political participants and to multiple other candidates. I use Social Comparison Theory (SCT) to explain one way voters make evaluations and how this might change in complex information environments created by RCV. I argue that using ideological extremity as a cognitive shortcut is more difficult under RCV, which makes candidate preference formation and evaluation between candidates harder for a voter. Using a survey experiment, I find that extreme and moderate candidates are viewed equally as electable under RCV and plurality voting. I also find that liberals report being more ideologically extreme when faced with an ideologically extreme candidate. In both RCV and plurality voting, liberals also view moderate candidates as more electable than extreme candidates when faced with an extreme candidate. Conservatives were not similarly affected by ideological extremity. These results suggest that RCV does not create a unique opportunity for more extreme candidates to be elected and that liberals are differentially affected by ideological extremity.
Attitudes about and Policy Preferences for Artificial Intelligence Generated Content
With Amanda J. Goodson
In this project we examine how people perceive the morality and legality of artificial intelligence created content, especially related to revenge porn creation and distribution. We also focus on policy attitude outcomes and the role of mental health.
Public Perceptions of Political Violence Terms
Co-authored with MP Broache and Peter D. Carey
This project aims to understand how the public perceives terms related to political violence (e.g., coup, insurrection, riot). We also examine these public perceptions in the context of public academic debates on this incidents and terms, and whether elite discourse influences public opinion on the issue.