Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Navigating Non-Physical Borders: An Examination Of The Boundaries Of Exclusion And Ideas About Inclusion Of Immigrants In American Communities, Alison O'Toole

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Are exclusionary boundaries drawn by those who aren’t accepting of immigrants malleable? Do beliefs about inclusion on the part of those who tend to be more accepting toward immigrants have limits? To address these questions, I look at the major factors that I believe influence reactions to immigrants: national identity and trust, and values. This dissertation contributes to two important goals. The first is to help ensure that long- term residents in communities accept people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. The second is softening the divisive power of the immigration issue to make it less of a staple in the …

Thousands Of Small Battles: A Case Study On The Impact Of Political Discussion Networks On Vote Choice In Caucuses, Jonathan Jackson

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this dissertation, I seek to refine generalizations about the influence of political discussion networks on voting behavior, mainly developed to explain behavior in general elections, to nomination contests, a comparatively underdeveloped area of inquiry. This study also contributes to a greater understanding of the behavior of Iowa caucus attendees, an understudied area despite Iowa’s importance (along with New Hampshire) in our sequential presidential nominating system. I make several findings affirming theories on social influences on voting behavior within the context of nomination contests. The first is that individuals are reasonably accurate when predicting which candidate a political discussion partner …

An Examination Of Political Attitudes And Behavior Using Regulatory Focus Theory, Kristen D. Deppe

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Using Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT, Higgins 1997), I take a broad look at the manner in which political behaviors and attitudes are impacted by the promotion and prevention motivational systems. I first look at how behavior in life generally and political life specifically are similar in terms of regulatory focus. Second, I look at how RFT is related to political attitudes. Specifically, I look at whether there is a connection between regulatory focus and ideological attitudes, whether there is a relationship between policy context and motivational systems, and whether the status quo of a policy leads to a relationship between …

The Seeds Of Change: Attitudinal Stability And The Direction Of Attitudinal Change Across The Lifespan, Johnathan C. Peterson

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Folk wisdom has long held that people become more conservative as they grow older. The empirics behind this claim, however, are not definitive. Utilizing panel data from the Michigan Youth-Parent Socialization Panel study and a longitudinal sample of Australian twins, my dissertation answers this question and many others as I examine patterns of attitudinal stability and the direction of attitudinal change when it does occur. These data allowed me to longitudinally track attitudinal change at the individual level. I first uncovered latent classes defined by patterns of attitudinal stability across the lifespan. The majority of people in these latent classes …

Thinking About Race: How Group Biases Interact With Ideological Principles To Yield Attitudes Toward Government Assistance, Frank John Gonzalez

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

When are people more likely to evaluate race-targeted government assistance based on ideological principles rather than racial prejudice? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms by which prejudice influences political attitudes. In this dissertation, I develop a theoretical model for explaining how deep-seated, automatic group biases interact with higher-order, ideological principles in order to influence attitudes toward race-targeted government assistance. I suggest group-based principles are more important than individualistic values or ingroup favoritism in explaining race-targeted policy attitudes. I argue that when people evaluate race-targeted policies, controlled neural processes translate automatic neural processes into …

Place Matters? Place And Legislative Behavior In Nebraska, Melissa Lee Trueblood

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The dissertation is a three-part analysis of the impact of place and place attachment on legislative behavior in the 2011-2012 session of the Nebraska Unicameral. The first analysis explores whether place or type of legislative district has an effect on roll-call voting. In the second analysis, the dissertation analyzes the relationship between place attachment (defined as the emotional bond between a person and a place) and roll-call voting. Finally, in the third analysis, the dissertation investigates through content analysis how often senators refer to their place attachment, and then, it examines the link between geographic scale of place attachment and …

Creatures Of Incoherence: Dissecting The Drivers, History, And Cognition Of Attitudinal Incongruence In The American Body Politic, Timothy Collins

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Most American conservatives and liberals wield contradictory political attitudes. This dissertation explores what drives this “attitudinal incongruence.” First, I define and operationalize my terminology and situate the topic within social and political psychology to formulate my central model and theory of ideologically asymmetrical application of (1) individuals’ psychological and cognitive traits, and (2) individuals’ social identity and environmental traits. This leads to the overarching hypothesis that conservatives’ incongruities are more strongly driven by internal forces, and liberals’ by external forces. The central model is then demonstrated in a broad historical overview of attitudinal incongruence in America. The central tenets of …

Disproportional Representation: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of Educational Attainment Representation In State Government, Jayme L. Neiman

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The present dissertation examines unequal political representation in the United States. More specifically, I ask whether American citizens with low relative levels of education are under-represented by their state governments compared to their well-educated counterparts. I posit that this question is vital to our understanding of the quality of democracy in America.
In order to answer the primary question, I take a mixed-methods approach, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to obtain a clearer picture of the representation scene. In the quantitative chapters, I demonstrate that in terms of both service responsiveness and policy responsiveness, those individuals with …

Political Hate Machines: Outside Groups And The 2012 Presidential Campaign Advertising Market, Martin Nader

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation explores the rise of outside groups and their influence in the 2012 presidential campaign advertising market. Unlike official candidates, outside groups are not vulnerable to the potential electoral risks of public backlash for being too negative; therefore, outside groups do not possess the same incentives as official candidates to regulate their use of attack ads. Compared to campaign ads produced by official presidential candidates, ads produced by outside groups are (1) overwhelmingly negative attack ads, (2) utilize a backwards-looking retrospective orientation, and (3) draw heavily on negative emotions like anger, fear and disgust.

Considering the role of outside …

The American Ideal Of Representative Democracy: The Roles Of National Identity And Perceived Consensus And Homogeneity Among The American People, Frank John Gonzalez

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A “true” American takes pride in the democratic processes that grant power to the people, right? Some literature has shown that “power to the people” is actually quite far from being uniformly endorsed by the American people, largely because of the inherent conflict and disagreement that comes with it (e.g., Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 2002). So are people more positive toward democratic processes when they perceive consensus among citizens? I utilize survey data from a representative sample of the United States in order to show that perceptions of consensus are positively related to support for the political power of the American …

Emotion And Public Attention To Political Issues, Michael W. Gruszczynski

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Which mechanisms underlie the orientation of public attention to political issues? Though research on media agenda-setting has been one of the most successful enterprises in political communication and behavior, little is known of the actual processes that drive this phenomenon. I hypothesize that inherent in all environmental stimuli is emotional information, and that it is this information that drives the linkages between media and public agendas. Using a combination of large-scale automated content analyses of several political issues in the New York Times and public search attention data, I demonstrate that negatively-valenced and arousing coverage work concurrently with the volume …

Processing Facial Emotions: An Eeg Study Of The Differences Between Conservatives And Liberals And Across Political Participation, Karl Evan Giuseffi

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Behavioral differences have been reported between conservatives and liberals when categorizing facial expressions, yet no study explores potential differences in the manner in which the two groups process facial expressions, let alone how partisanship contributes or how political engagement may vary with brain processing of facial expressions. In this context, processing refers to brain patterns following exposure to a facial expression and participants’ subsequent attention to the presented facial expressions. This thesis addresses the question of whether political temperament is associated with differences in neural processing. Research subjects participated in an emotion discrimination task while event-related potentials (ERP) were captured …

Terrorism Warnings As Strategic Appeals: An Analysis Of Press Reporting And Public Reactions, Eric Whitaker

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Do politicians appeal to fear, and if so, how does the public respond to potentially fear-inducing messages? I reason that changes in the political environment necessitate entrepreneurial efforts if politicians hope to maximize positive attention. Scholarship indicates that presidents can often shape press coverage or move public opinion, particularly in the domain of foreign policy or during national crises. In this dissertation I conceptualize government-issued terrorism warnings as a type of fear appeal. Specifically, I examine the relationship between changes in aggregate presidential approval and the timing of terrorism warnings over the two and one-half years after the 9/11 attacks, …

Examining The Covariance Of Political And Religious Beliefs Within Individuals And Across Generations, Amanda Balzer

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The political and religious are demonstrably intertwined in American politics and within the preferences of individual citizens. This dissertation has attempted to examine possible theoretical reasons for the overlap and sources of development of these belief systems within individuals and across generations. In sum, different Moral Foundations are associated with different preferences for organizing society and approaching religion; grandparents, parents and children share many political and religious beliefs, though not all Moral Foundations; and genetics influence part of the variance on religious and political preferences and part of their overlap is due to a shared genetic path. Most scholarship exploring …

Reluctance Or Power Hunger: Whom Do Voters Prefer? A Test Of The Wary Cooperator Theory And Evolutionary Political Behavior, Timothy Collins

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Do voters prefer political candidates who express reluctance to seek office, or do voters prefer candidates who express great ambition and an implicit hunger for power? This study uses an experimental design to test overall support of reluctant or power-hungry candidates, and discusses which people would select which candidate and why. While limited by the survey design, the evidence suggests that there is no significant overall mean difference for overall support of either candidate. However, personality traits and the degree to which participants perceived certain descriptive attributes of the candidates both play a role in vote likelihood and candidate favorability …

Returning Attention To Policy Content In Diffusion Study, John M. Fulwider

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Policy diffusion research pays virtually no attention to policy content. Yet we should expect content to shape the adoption of any policy--this is what legislators and policy makers, after all, fight about. Thus the extent and speed of diffusion likely critically depend on policy content, which the current literature virtually ignores. This dissertation shows how we can better understand policy diffusion by taking policy content seriously. Paying attention to policy content, including how it is debated and understood by legislators, has immediate payoffs in the sense that two literatures largely ignored until now by diffusion researchers-- policy typologies and policy …

Framing Traits: The Role Of Personality In Framing Effects, Kristen D. Anderson

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The processing of messages in the political world is often a function of the frames in which the information is embedded (e.g. Druckman 2001; 2007; Gamson 1989; Iyengar 1991; Jacoby 2001; Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997). These frames have the ability to alter preferences based on how people process information. Research on frames has neglected how an individual’s personality creates the ability to resist or accept the various frames found in political communications. The question at hand is whether framing effects vary based on personality traits and typologies, or if people universally succumb to them when controlling for factors such …

Fairness, Justice And An Individual Basis For Public Policy, Douglas R. Oxley

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Prior models of the policy process have examined how human characteristics can affect policy decision-making in such a way that it leads to aggregate effects on policy outcomes as a whole. I develop a model of the policy process which suggests that emotions related to fair and unfair experiences in the same policy domain are utilized by decision-makers as policy criteria. In the lab, I empirically tested this, and find that emotions and experience related to fairness do influence the policy decision to move away from the status quo alternative. Based upon this result, I simulated the evolution of a …

The Use Of The Congressional Resolution As An Instrument Of Influence Over Foreign Policy: 1925–1950, Robert Lee Munkres

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

I—Introduction

II—General Analysis of the Period: Resolutions Adopted; Record of the Two Houses Compared; Trends; General Significance of the Period; Chart—Ratio of Resolutions Introduced to Resolutions Passed

III—Subject Matter of Resolutions: Subjects Most Frequently Considered; Record of the Two Houses Compared; Pre-War and Post-1941 Periods Compared; Comparison of War and Post-War Periods; General Significance; Chart—Subject Matter of Resolutions

IV—Types of Resolutions: Comparison of the Records of the Two Houses; Analysis of Types of Resolutions Dealing With Specific Subjects; Record of the Two Houses Compared; International Conferences; International Organizations; Negotiation of Treaties and Agreements; Conditions in Foreign Countries; Recognition; General Significance; …