Social and Behavioral Sciences | Open Access Articles

The Personality Of Policy Preferences: Analyzing The Relationship Between Myers-Briggs Personality Types And Political Views, Tracy Lytwyn Jul 2012

The Personality Of Policy Preferences: Analyzing The Relationship Between Myers-Briggs Personality Types And Political Views, Tracy Lytwyn

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

For political scientists and politicians alike, much research has been devoted to understanding the American citizen. Comprehension is the key to capturing votes, pushing forward new ideas, and retaining support in the years to come. This project centers on the theory that people structure their political opinions around problem-solving tendencies that they apply to everyday situations and are particular to their personalities. To evaluate this idea, this study uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (1962) in addition to several questions regarding personal policy preferences to determine whether there is a significant correlation between certain elements of one's personality type and political …

Go to article

Environmental Legislation: Factors And Factions, Timothy Luby Jul 2012

Environmental Legislation: Factors And Factions, Timothy Luby

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

In recent years the environment has become an increasingly salient issue, with many citizens calling for higher environmental protection and precautions within the United States. However, it seems that congressmen have become unresponsive to these demands as partisanship progressively becomes the determining factor in environmental voting. This study attempts to discover what factors, along with party, determine a representative’s voting decisions on environmental legislation. By collecting data on United States House members in 2006, 2007, and 2010 and running linear regressions, the most significant factors in predicting House members’ voting patterns are identified; however, party and ideology seem to have …

Go to article

The Ethnic Security Dilemma And Ethnic Violence: An Alternative Empirical Model And Its Explanatory Power, Jiaxing Xu Jul 2012

The Ethnic Security Dilemma And Ethnic Violence: An Alternative Empirical Model And Its Explanatory Power, Jiaxing Xu

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

Beginning in the 1990s, a trend of using the security dilemma to explain ethnic violence has emerged. However, previous research mainly focuses on individual cases with large-scale violence; whether ethnic security dilemma theory is a sound approach to explain less violent ethnic conflict remains unclear. This paper employs a large-N design and tests the hypothesis that the ethnic security dilemma causes ethnic conflicts, without discriminating between differences in severity and scale of conflict. The paper also conducts a longitudinal comparison with a previous quantitative model using the latest data available. The empirical results do not support the hypothesis and suggest …

Go to article

United State House Elections Post-Citizens United: The Influence Of Unbridled Spending, Laura Gaffey Jul 2012

United State House Elections Post-Citizens United: The Influence Of Unbridled Spending, Laura Gaffey

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

After the Citizens United decision in 2010 allowed corporations and unions to spend freely in elections, much media attention was given to the influence of unlimited and undisclosed donations during the 2010 midterm elections. This research attempts to determine the impact of increased outside spending by super PACs and other groups post-Citizens United by comparing United States House races in 2006 and 2010. The analysis controls for other factors that influence election outcomes in order to determine the influence of outside spending, confirming that outside money did have a small measurable effect in both elections when spent to support …

Go to article

The Influence Of Cosmopolitan Values On Environmental Attitudes: An International Comparison, Lauren Contorno Jul 2012

The Influence Of Cosmopolitan Values On Environmental Attitudes: An International Comparison, Lauren Contorno

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

Many recent environmental politics and environmental behavior studies have attempted to explain the variation in individuals’ environmental attitudes by means of their personal values. This piece enters into the recent debate that has developed around the dichotomous ideologies of cosmopolitanism and patriotism and their relationship to environmentalism, arguing that individuals with cosmopolitan values are more likely to exhibit concern for environmental issues than those with patriotic values. Through an analysis of regression models for seven Western industrialized nations, this study confirms a positive correlation between cosmopolitan values and environmentalism. The explanatory power of cosmopolitanism was greater than that of social …

Go to article

Keep It Clean? How Negative Campaigns Affect Voter Turnout, Hannah Griffin Jul 2012

Keep It Clean? How Negative Campaigns Affect Voter Turnout, Hannah Griffin

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

This study examines the effects of negative political campaigns on voter turnout over the last 10 years. Voter turnout in the United States is extremely low in comparison to other advanced industrialized nations, and the negativity that surrounds our elections may be the key to understanding why. The study is also a response to recent scholarship with conflicting conclusions on how the tone of campaigns affects the electorate. The independent variable in this study is the degree of campaign negativity, as perceived by voters. It is measured by state exit poll responses over the past 10 years, and its effect …

Go to article

Author's Biographies Jul 2012