Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Capital, Institutional Rules, And Constitutional Amendment Rates, William D. Blake, Joseph Francesco Cozza, David A. Armstrong Ii, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Why are some constitutions amended more frequently than others? The literature provides few clear answers, as some scholars focus on institutional factors, whereas others emphasize amendment culture. We bridge this divide with new theoretical and empirical insights. Using data from democratic constitutions worldwide and U.S. state constitutions, we examine how social capital reduces the transaction costs imposed by amendment rules. The results indicate that constitutional rigidity decreases amendment frequency, but group membership, civic activism, and political trust can offset the effect of amendment rules. Our findings have important implications for scholars in public law, constitutional and democratic theory, and social …

Faith, Source Credibility, And Trust In Pandemic Information, Jianing Li, Amanda Friesen, Michael W. Wagner

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

Are Saviour Siblings A Special Case In Procreative Ethics?, Elizabeth Finneron-Burns, Caleb Althorpe

Political Science Publications

Children conceived in order to donate biological material to save the life of an already existing child are known as 'saviour siblings'. The primary reasons that have been offered against the practice are: (i) creating a saviour sibling has negative impacts on the created child and (ii) creating a saviour child represents a wrongful procreative motivation of the parents. In this paper we examine to what extent the creation of saviour siblings actually presents a special case in procreative ethics. Although we do not deny that there is a unique feature present in the saviour sibling case—namely, that the child …

Introduction To The Special Issue -- Science In Politics: Methodological Innovations And Political Issues, Amanda Friesen, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, Rose Mcdermott

Political Science Publications

We introduce the Special Issue on Life Science in Politics: Methodological Innovations and Political Issues. This issue of Politics and the Life Sciences is focused on the use of life science theory and methods to study political phenomena and the exploration of the intersection of science and political attitudes. This issue is the third in a series of special issues funded by the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences that adheres to the Open Science Framework for registered reports. Pre-analysis plans are peer reviewed and given in-principle acceptance before data are collected and/or analyzed, and the articles are published …

Objectified And Dehumanized: Does Objectification Impact Perceptions Of Women Political Candidates?, Claire M. Gothreau, Amanda Milena Alvarez, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Objectification and dehumanization are topics often discussed within the social psychology and feminist theory literature. Research on objectification has largely focused on the sexual objectification of women’s bodies, whereas the dehumanization literature has focused on dehumanization in the context of racial and ethnic groups. Extant political science research has only recently begun to engage with these concepts. In this manuscript, we build upon these literatures and apply these insights to questions relevant to politics. In particular, we argue that objectifying and dehumanizing portrayals of women impact how voters evaluate women politicians and how much they support gender parity in politics. …

Hostile, Benevolent, Implicit: How Different Shades Of Sexism Impact Gendered Policy Attitudes, Claire Gothreau, Kevin Arceneaux, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Advances in gender equality and progressive policies are often stymied by cultural sexist systems and individual-level sexist attitudes. These attitudes are pervasive but vary in type—from benevolent to hostile and implicit to explicit. Understanding the types of sexism and their foundations are important for identifying connections to specific social and political attitudes and behaviors. The current study examines the impact of various manifestations of sexism on attitudes regarding policies and public opinion issues that involve gender equality or have gendered implications. More specifically, we look at attitudes on reproductive rights, support for the #MeToo Movement, equal pay, and paid leave …

Coding Appendix 1: Code Method And Code Lists, Cristine De Clercy, Alex Marland

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

Ukraine Crisis, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Share Disturbing Similarities, Erika Vg Simpson Prof.

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

Racial Limitations On The Gender, Risk, Religion & Politics Model, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Risk aversion dampens political participation and heightens religiosity, with concentrated effects among women. Yet, little is known about how intersecting identities moderate these psychological correlates of religiosity and political engagement. In this paper, we theorize that the risk-religion-politics relationship is gendered and racialized. Using a nationally representative survey, we show that political participation is more strongly correlated with risk for Black women than for any other race-gender group. For religiosity, however, we find little evidence that risk is related to religiosity among Black women, while highly correlated with white women's religious engagement. For men—whether Black or white—risk exhibits a modest, …

A Plea To Heed The Chorus Of Afghans Urging Canadian Aid, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

Political Taste: Exploring How Perception Of Bitter Substances May Reveal Risk Tolerance And Political Preferences, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Risk is endemic to the political arena and influences citizen engagement. We explore this connection by suggesting that risk-taking may be biologically instantiated in sensory systems. With specific attention to gender and gender identity, we investigate the connections between self-reported bitter taste reception, risk tolerance, and both of their associations with political participation. In three U.S. samples collected in 2019 and 2020, participants were asked to rate their preferences from lists of foods as well as whether they detected the taste of the substance N-Propylthiouracil (PROP) and, if so, the strength of the taste. In this registered report, we find …

The Higher Power Of Religiosity Over Personality On Political Ideology, Alexander Ksiazkiewicz, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Two streams of research, culture war and system justification, have proposed that religious orientations and personality, respectively, play critical roles in political orientations. There has been only limited work integrating these two streams. This integration is now of increased importance given the introduction of behavior-genetic frameworks into our understanding of why people differ politically. Extant research has largely considered the influence of personality as heritable and religiosity as social, but this view needs reconsideration as religiosity is also genetically influenced. Here we integrate these domains and conduct multivariate analyses on twin samples in the U.S. and Australia to identify the …

The Consequences Of Denominational Typicality On Individual Political Attitudes, Michael W. Wagner, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

‘You Can’T Repeal Regret’: Targeting Men For Mobilisation In Ireland’S Abortion Debate, Kate Hunt, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

This study explores how social movement organisations involved in the abortion debate in the Republic of Ireland attempted to appeal to men in their campaign messages before the 2018 referendum on the Eighth Amendment concerning abortion. We scrape social movement organisations’ Twitter accounts to conduct quantitative and qualitative content analyses of images and videos the organisations posted, and find evidence that social movement organisations sometimes extended their frames to men as voters. Social movement organisations evoked themes of hegemonic masculinity in their imagery and messaging, though these themes were not a large portion of overall campaign tweets and there were …

Quantifying The Archives: Leveraging The Norms And Tools Of Data Science To Conduct Ethical Research On The Holocaust, Alexis M. Lerner

Political Science Publications

Holocaust archives have traditionally been the scholarly territory of the arts and humanities. However, given the tremendous increase in the number of testimonies and documents available, especially since the mid-1990s with the advent of the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive and in the 2000s with the opening of the Arolsen Archives, it is necessary to evaluate the applicability of a numerate approach. Statistical methods, data science, and machine learning have the capacity to handle large, messy, and disparate bodies of information about human behavior. Not only could a quantitative lens disrupt traditional ways of housing, organizing, and analyzing data …

Slimy Worms Or Sticky Kids: How Caregiving Tasks And Gender Identity Attenuate Disgust Response, Amanda Friesen, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz

Political Science Publications

Disgust is derived from evolutionary processes to avoid pathogen contamination. Theories of gender differences in pathogen disgust utilize both evolutionary psychological and sociocultural perspectives. Drawing on research that suggests that masculine and feminine gender identities are somewhat orthogonal, we examine how gender identity intersects with pathogen disgust. In addition, building on evolutionary psychological and socio- cultural accounts of how caregiving and parental investment affect pathogen disgust, we present a new measure of caregiving disgust and compare its properties across gender, parental status, and political ideology with those of a conventional pathogen disgust measure. This registered report finds that how masculinity …

Political Attitudes Vary With Detection Of Androstenone, Amanda Friesen, Mike Gruszczynski, Kevin B. Smith, John R. Alford

Political Science Publications

Building on a growing body of research suggesting that political attitudes are part of broader individual and biological orientations, we test whether the detection of the hormone androstenone is predictive of political attitudes. The particular social chemical analyzed in this study is androstenone, a nonandrogenic steroid found in the sweat and saliva of many mammals, including humans. A primary reason for scholarly interest in odor detection is that it varies so dramatically from person to person. Using participants’ self-reported perceptions of androstenone intensity, together with a battery of survey items testing social and political preferences and orientations, this research supports …

How Do Populist Voters Rate Their Political Leaders? Comparing Citizen Assessments In Three Jurisdictions, Gerald Seijts, Cristine De Clercy

Political Science Publications

Drawing from the field of management studies, we explore how a sample of voters in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom use a leader character framework to judge political leadership. We ask, how do voters actually assess the character of their current leaders? And, in light of the populist zeitgeist, do people who hold a populist attitude differ markedly in how they judge the character of political leaders? Our results show that voters generally consider character important. However, voters who lean toward populism believe character matters less in political leadership than individuals who scored low on the populism …

Personality, Politics, And Religion, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Individual differences in personality, religiosity, and political dispositions often are explained in conjunction with one another. Though the religious and political may share common themes of meaning-making, group identity, and societal organization, personality also influences these orientations. Specifically, the Big Five traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability) and authoritarianism demonstrate consistent relationships with religious/ political beliefs and behaviors. Personality is often thought of as the first mover to develop with an individual before exposure to the other two domains, leading to a conceptual influence model of: personality → religiosity → politics. Using longitudinal studies and genetically informed samples, however, …

Digital Segregation: Gender, Occupation, And Access To Politics, Amanda Friesen, Ryan Burge, Kylee Britzman

Political Science Publications

In the United States, women often show less interest in politics, and under some conditions, perform worse than men on political knowledge tests. In an age where education levels have reached parity, we suggest one of the explanations for gender differences in political engagement might be due to selection of occupation. Past research has shown women and men segregate into different occupations due to early gender socialization, differences in interest, and structural barriers. It is possible that due to these segregation effects, women in traditional female occupations (e.g., education, health care, service work) may have less access to personal Internet …

Generational Change? The Effects Of Family, Age, And Time On Moral Foundations, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

One way to uncover the persistent role of religion across generations is to look past traditional understandings of religious belief and denominational belonging and examine the presence of bedrock principles that could influence political beliefs in families. The Moral Foundations framework was developed for this purpose – to describe human behavior and attitudes in the moral realm without relying upon country, culture, or time specific labels. In an original and rare three-generation dataset, college students, their parents, and their grandparents were asked about political attitudes and preferences for the Moral Foundations of Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. The Foundations …

Will Trump's Space Force Lead To The Militarization Of Space?, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

Moralizing To The Choir: The Moral Foundations Of American Clergy, Paul A. Djupe, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

Objective In order to understand the role of clergy in shaping Americans’ moral worldviews, we examine whether the structure of clergy values varies in systematic ways according to contextual factors, such as disagreement in the congregation. Method In early 2014 (February), clergy from a variety of Protestant denominations were contacted by email and invited to complete a survey online, which included a 20-item moral foundations (MFs) battery as well as a variety of attitudinal, behavioral, and relational measures. Results Clergy MFs resemble average citizens’, they look to preserve their autonomy by emphasizing individualizing foundations when they are in disagreement with …

Reckless And Ruthless: Given Their Personalities, Don’T Expect Much Rational From The Donald Trump-Kim Jong-Un Summit, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

U.S. President Donald Trump has offered to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in face-to-face negotiations. Is it possible for both these leaders to engage under duress in rational decisionmaking?

Justify Your Alpha, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

Professor Anatol Rapoport’S Contribution To Game Theory And Peace Research, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

At the forefront of the game theoreticians who conceived of concepts that contributed to peace research and conceptualized strategies that could promote international cooperation, Professor Anatol Rapoport used simple game theory in the classroom to generate ideas about how to enhance world peace. The basic logic of game theory is explained using his game models of ‘Chicken’ and ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’. Rapoport’s revolutionary ideas about how to promote international and national cooperation are overviewed; for instance he developed a simple strategy, Tit for Tat, to help minimize conflict that won two computer tournaments, and he taught scholars to consider the risks …

On The Defensive, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

Just before Christmas, the U.S. Congress rushed through the Pentagon’s request for US$4 billion to detect, defeat and defend against ballistic missiles.

“We are ordering $4 billion worth of missile defence equipment and missiles themselves. Very important,” President Donald Trump said at the White House. “Top of the line. Best in the world. We make the best military product in the world, and nobody is even close.”

Physiological Arousal And Self-Reported Valence For Erotica Images Correlate With Sexual Policy Preferences, Amanda Friesen, Kevin B. Smith, John R. Hibbing

Political Science Publications

Individuals do not always accurately report the forces driving their policy preferences. Such inaccuracy may result from the fact that true justifications are socially undesirable or less persuasive than competing justifications or are unavailable in conscious awareness. Because of the delicate nature of these issues, people may be particularly likely to misstate the reasons for preferences on gay marriage, abortion, abstinence-only education, and premarital sex. Advocates on both sides typically justify their preferences in terms of preserving social order, maintaining moral values, or protecting civil liberties, not in terms of their own sexual preferences. Though these are the stated reasons, …

Moralizing To The Choir: The Moral Foundations Of American Clergy, Amanda Friesen, Paul A. Djupe

Political Science Publications

Objective

In order to understand the role of clergy in shaping Americans’ moral worldviews, we examine whether the structure of clergy values varies in systematic ways according to contextual factors, such as disagreement in the congregation.

Method

In early 2014 (February), clergy from a variety of Protestant denominations were contacted by email and invited to complete a survey online, which included a 20-item moral foundations (MFs) battery as well as a variety of attitudinal, behavioral, and relational measures.

Results

Clergy MFs resemble average citizens’, they look to preserve their autonomy by emphasizing individualizing foundations when they are in disagreement with …

Money Better Spent, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.