Americans increasingly confront policy messages not from high-profile political figures but from everyday citizens. Much is known about the effects of racial source cues from well-known political figures with salient racial identities. Less is known about how subtle racial cues from non-recognizable sources affect Americans’ support for policies that are race-targeted and those that are not. In this paper, I conduct a randomized experiment that varies a cue of the source’s racial identity and the type of policy for which the source advocates. I uncover little evidence for the hypothesis that subtle racial source cues activate racial attitudes that lead Americans to racialize policies that are (at least explicitly) race-neutral. I find instead that subtle cues of a Black vs. White source decrease support only for race-targeted policies. I reason that two mechanisms possibly driving this effect are: (1) subtle racial source cues become salient for only race-targeted policies, thereby activating racial stereotypes for these policies but not others, and (2) Black sources are perceived as less objective policy messengers when the policy explicitly aims to rectify injustices against Black Americans. More generally, the paper’s overall findings suggest that subtle racial cues of who advocates for race-targeted policies matter for whether such policies can garner the public support they presumably need to come to fruition.

This paper examines the effectiveness of media literacy interventions in countering misinformation among in-transit migrants in Mexico and Colombia. We conducted experiments to assess whether well-known strategies for fighting misinformation are effective for this understudied yet particularly vulnerable population. We evaluate the impact of digital media literacy tips on migrants’ ability to identify false information and their intentions to share migration-related content. We find that these interventions can effectively decrease migrants’ intentions to share misinformation. We also find suggestive evidence that asking participants to consider accuracy may inadvertently influence their sharing behavior by acting as a behavioral nudge, rather than simply eliciting their sharing intentions. Additionally, the interventions reduced trust in social media as an information source while maintaining trust in official channels. The findings suggest that incorporating digital literacy tips into official websites could be a cost-effective strategy to reduce misinformation circulation among migrant populations.

A prominent paradigm demonstrates many White Americans respond negatively to information on their declining population share. But this paradigm considers this “racial shift” in a single hierarchy-challenging context that produces similar status threat responses across conceptually distinct outcomes, undercutting the ability to both explain the causes of Whites’ social and political responses and advance theorizing about native majorities’ responses to demographic change. We test whether evidence for Whites’ responses to demographic change varies across three distinct hierarchy-challenging contexts: society at large, culture, and politics. We find little evidence any racial shift information instills status threat or otherwise changes attitudes or behavioral intentions, and do not replicate evidence for reactions diverging by left- versus right-wing political attachments. We conclude with what our well-powered (n = 2100) results suggest about a paradigm and intervention used prominently, with results cited frequently, to understand native majorities’ responses to demographic change and potential challenges to multiracial democracy.

Radical right behavior and support for radical right parties have increased across many countries in recent decades. A growing body of research has argued that, similar to the spread of other extremist behaviors, this is due to an erosion of political norms. This suggests that re-stigmatizing radical right parties might be an effective way of countering their growth. We use a survey experiment in Spain that compares the effectiveness of three theory-driven interventions aimed at increasing political stigma against a radical right party. Contrary to expectations, we fail to validate the efficacy of vignette-based attempts at stigmatization, instead identifying some backlash effects. Methodologically, our findings underscore the importance of validating treatments, as we show that simple attempts at re-stigmatization can produce null or opposing effects to their intended purpose. Theoretically, our results support the idea that normalization is a “one-way street,” in that re-stigmatizing parties is difficult after a party has become normalized.

Scholars increasingly conceptualize populism by whether politicians use people-centric and anti-elite appeals that pit a homogeneous people against a corrupt elite. These appeals reflect “thin” ideology because they offer no programmatic content and thus politicians must pair these appeals with more substantive positions, termed their “host” (or thick) ideology, which often consists of nativism on the right (e.g., espousing anti-immigrant positions) and socialism on the left (e.g., prioritizing redistribution). An emerging literature has thus sought to estimate whether populists garner support due to their thin ideology or their substantive host ideology. To date, no research has validated whether populism treatments (1) truly operationalize populist thin ideology, and (2) do so without manipulating host ideology. Results from three conjoint validation experiments fielded in both the United States and the United Kingdom show that thin ideology treatments successfully manipulate the underlying concepts but caution that some operationalizations also affect perceptions of host ideology.

Do men respond to a masculinity threat by adopting more conservative political attitudes? A highly cited 2013 study by Willer et al. – drawing on substantial work in social psychology – argues in the affirmative, reasoning that endorsing conservative views allows men to reaffirm their gender identity. In two experiments with student convenience samples (Ntotal 100–110, Nmen 40–51), the authors find consistent evidence: inducing masculinity threat increases support for war, homophobic attitudes, and endorsement of dominance hierarchies. We conduct a preregistered replication of this foundational study using a nationally representative probability sample (Ntotal 2774, Nmen 2073). Contrary to original findings, we observe no consistent evidence that masculinity threat alters political attitudes. We further do not find support for design differences between the replication and original study driving contrasting findings. Our results call into question the robustness of evidence linking masculinity threat to political attitudes and underscore the importance of re-evaluating widely accepted findings with representative, large samples.

Do field experimental interventions produce durable changes in gender representation? We examine the persistence of experimental treatment effects in Karpowitz, Monson, and Preece (2017), where a single letter from Republican Party leaders significantly increased women’s election to state delegate positions. Two years later, differences between treatment and control conditions evaporated. Treated precincts largely retained earlier experimental gains, but the treatment effect size was smaller because of increases in the control condition. We examine four possible explanations for this pattern. First, we find considerable evidence of an incumbency effect among women in one treatment condition. Second, increases in women’s representation in the control condition appear to be related in part to larger turnout during the 2016 election cycle. Finally, we find little evidence of lasting attitude changes about women’s representation and few traces of post-experimental spillover.

A key challenge when surveying political elites is recruitment. Low response rates can lead to biased samples and underpowered designs, threatening the validity of descriptive and experimental scholarship. In a randomized control trial, we test the effects of sending postal invitations in a large survey of local elected officials. We find that German and UK local politicians are more likely to complete the survey if invited by postal mail, rather than simply by email. Recruitment mode does not impact the quality of responses but shapes the population of local officials recruited. Officials invited via postal letter were more likely to come from smaller municipalities and less likely to have a college degree. Costs per response are relatively high but can be reduced as we learn more about selection into elite surveys.