Abstract. How do people react to information that challenges their party’s policies? While most of the existing literature focuses on possible changes in issue opinions, we know less about other implicit and explicit ways in which people may contend with counter-attitudinal information. In an online experiment in India, I present participants with potentially incongruent information about a controversial economic policy and ask them to evaluate the quality of this information. Strong party supporters (non-supporters) feel that an article that criticizes (praises) the policy is of very poor quality. Further, people are much more likely to ignore the biased nature of an article if it reinforces their priors – but complain if it does not. Yet, although I observe strong affective reactions against information that is counter-attitudinal, there is no evidence of opinion backlash; instead, there is (weak) evidence of people updating in the direction of incongruent information. These findings reinforce the importance of studying reactions to counter-attitudinal information above and beyond issue-specific opinions.
Forthcoming, Political Behavior [Link]
Abstract. Can a series of online conversations with a marginalized outgroup member improve majority group members’ attitudes about that outgroup? While the intergroup contact literature provides (mixed) insights about the effects of extended interactions between groups, less is known about how relatively short and casual interactions may play out in highly polarized settings. In an experiment in India, I bring together Hindus and Muslims for five days of conversations on WhatsApp, a popular messaging platform, to investigate the extent to which chatting with a Muslim about randomly assigned discussion prompts affects Hindus’ perceptions of Muslims and approval for mainstream religious nationalist statements. I find that intergroup conversations greatly reduce prejudice against Muslims and approval for religious nationalist statements at least two to three weeks post-conversation. Intergroup conversations about non-political issues are especially effective at reducing prejudice, while conversations about politics substantially decrease support for religious nationalism. I further show how political conversations and non-political conversations affect attitudes through distinct mechanisms.
Paper available here.
Poster version here.
(with Tiago Ventura, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua A. Tucker)
Abstract. In most advanced democracies, concerns about the spread of misinformation are most often associated with feed-based social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, and these platforms also account for the vast majority of research on the topic. However, in most of the world, particularly in Global South countries, misinformation often reaches citizens through social media messaging apps, particularly WhatsApp. To fill the resulting gap in the literature, we conducted a multimedia deactivation experiment intended to test the impact of reduced exposure to potential sources of misinformation on WhatsApp during the weeks leading up to the 2022 Presidential election in Brazil. We find that this treatment significantly reduced subjects’ exposure to false rumors circulating widely during the election. However, consistent with theories of mass media minimal effects, a short-term reduction in exposure to misinformation ahead of the election did not lead to significant changes in belief accuracy or political polarization.
Paper available upon request.
(with Nicholas Haas)
Abstract. Do ideology and partisanship matter in developing countries, or is extant scholarship correct to largely dismiss these factors in favor of an understanding of politics as fundamentally clientelist? We study ideology in an online sample (N=2,393) of citizens from across 10 states in India, the world's largest democracy. Applying ideal point estimation techniques commonly used in research on Western populations, we find firstly that Indian respondents can be placed along a single ideological dimension according to their views on Hindu nationalism, state intervention, and minority rights. In contrast, issues frequently used to capture ideological divides in Western countries perform poorly in the Indian context. Second, we observe that individuals' ideological placements correlate with their partisan affiliations and reported political behaviors. Third, we find in both correlational analyses and an embedded endorsement experiment evidence consistent with a one-party dominant system, wherein feelings toward the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party carry particular import. Our findings indicate that ideology is consequential for Indian politics and may differ in important ways from the West, and call for greater attention to the ideologies of those residing in developing country contexts.
Paper available upon request. Carnegie Endowment. Hindustan Times.