Working Papers
"When Does the American Public Care About the...Economy? Re-Examining the Relationship Between Public Opinion on the Economy and the Environment" Preprint.
Extant literature suggests that a public more concerned with the economy will express less concern for the environment. Yet, this work largely fails to account for the potential endogeneity between environmental, economic, and other political factors; further, the economy-environment tradeoff hypothesis hinges on the assumption that the causal arrow between economic and environmental attitudes runs in a specific direction. I use vector autoregression (VAR) with Granger-causality tests to examine the potential relationships between macro level opinions on the environment, economy, and the president in the United States between 1960 and 2020. Contrary to the conventional economy-environment tradeoff hypothesis, I find that increases in public concern for the environment are associated with decreases in public confidence in the economy. These results add to evidence challenging previous assumptions surrounding economic attitudes by demonstrating that public opinion on the environment leads, rather than follows, public opinion on the economy.
"Chaotic Neutral? Framing Effects, Need for Chaos, and the Limits of `Burning It All Down' In Decision Making Under Uncertainty" (with Dominik A. Stecuła, Matthew P. Hitt, and Kyle L. Saunders) Preprint.
Despite the vast literature on Prospect Theory, few studies use frames based on actual events or account for individuals whose previous losses moderate decision making under uncertainty. We use data from two original surveys on US adults to test whether framing effects hold in the context of the 2023 debt ceiling and government shutdown debates. We also test whether Need for Chaos, which indicates disaffection with society and the political system, moderates framing effects. We find that while most respondents are risk- averse toward potential gains and risk-accepting toward potential losses, those with higher Need for Chaos are more risk-accepting toward potential gains and risk-averse toward potential losses. These findings help to advance our theoretical understanding of Need for Chaos by demonstrating that these individuals, when tasked with choosing between outcomes framed as losses, may be more motivated to avoid further losses than by the desire to “burn it all down.”
"Reassessing the Theory and Measures of Non-Voting Political Participation In the American Electorate" (with Kyle L. Saunders) Preprint.
Political participation scholarship often relies on conventional measures of non-voting activities and overlooks differences in voting and non-voting behavior. We call for a more contemporaneous account of non-voting political participation (NVP) and reevaluation of the theory regarding who engages in NVP. Using data from the 2020 American National Election Studies (ANES) survey (N=8,280), we develop an updated NVP scale and confirm NVP is more associated with ideology than partisanship. We also show that the probability of voting among weaker partisans and Independents is conditional on NVP. We replicate these findings with data from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study (N=61,000) and 1992-2020 ANES surveys (N=18,157), and conclude these patterns are not contingent on any specific NVP activity or unique to the 2020 election. The implication is that NVP can serve an important ideological function for those who do not identify with one of the two major political parties.