Publications
Academics Are More Specific, and Practitioners More Sensitive, in Forecasting Interventions to Strengthen Democratic Attitudes, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(3), e2307008121, 2024. [paper]
James Y. Chu, Jan G. Voelkel, Michael N. Stagnaro, Suji Kang, James N. Druckman, David G. Rand, Robb Willer
Correcting Misperceptions of Out-partisans Decreases American Legislators’ Support for Undemocratic Practices, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(23), p.e2301836120, 2023. [paper]
James N. Druckman*, Suji Kang*, James Chu, Michael N. Stagnaro, Jan G. Voelkel, Joseph S. Mernyk, Sophia Pink,
Chrystal Redekopp, David G. Rand, and Robb Willer
*Shared lead authors.
Working Papers
Do Accuracy-driven Citizens Always Hold Few Misperceptions? (Dissertation Chapter)
When do people hold misperceptions? The theory of motivated reasoning provides a useful framework to explain why people hold misperceptions. However, much research in the study of misperception tends to implicitly or explicitly assume that misperceptions are generally caused by directional goals. With experimental evidence, I show that accuracy-motivated people can believe misinformation when they perceive the source as credible. These results suggest that simply promoting accuracy motivations may not be a sufficient solution to reduce people's misperceptions, and another important dimension is whether people maintain accurate perceptions of the sources from which they obtain information.
How Do Issue Characteristics Influence People’s Reliance on Credible Source Cues? (Dissertation Chapter)
It is unlikely that all citizens rely on credible source cues in all contexts, and at all places. In politics, a variety of issues do vary in a huge way, and heterogeneity in policy issues can be an important factor to explain why we find significant variation in the study of cue effects. Thus, I build on the dual process model to explain how issue difficulty and issue importance influence people’s reliance on a source that they find credible rather than searching for more detailed policy information. Using a two-wave experiment, I show that individuals engage more with detailed policy content on personally important issues—and though it does not necessarily move their attitude positions, it does influence the certainty they have in those policy attitudes. This is meaningful as those who hold lower certainty in their attitude are likely to have less willingness to share their views and persuade others to adopt their views, and my findings do show such a positive correlation between attitude certainty and advocacy intentions. The results overall make clear that perceived issue attributes shape the information people access and how they use it.
Priming Accuracy Can Reduce Partisan Gaps in Preferences for Information Sources
I use a two-wave panel experiment and show that (a) how Democrats and Republicans perceive the credibility of different information sources including domain-specific expert sources, co-partisan news sources, out-partisan news sources, and non-partisan think tank sources; and (b) a simple reminder of accuracy can cause partisans to score higher ratings of credibility on out-partisan sources which they previously perceived as little credible. The findings suggest that subtly shifting attention to accuracy could be one way to mitigate partisan animosity towards out-partisan sources and thus promote communication across party lines.
Detoxication by a Nonpartisan Source? Source Effects on Partisan Voters’ Trade Preferences
with Jong Hee Park
We examine the effects of sources’ political ideology on partisan voters’ attitudes towards economic globalization using an experiment. Using an experiment, we find that non-partisan think tanks cause partisan voters to accept detailed policy information rather than following a simple policy cue from a co-partisan politician. This is, especially true when the partisan voters are motivated to be accurate. This highlights the importance of non-partisan entities in polarized climates.
Elite Moral Appeals in Polarized Times
Do Legislators Speak As They Vote?: Discrepancy Between Congressional Roll Calls and Press Releases on International Trade
Structural Topic Model for Measuring China Agendas in the US Congress
Projects
The Borders and Boundaries Project at Perry World House is researching how how political entities (the public, elites, and institutions) both affect and are affected by international borders and border security policies.
This interdisciplinary, multi-method effort is directed by Professor Beth Simmons and is composed of research teams studying border politics across a variety of different research areas.
As part of the project, I focus on misperceptions of border controls, immigration, and prejudice against specific race and ethnicity using different units of analysis (e.g., individuals, elected officials, and democratic institutions) and examine the effects of correcting such misperceptions.
