Research

A Fleeting Reckoning: How Dominant Group Members React to Media Coverage of Historical Injustice

Can media coverage of a historical injustice change dominant group members’ attitudes toward an outgroup? This study documents changes in public opinion after announcements in 2021 that hundreds of suspected unmarked graves had been identified at former ``residential schools” for Indigenous children in Canada. The results show that an intense surge in media attention to this colonial history triggered an improvement in attitudes toward Indigenous peoples among non-Indigenous Canadians surveyed just after versus just before the news first broke. The shift in self-reported attitudes was paralleled by an increase in charitable donations, but both opinions and behaviours reverted after media attention declined. The media can move dominant group members’ attitudes toward injustices, but these effects may not persist once attention fades.

Same As It Ever Was: Can Facts about the Persistence of Racial Wealth Inequality Shift Support for Reparations in America?
(with Anil Menon)

Advocates of reparations for historical injustices against African Americans often cite the general public’s lack of knowledge as a fundamental cause of America’s inaction on racial inequality. Many Americans are unaware of the scale of contemporary racial inequality and the lack of progress over recent decades. In this study, we test whether providing information about the racial wealth gap can change Americans’ opinions on a range of reparations policies. Our intervention is motivated by a large literature on how information about general levels of inequality can shift support for redistribution. Building on these findings, we expect that informing Americans about the scale and persistence of racial wealth inequality will increase the perceived importance of addressing this issue and boost support for reparations. We also examine if our intervention influences whether respondents believe this inequality is driven by structural barriers or individual failings. In a pilot study, we find evidence in support of these hypotheses. At a moment when several levels of government have begun exploring whether and how to enact reparations, this study provides guidance on how to arguments in favour of these policies and how to best educate Americans about the nature of racial inequality.

Prejudice and Political Accession: How Partisanship Shapes Intergroup Attitudes After the Victory of an Outgroup Politician

How do members of dominant groups react when a member of a racial or ethnic outgroup wins political office? Prior research suggests that outgroup politicians are often viewed as either a threat or a counterstereotypical exemplar. I argue that the extent to which a voter updates their intergroup attitudes after the victory of an outgroup politician can depend on whether they supported them in the election. To test this claim, I analyze a panel survey of non-Indigenous voters immediately before and after a 2023 election in which Wab Kinew became the first ever provincial head of government of First Nations descent in Canada. Looking at within-respondent changes, I show that despite a modest overall improvement in affect toward Indigenous peoples among non-Indigenous voters as a whole, there is a post-election divergence of between 3 to 6 points on a 100 point feeling thermometer when comparing supporters of the runner-up party and Kinew?s party. This pattern is driven by a combination of electoral winners with slightly negative or neutral prior attitudes updating more positively, and voters for the losing party who expressed high levels of pre-election affect updating negatively. I show that this attitudinal gap is specific to Indigenous peoples and that it may extend to related attitudes, including perceptions of discrimination and support for policies to redress past wrongs. These results clarify that the attitudinal consequences of more diverse descriptive representation may depend on whether voters already share a partisan alignment with outgroup politicians.

Where Do Hate Groups Take Hold? Evidence from the Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Canada
(with Danielle Bohonos)

Hate groups, while often arising within an extremist fringe in society, can have an outsized influence on politics through intimidation, violence, and defining norms around who belongs. What explains the emergence of these movements? Answering this question is challenging because contemporary hate groups often operate in secret or primarily online, limiting our ability to fully characterize their origins and participants. We instead draw on a historical case: the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which spread briefly, but rapidly through Alberta and Saskatchewan in the 1920s. Distinct from its American counterpart, the Canadian KKK appealed largely to English Protestants and was motivated more so by an animus toward Catholics, Francophones, and recent immigrants. We digitize detailed archival records on the locations of KKK chapters and membership lists to descriptively characterize where this group successfully embedded in local communities and who joined its cause. Combining these data with historical censuses and electoral returns, we investigate prominent theories of group threat, opportunity structures, and relative deprivation. Preliminary results point to the importance of each of these perspectives, with the KKK being more likely to emerge in communities with moderately large outgroup populations, where rail facilitated connections to existing KKK infrastructure, and where economic conditions had recently worsened.