Research
Historical Injustices and Outgroup Attitudes
How do revelations of historical injustices affect dominant group members’ attitudes toward an outgroup? Canonical theories of attitudinal updating make varied predictions about whether such information can change outgroup attitudes, and if so, whether those changes will persist over time. Yet by relying almost entirely on single-wave survey experiments, the existing evidence is not well-suited to adjudicating between these theoretical expectations. By contrast, this study documents changes in public opinion in a real world case: the unexpected announcements of hundreds of suspected unmarked graves at former state-funded ``residential schools” for Indigenous children in Canada in 2021. I find that intense media coverage of this historical injustice strengthened beliefs in systemic racism among non-Indigenous Canadians surveyed just after versus just before the news first broke. Yet attitudes returned to baseline as coverage of this story declined over the following months. When the salience of this injustice increased again several months later, there is no observable attitudinal change. I argue that these patterns are consistent with cognitive dissonance theory and show that the reversion in attitudes was most pronounced among White Canadians, a group that was especially threatened by the discourse around the injustices.
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.
Election Outcomes and Social Trust
(with Amber Lee, Daniel Rubenson, Iva Srbinovska, David Sumantry, Jonah Davids, Annika Maulucci, Kristina Kisin)
Extensive research has shown that after an election, people who supported the winning party express greater trust in political institutions and the democratic process than those who supported losing parties. In the existing literature on this “sore loser” effect, social trust – a general trust in other members of society – has received little attention. We argue this is an oversight: election outcomes are often perceived by voters as signals about the competency and values of their fellow citizens. Using Canadian Election Study data from 2004 to 2021, we show that voters who supported the losing party express lower levels of social trust after the election. This gap between winners and losers is most apparent after national, rather than district-level contests, and among losers who expected to win before the election. Political polarization also moderates this relationship: the difference in social trust after elections is notably larger for voters who hold negative attitudes toward rival partisans, a pattern which is driven more by affective dislike rather than ideological considerations. Taken together, these results highlight the consequences of political competition for non-political attitudes and raise concerns about how partisan antipathy affects the health of democracy.
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 voters update their intergroup attitudes after the victory of an outgroup politician depends 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 attitudes toward Indigenous peoples, there is a significant post-election divergence between voters for 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 low levels of pre-election prejudice updating negatively. I show that this attitudinal polarization is specific to Indigenous peoples and that it may extend to related attitudes, like 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.