"From Protest to Child-Rearing: How Movement Politics Shape Socialization Priorities." (with Allison Anoll and Drew Engelhardt). Forthcoming. American Political Science Review.

Classic political behavior studies assert that childhood socialization can contribute to later political orientations. But, as adults consider how to introduce children to politics, what shapes their decisions? We argue socialization is itself political with adults changing their socialization priorities in response to salient political events including social movements. Using Black Lives Matter protests and race socialization as a case, we show the summer 2020 information environment coupled movement-consistent concepts of race with child-rearing guidance. A survey of White parents after the summer activism suggests that many—but especially Democrats and those near peaceful protest epicenters—prioritized new forms of race socialization. Further, nearly two years after the protests' height, priming Black Lives Matter changes support for race-related curricular materials among White Americans. Our work casts political socialization in a new light, reviving an old literature, and has implications for when today's children become tomorrow's voters.

***Winner of Political Psychology Section's Best Paper Award for APSA 2022***

"Ethnocultural or Generalized? Nationalism and Support for Punitive Immigration Policy." (with Ana Bracic and Allyson Shortle). 2023. Politics, Groups, and Identities 11(5):979-996.

The revelation that the Trump administration separated immigrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border and placed them in detention facilities sparked protests across the country in 2018. While the policy received swift backlash from the public and was widely derided as running counter to American values and the rule of law, a segment of the American public supports the policy. We argue that ethnocultural forms of nationalism—beliefs about religious, ethnic, and gendered criteria for "true Americanness"—help explain support for family separations. We test this argument using two surveys collected two years apart. In both data sets, we find substantial evidence that ethnocultural forms of nationalism are linked to support for family separation, while generalized nationalism is not.

Mentioned in: The Washington Post, PRRI Spotlight 

"Contact and Context: How Municipal Traffic Stops Shape Citizen Character." (with Allison Anoll and Derek Epp). 2022. Journal of Politics, 84(4): 2272-2277.

***Journal of Politics blog post on article available here***

Previous research shows that how the state conducts itself influences citizen attitudes and behaviors though direct and proximal contact; we show the actions of state agents ripple out even further. Joining bureaucratic data on a publicly observable state behavior—racial disparities in investigatory traffic stops—with survey data, this article shows that residing in a place with extreme racial disparities in traffic stops is associated with depressed confidence in the police even in the absence of more direct forms of contact. This relationship does not extend to participatory behaviors, however, where only personal stop history and proximal contact are predictors. Racially disparate policing practices, then, may undermine law enforcement legitimacy in a community as a whole, but mobilization to change policy appears limited to individuals who more directly experience the carceral state.

"Gender Attitudes, Support for Teachers' Strikes, and Legislative Elections." (with Ana Bracic, Sarina Rhinehart, and Allyson Shortle). 2020. PS: Political Science & Politics, 53(3): 447-452.

In April 2018, after the state legislature failed to pass a funding package to increase spending on schools and teacher pay, educators across Oklahoma walked out on their jobs to protest at the Capitol for nine days. Because education is a policy area typically associated with women, we argue that the 2018 teacher walkout activated gender attitudes such that sexism was associated with voter preferences and behavior in the 2018 midterm elections. We tested this association using Election Day exit-poll surveys of more than 1,300 voters in Oklahoma City in 2016 and 2018 and found that sexism attitudes were linked to support for the teacher walkout, educational spending, and teacher pay raises in 2018. Support for the walkout was associated with 2018 Democratic vote choice, and sexism was associated more strongly with education policy preferences in 2018 than in 2016. The findings support our argument that the teacher walkout increased attention to education and implicated gender. Although education is a public good primarily benefiting children, sexism can play a role in whether voters support it.

"Is Sexism for White People? Gender Stereotypes, Race, and the 2016 Presidential Election" (with Ana Bracic and Allyson Shortle). 2019. ​Political Behavior, 41(2): 281-307. 

***Political Behavior blog post on article available here***

On November 8, 2016 Donald Trump, a man with no office-holding experience, won the Electoral College, defeating the first woman to receive the presidential nomination from a major party. This paper offers the first observational test of how sexism affects presidential vote choice in the general election, adding to the rich literature on gender and candidate success for lower-level offices. We argue that the 2016 election implicated gender through Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and Donald Trump’s sexist rhetoric, and activated gender attitudes such that sexism is associated with vote choice. Using an Election Day exit poll survey of over 1,300 voters conducted at 12 precincts in a mid-size city and a national survey of over 10,000 White and Black Americans, we find that a politically defined measure of sexism—the belief that men are better suited emotionally for politics than women—predicts support for Trump both in terms of vote choice and favorability. We find the effect is strongest and most consistent among White voters. However, a domestically defined measure of sexism—whether men should be in control of their wives—offers little explanatory power over the vote. In total, our results demonstrate the importance of gender in the 2016 election, beyond mere demographic differences in vote choice: beliefs about gender and fitness for office shape both White men and women’s preferences.

Mentioned in: FiveThirtyEight

"Exit Polling: Field Research and Pedagogical Benefits of Community Engagement" (with Ana Bracic and Allyson Shortle). 2017. Oklahoma Politics, 27: 27-54.

This article explores how bringing students into the research process provides pedagogical benefits for undergraduate students, while also offering faculty original data collection opportunities to further their research agendas. The data described in the article come from an Election Day exit poll fielded by sixty-one students in twelve diverse precincts in Oklahoma City and capture over 1200 voters. Response papers from students demonstrate the educational benefits of involving students in research, which cannot be easily replicated in a traditional classroom environment. Bivariate regression analysis of several 2016 state questions demonstrates the quality and utility of the data collected by students: the analysis shows that voters’ support for reclassifying certain non-violent felonies as misdemeanors is negatively associated with anti-Black racial attitudes; that preferences for lower levels of regulation did not drive support for the so-called alcohol modernization initiative; and that the repeal of the ban on spending public money on religion was not particularly popular—even among the most religiously observant voters in the sample. In total, this article shows that when faculty merge their research agendas with their teaching priorities, they can accrue significant gains in both areas.