Scott Clifford

@scottclifford.bsky.social

1.5K followers 650 following 47 posts

Professor of Political Science.
http://scottaclifford.com/

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Political science 37%

Sociology 20%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by David Lazer, Scott Clifford

Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 3d

Perhaps others have seen it already, but I found this pre-print (first posted in September) deeply troubling, raising concerns about how LLMs used for classification tasks in research open new researcher-degrees-of-freedom, which they call "LLM-hacking" (akin to p-hacking)

arxiv.org/pdf/2509.08825

arxiv.org

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 5d

Clear evidence that at universities conservatives don't face higher obstacles than liberals to establish student groups + invite outside speakers.

"These results fail to offer support for the view that conservative students encounter more difficulty in efforts to access campus resources."

Reposted by Scott Clifford, Georg Weizsäcker

Andrew Little @anthlittle.bsky.social · 7d

New paper with Salvo Nunnari which aims to detect (partisan) motivated reasoning (MR) using experimental designs based on information order. This provides a flexible way to detect deviations from Bayesian updating which can be explained by MR.

osf.io/preprints/so...

Scott Clifford @scottclifford.bsky.social · 10d

Yes!! And I'll add some evidence that these agree-disagree type questions seem to be *creating* some conspiracy beliefs.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Do Survey Questions Spread Conspiracy Beliefs? | Journal of Experimental Political Science | Cambridge Core

Do Survey Questions Spread Conspiracy Beliefs? - Volume 10 Issue 2

www.cambridge.org

Reposted by Scott Clifford

PsyArXivBot @psyarxivbot.bsky.social · 12d

Central attitudes in political belief systems are more resistant to change than peripheral attitudes, but not necessarily less amenable to persuasive attempts: https://osf.io/6a8ue

Reposted by Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford, David Darmofal

Yamil Ricardo Velez @yamilrvelez.bsky.social · 13d

This paper was a blast to work on. The challenge: present party positions across many issues, in real time, using language voters actually use. 🧵 on why we went with a more involved retrieval-based approach and where I think these tools are headed.

Semra Sevi @semrasevi.bsky.social · 17d

🚨Excited to share our new paper published in PNAS (joint with @yamilrvelez.bsky.social and Don Green)! AI can enhance political knowledge and provide balanced information about politics with proper guardrails and vetted sources (e.g., party platforms).

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Reposted by Scott Clifford

Toni Rodon @tonirodon.bsky.social · 18d

Partisan voters can reward candidates who stick to the party line even on unpopular issues. Under uncertainty, voters infer that ideologically rigid candidates are also more likely to back the party's other, more popular positions academic.oup.com/sf/advance-a...

Why moderate voters choose extreme candidates: voter uncertainty as a driver of elite polarization

Abstract. Representative democracy depends on elected officials reflecting voters’ policy preferences. Yet, US elected officials are more ideologically ext

academic.oup.com

Reposted by Will Jennings, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford , and 1 more Will Jennings, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 21d

We really need to stop asking items like this using agree-disagree scales or comparable formats. These estimates aren't informative.

academic.oup.com/poq/article/...

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Reposted by Scott Clifford

Political Analysis @polanalysis.bsky.social · 21d

They find that survey professionalism is common, but there is limited evidence that survey professionals lower data quality. Professionals do not systematically differ from non-professionals and don’t exhibit more response instability. Read the paper here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Survey Professionalism: New Evidence from Web Browsing Data | Political Analysis | Cambridge Core

Survey Professionalism: New Evidence from Web Browsing Data

www.cambridge.org

Reposted by Scott Clifford

Political Analysis @polanalysis.bsky.social · 21d

Currently in FirstView: In “Survey Professionalism: New Evidence from Web Browsing Data,” Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg, @tiagoventura.bsky.social, Tiago Ventura, @jonathannagler.bsky.social, @ericka.bric.digital, & Magdalena Wojcieszak provide evidence on survey professionalism across three samples.

Reposted by Cyrus Samii, Jacob Montgomery, Paul E. Johnson , and 4 more Cyrus Samii, Jacob Montgomery, Paul E. Johnson, Scott Clifford, Andrew L. Whitehead, William Myers, David Darmofal

Matt Graham @mattgraham.bsky.social · 21d

Survey experiments' popularity in political science is getting attention. What is good and bad about them? How can one maximize their benefits and mitigate their downsides?

Greg Huber and I wrote up our thoughts:
Paywalled: doi.org/10.1016/bs.h...
Free: m-graham.com/papers/Huber...

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Scott Clifford, Alessandro Rigolon

David Broockman @dbroockman.bsky.social · Nov 25

NEW PAPER w/ @cselmendorf.bsky.social & @jkalla.bsky.social:

An under-appreciated reason why voters oppose dense new housing, especially in less-dense neighborhoods: they think it looks ugly and want to prevent that, even in other neighborhoods.

Some of what we think is NIMBYism might not be!

Reposted by Hugo Mercier, Scott Clifford, Erika Franklin Fowler , and 2 more Hugo Mercier, Scott Clifford, Erika Franklin Fowler, Alessandro Nai, David Darmofal

Yamil Ricardo Velez @yamilrvelez.bsky.social · Nov 24

As @seanjwestwood.bsky.social's terrifying new PNAS article demonstrates, LLMs can now pass almost every attention check, mirror personas, stay consistent across pages, and systematically bias responses in the aggregate.

So here’s a different angle: verify physical presence, not text.

Reposted by Linda J. Skitka, Efrén O. Pérez, Calvin K. Lai , and 2 more Linda J. Skitka, Efrén O. Pérez, Calvin K. Lai, Scott Clifford, Michael W. Kraus

tagerai.bsky.social @tagerai.bsky.social · Nov 19

A thread on our recent paper (w/Raihan Alam @raihanalam) in PNAS on why punishment often fails and what it means for crime, cooperation, democracy, and the rule of law. I’m super excited for it, it’s the lab’s most extensive experimental work to date. Check it out! 1/
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

Reposted by Mark J. Brandt, Scott Clifford

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · Nov 19

Do any meta-analyses or other reflection pieces exist that catalog the sorts of mechanisms specifically, and outcomes generally, studied as consequences of providing white Americans information on their declining population share?

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Will Jennings, Scott Clifford , and 8 more Cas Mudde, Will Jennings, Scott Clifford, Markus Wagner, Tom van der Meer, Matthijs Rooduijn, Sebastian Karcher, Juanjo Medina, Stuart J. Turnbull‐Dugarte, Joost van Spanje, Bonnie N. Field

Roderik Rekker @roderikrekker.bsky.social · Nov 16

(1/10) 🚨Preprint alert!🚨

In this article, I challenge claims of a generational rise of conservative men. In the media and recent academic publications, the so-called ‘youth gender gap’ has been interpreted as a generational phenomenon.

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

OSF

doi.org

Scott Clifford @scottclifford.bsky.social · Nov 12

I still hear reviewer 2 saying "yes but in this case..."

Reposted by Scott Clifford, Kate Starbird

William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · Nov 11

✨New preprint! Why do people express outrage online? In 4 studies we develop a taxonomy of online outrage motives, test what motives people report, what they infer for in- vs. out-partisans, and how motive inferences shape downstream intergroup consequences. Led by @felix-chenwei.bsky.social 🧵👇

Reposted by Scott Clifford, Johanna Rickne

Damien Bol @damienbol.bsky.social · Nov 5

New WP on political violence in democracies with the fantastic @dianebolet.bsky.social and @bjarneck.bsky.social. Sadly very topical, but with some positive results

osf.io/preprints/so...

1/

The image shows the paper's title and abstract.

Reposted by Scott Clifford

Good Authority @goodauth.bsky.social · Oct 31

Very few Americans support actual political violence.

Many more support intimidation.

Almost no one thinks it’s appropriate to kill your political opponents, but many more would dox them.

Read the latest: goodauthority.org/news/very-fe...

Very few Americans support actual political violence. Many more support intimidation.

Almost no one thinks it’s appropriate to kill your political opponents, but many more would dox them.

goodauthority.org

Reposted by David Lazer, Brendan Nyhan, Jon Green , and 2 more David Lazer, Brendan Nyhan, Jon Green, Scott Clifford, Ben Worthy

Matt Graham @mattgraham.bsky.social · Oct 27

After a huge post-election flip in economic perceptions, I thought Democrats and Republicans might be lying to pollsters to send a partisan message — but I was wrong!

New in the Journal of Experimental Political Science (open access): doi.org/10.1017/XPS....

Reposted by Scott Clifford

British Journal of Political Science @bjpols.bsky.social · Oct 14

#OpenAccess from August 2025 -

Cleaning up Politics: Anti-Corruption Appeals in Electoral Campaigns - cup.org/4msGB8X

"Surprisingly, a clean disciplinary record does not substantively enhance a candidate’s anticorruption appeal..."

- Sofia Vera

BJPolS abstract discussing the impact of anti-corruption policies in electoral politics with a focus on recent elections around the globe.

Reposted by Scott Clifford

Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · Sep 18

A cautiously optimistic result on AI and disinformation.

A week before 2024 UK elections 13% of all voters used AI to ask about political topics. A randomized trial found this may be good: using AI led to similar gains in true knowledge as doing web research, regardless of model & prompt used.

Reposted by Jacob Montgomery, Scott Clifford, Eric Hehman , and 1 more Jacob Montgomery, Scott Clifford, Eric Hehman, Nathan P. Kalmoe

xavier roberts-gaal @xrg.bsky.social · Sep 15

We often hear from reviewers: "what about demand effects?" So we developed a method to eliminate them. Something weird happened during testing: We couldn’t detect demand effects in the first place! (1/8)

Summary of design and results from our three studies. (A: Design) Each study used a similar experimental design, measuring both positive and negative demand in an online experiment, with three commonly-used task types (dictator game, vignette, intervention). Our experiments had ns ≈ 250 per cell. (B: Results) Observed demand effects were statistically indistinguishable from zero. The plot shows means and 95% confidence intervals for standardized mean differences derived from frequentist analyses of each experiment and an inverse variance-weighted fixed-effect estimator pooling all experiments (solid bars). Prior measurements of experimenter demand from a previous dictator game experiment (de Quidt et al., 2018; standardized mean difference from regression coefficient) and a meta-analysis primarily including small-sample, in-person studies (Coles et al., 2025; Hedge’s g statistic) are also shown for comparison (striped bars). The main text includes Bayesian analyses that quantify our uncertainty.

Reposted by Mark J. Brandt, Alexander Wuttke, Scott Clifford , and 2 more Mark J. Brandt, Alexander Wuttke, Scott Clifford, Alessandro Nai, Roman Senninger

Kristina Bakkær Simonsen @kristinabsimonsen.bsky.social · Sep 15

📣 MORAL APPEALS IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION 📣
New version of @twidmann.bsky.social and my working paper answering:
* Have moral appeals increased over time?
* Is the tendency to moralize ideologically patterned?
* Are some topics consistently more moralized than others?
osf.io/preprints/os...

OSF

osf.io

Reposted by Michael J. Nelson, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford , and 4 more Michael J. Nelson, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford, Flávio Azevedo, David R. Miller, Nathan P. Kalmoe, David Darmofal

Nick Davis @ntd.bsky.social · Sep 14

colleagues in political science. the formal update to the Garand and Giles journal ranking survey is now live. many of you will receive an email momentarily inviting you to participate. in the event you do NOT receive an invitation, please see this website to self-enroll. thanks! sharing = caring!

Participating

The Evaluation of Publication in Political Research study is open to serious producers and consumers of political research, including faculty in institutions of higher education, doctoral students,…

eppr.study

Reposted by Efrén O. Pérez, Jacob Montgomery, Scott Clifford

Journal of Experimental Political Science @jepsjournal.bsky.social · Sep 12

Now Out on First View: "Can (Thin) Populism be Manipulated without Manipulating Host Ideology? Evidence from a Conjoint Validation Approach"
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Can (Thin) Populism be Manipulated without Manipulating Host Ideology? Evidence from a Conjoint Validation Approach | Journal of Experimental Political Science | Cambridge Core

Can (Thin) Populism be Manipulated without Manipulating Host Ideology? Evidence from a Conjoint Validation Approach

www.cambridge.org

Reposted by Mario Gollwitzer, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford , and 1 more Mario Gollwitzer, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford, David Darmofal

Fabian Guy Neuner @fabianneuner.bsky.social · Sep 11

New preregistered report @jepsjournal.bsky.social

"Thin" populism treatments manipulate perceptions of people-centrism + anti-elitism

But: some treatments (e.g., "American people") affect perceptions of host ideology, complicating causal analyses of impact of populist rhetoric

cup.org/4n3DvZm

Abstract for paper: Scholars increasingly conceptualize populism by whether politicians use people-centric
and anti-elite appeals that pit a homogeneous people against a corrupt elite. These appeals
reflect “thin” ideology because they offer no programmatic content and thus politicians
must pair these appeals with more substantive positions, termed their “host” (or thick)
ideology, which often consists of nativism on the right (e.g., espousing anti-immigrant
positions) and socialism on the left (e.g., prioritizing redistribution). An emerging
literature has thus sought to estimate whether populists garner support due to their thin
ideology or their substantive host ideology. To date, no research has validated whether
populism treatments (1) truly operationalize populist thin ideology, and (2) do so without
manipulating host ideology. Results from three conjoint validation experiments fielded in
both the United States and the United Kingdom show that thin ideology treatments
successfully manipulate the underlying concepts but caution that some operationalizations
also affect perceptions of host ideology.

Shows that thin populism treatments shift perceptions of people-centrism and anti-elitism as expected

Shows that thin populism treatments can also affect perceptions of host ideology. In particular, using treatments such as "American people" affects perceptions of a candidate's position on immigration

Shows suggestive evidence that people are less likely to use populist thin ideology appeals as heuristics for inferring host ideology when partisan information is included

Reposted by Jon Green, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford , and 1 more Jon Green, Efrén O. Pérez, Scott Clifford, David R. Miller

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · Sep 10

New JEPS: Debunking NIMBY Myths Increases Support for Affordable Housing, Especially Near Respondents' Homes www.cambridge.org/core/service...

-correcting stereotypes/misperceptions re: affordable housing increases support for building it
-Effects often *larger* for housing near people's homes