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

Ask re #APSA2025: The political psychology division has a number of panels that need additional discussants. If you're attending APSA and are willing to serve in such roles please get in touch with @carlynwayne.bsky.social and I. See screenshot for panels. Thanks in advance!

In 2024 we further find this dynamic using repeated cross-section data from the 2024 Western States Survey where respondents were randomly assigned to take the survey before or after the election.

Since then we have replicated this finding for other elections using a variety of methods. In the 2024 election, we demonstrate this winner/loser effect using panel data using the 2024 CES showing individual-level effects.

In 2020 election we found that respondents in our Western States Survey shifted support for contestation behaviors based on whether they were interviewed in the days before the election or the days after. This analysis was possible due to a fortuitous interrupted time series.

So why do people vote for populist parties? This paper adds to the evidence that voting for populist parties is driven by the host ideology (e.g., positions on immigration or the EU) that populist parties espouse.

Combining conjoint experiments with stated vote intention for the AfD and Die Linke, we show that choosing "populist" politicians in conjoint tasks is not associated with populist voting. Thus, while expressed thin ideology is associated with populist voting, revealed populist behavior is not:

New paper: cross-cutting group memberships predict warmer out-party affect, Latino Americans have more of these cross-cutting ties, and - we argue - that this is why Latinos in the US have warmer feelings toward the out-party. (w/ @rongbojin.bsky.social, Samara Klar, and Mark Ramirez) rdcu.be/eezGH