Publications

OP ED
Why counting vaccinated Americans doesn’t always add up
Publication date: 
04/2022
Authors: 
David Lazer

Millions of Americans are now eligible for a second covid-19 booster shot. By all accounts, efforts to vaccinate older people in many states have gone well — unbelievably well, in fact.

Invited Talk
Understanding and Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Decision-Making Among College Students and Younger Adults (Archived)
Publication date: 
12/2021
Authors: 
Kristin Lunz Trujillo

Dr. Lunz Trujillo situates COVID-19 vaccine decision-making among younger adults with previous literature on young adults’ behaviors and attitudes on different vaccines (such as the flu and HPV vaccines). In particular, she focuses on college students’ attitudes and behaviors regarding the COVID-19 vaccine based on a recent report released by the COVID States Project. Dr.

Book Chapter
Vax attacks: How conspiracy theory belief undermines vaccine support
Publication date: 
12/2021
Authors: 
Christina E. Farhart
Ella Douglas-Durham
Kristin Lunz Trujillo
Joseph A. Vitriol

As the world continues to respond to the spread of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease commonly known as COVID-19), it has become clear that one of the most effective strategies for curbing the pandemic is the COVID-19 vaccine.

Keywords: 
Vaccine hesitancyConspiracy beliefsPolitical identityAnti-intellectualismCOVID-19
Journal Article
“When Women Run, Voters Will Follow (Sometimes): Examining the Mobilizing Effect of Female Candidates in the 2014 and 2018 Midterm Elections.”
Publication date: 
12/2021
Authors: 
Alauna Safarpour
SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor
Stella M. Rouse
Michele L. Swers

In this paper, we examine whether women candidates are more likely to spur turnout in election years when gender-related issues are central to the national debate. We argue that having women on the ballot in a gendered electoral environment mobilizes specific groups of voters.

Keywords: 
Female candidates
Gendered electoral context
Midterm elections
Mobilization
Voter turnout
Young voters
Misinformation
Backfire effects after correcting misinformation are strongly associated with reliability
Publication date: 
07/2021
Authors: 
Briony Swire Thompson
Nicholas Miklaucic
John Wihbey
David Lazer
Joseph DeGutis

The backfire effect is when a correction increases belief in the very misconception it is attempting to correct, and it is often used as a reason not to correct misinformation. The current study aimed to test whether correcting misinformation increases belief more than a no-correction control.

Keywords: 
misinformation
Reliability
Belief Updating
The backfire effect
Journal Article
Something to Run For: Articulated Interest and Candidate Emergence
Publication date: 
07/2021
Authors: 
Jonathan Green
Meredith Conroy
Ciera Hammond

Patterns in candidate emergence affect who voters can choose from, and thus the quality of representative democracy. Despite extensive work concerning patterns in interest in running for office and, separately, patterns in emerged candidacies, there is little empirical evidence regarding the transition from being interested in running for office to emerging as a candidate.

Working Paper
Despair or Defiance? Assessing Turnout Effects of Election Misinformation
Publication date: 
07/2021
Authors: 
Jonathan Green
William Hobbs
Stefan McCabe
David Lazer

Following the 2020 general election, Republican elected officials, including then-President Donald Trump, promoted conspiracy theories claiming that Joe Biden's close victory in Georgia was fraudulent. Extant literature suggests multiple hypotheses regarding effects these conspiracy theories could have had on Republican turnout in the Senate runoff elections that took place the following January.

Journal Article
Meaningful measures of human society in the twenty-first century
Publication date: 
06/2021
Authors: 
David Lazer
Eszter Hargittai
Deen Freelon
Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon
Kevin Munger
Katherine Ognyanova
Jason Radford

Science rarely proceeds beyond what scientists can observe and measure, and sometimes what can be observed proceeds far ahead of scientific understanding. The twenty-first century offers such a moment in the study of human societies. A vastly larger share of behaviours is observed today than would have been imaginable at the close of the twentieth century.

COVID-19
The State of The Nation: A 50-State COVID-19 Survey
Publication date: 
03/2021
Authors: 
David Lazer
Mauricio Santillana
Roy H. Perlis
Matthew A. Baum
Katherine Ognyanova
James Druckman
Alexi Quintana Mathé
Matthew Simonson
Adina Gitomer
Jonathan Green
Hanyu Chwe
Jennifer Lin
Ata A. Uslu

This report is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants SES2029292 and SES-2029297. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This research will also be supported in part by a generous grant from the Knight Foundation.

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