Ethan Porter
Biographic Data
| ID | 114819 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ethan Porter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ethan |
| FAMILY NAME | Porter |
| SIGNATURE | PORTER E |
| AFFILIATIONS | George Washington University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9530-6955 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 447 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Americans can imagine changing partisan affiliation
While attempts to change Americans’ partisanship via persuasive treatments largely fail, partisanship can and does change over time. In this paper, the authors first confirm, via survey and field experiments, that typical campaign messaging in the United States does not budge partisanship. The authors then present experiments in which participants encounter extraordinary hypothetical scenarios (e.g. one party causes economic collapse) before repo…
The Reputational Penalty
Rethinking Citizen Competence
Sceptics charge that ordinary citizens are not competent enough to sustain democracy. We challenge this assessment on empirical and theoretical grounds. Theoretically, we provide a new typology for assessing citizen competence. We distinguish the democratic values of reliability, accountability, and inclusive equality, mapping the different competencies implied by each. Empirically, we show that recent research, focused primarily on Americans but…
Shoves, nudges and combating misinformation
To what extent can the harms of misinformation be mitigated by relying on nudges? Prior research has demonstrated that non-intrusive ‘accuracy nudges’ can reduce the sharing of misinformation. We investigate an alternative approach. Rather than subtly reminding people about accuracy, our intervention, indebted to research on the bystander effect, explicitly appeals to individuals' capacity to help solve the misinformation challenge. Our results a…
Increasing Demand for Fact-Checking
Post-Truth American Politics
Combating Hateful Attitudes and Online Browsing Behavior
This study adds to the analogic perspective-taking literature by examining whether an online perspective-taking intervention affects both antisemitic attitudes and behaviors – in particular, engagement with antisemitic websites. Subjects who were randomly assigned to the treatment viewed a 90-s video of a college student describing an experience with antisemitism and reflected on its similarity to their own experiences. In a survey, treated subje…
Latino-Targeted Misinformation and the Power of Factual Corrections
Do individual, interpersonal, or institutional factors condition the effects of misinformation on beliefs? Can interventions such as fact checks stem the tide of the "infodemic" within marginalized communities? We explore the sudden flood of misinformation and disinformation targeting Latinos during the 2020 election and global COVID-19 pandemic to answer these questions. In a preregistered experiment, we find that exposure to misinformation can …
Conceptual Replication of Four Key Findings about Factual Corrections and Misinformation during the 2020 US Election
In the final two months of the 2020 US election, we conducted eight panel experiments to evaluate the immediate and medium-term effects of misinformation and factual corrections. Our results corroborate four sets of existing findings: fact-checks reliably improve factual accuracy, while misinformation degrades it; effects of fact-checks on belief accuracy endure, though they fade with time; effects on attitudes are minuscule; and there are import…
Does digital advertising affect vote choice? Evidence from a randomized field experiment
Despite the increasing sums devoted to online political advertising, our understanding of the persuasive effects of such advertising is limited. We report the results of a ZIP code level randomized field experiment conducted over Facebook and Instagram during the 2018 U.S. midterm elections in Florida. The ads, produced by a Democratic-leaning political action committee, were designed to spur Democratic vote share and were seen more than 1.1 mill…
Political Misinformation and Factual Corrections on the Facebook News Feed
As concerns about the spread of political misinformation have mounted, scholars have found that fact-checks can reduce the extent to which people believe misinformation. Whether this finding extends to social media is unclear. Social media is a high-choice environment in which the cognitive effort required to separate truth from fiction, individuals' penchant for select exposure, and motivated reasoning all may render fact-checks ineffective. Fur…
Factual Corrections Eliminate False Beliefs About Covid-19 Vaccines
The spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines threatens to prolong the pandemic, with prior evidence indicating that exposure to misinformation has negative effects on intent to be vaccinated. We describe results from randomized experiments in the United States (n = 5,075) that allow us to measure the effects of factual corrections on false beliefs about the vaccine and vaccination intent. Our evidence makes clear that corrections eliminat…
Placebo Selection in Survey Experiments
Although placebo conditions are ubiquitous in survey experiments, little evidence guides common practices for their use and selection. How should scholars choose and construct placebos? First, we review the role of placebos in published survey experiments, finding that placebos are used inconsistently. Then, drawing on the medical literature, we clarify the role that placebos play in accounting for nonspecific effects (NSEs), or the effects of an…
Elite rhetoric can undermine democratic norms
Significance Democracies depend on candidates and parties affirming the legitimacy of election results even when they lose. These statements help maintain confidence that elections are free and fair and thereby facilitate the peaceful transfer of power. However, this norm has recently been challenged in the United States, where former president Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the integrity of the 2020 US election. We evaluate the effect of t…
The global effectiveness of fact-checking
Significance Little evidence exists on the global effectiveness, or lack thereof, of potential solutions to misinformation. We conducted simultaneous experiments in four countries to investigate the extent to which fact-checking can reduce false beliefs. Fact-checks reduced false beliefs in all countries, with most effects detectable more than 2 wk later and with surprisingly little variation by country. Our evidence underscores that fact-checkin…
Why Public Sector Union Members Support Their Unions
Despite their decline, unions, and especially public sector unions, remain important civic and economic associations. Yet, we lack an understanding of why public sector union members voluntarily support unions. We report on a field experiment conducted during a 2017 Iowa teachers union recertification election. We randomly assigned union members to receive emails describing union benefits and measured effects on turnout effort (N = 10,461). Membe…
Analogic Perspective-Taking and Attitudes Toward Political Organizations
Attitudes toward social out-groups can be improved through “analogic perspective-taking,” whereby respondents are encouraged to use an analogy to take the perspective of the group. It is unclear, however, whether analogic perspective-taking can improve attitudes toward political organizations; how perspective-taking fares compared to the provision of narrative alone; and the limits of the attitude changes it creates. We report results from an exp…
Can the Political Ambition of Young Women Be Increased? Evidence from U.S. High School Students
The under-representation of women in American politics can likely be explained, at least in part, by women’s comparatively lower levels of political ambition. We analyze a co-ed, religious program for high school students in which participants lobby their Members of Congress and receive political skills training. By leveraging longitudinal survey data about the participants and a difference-indifferences design, we find that the program successfu…
Correcting Bias in Perceptions of Public Opinion Among American Elected Officials
While concerns about the public's receptivity to factual information are widespread, much less attention has been paid to the factual receptivity, or lack thereof, of elected officials. Recent survey research has made clear that US legislators and legislative staff systematically misperceive their constituents' opinions on salient public policies. This study reports the results from two field experiments designed to correct misperceptions of sitt…
Measuring the predictability of life outcomes with a scientific mass collaboration
How predictable are life trajectories? We investigated this question with a scientific mass collaboration using the common task method; 160 teams built predictive models for six life outcomes using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a high-quality birth cohort study. Despite using a rich dataset and applying machine-learning methods optimized for prediction, the best predictions were not very accurate and were only slightly…
Consumer Citizen
Taking Fact-Checks Literally But Not Seriously? The Effects of Journalistic Fact-Checking on Factual Beliefs and Candidate Favorability
False Alarm
Americans are not invulnerable to factual information. They do not 'backfire'; facts do not make them less accurate. Instead, they become more accurate, even when corrections target co-partisans. Corrections of fake news yield similar results. Among Republicans, Trump's misstatements are less susceptible to corrections than identical misstatements attributed to other Republicans. While we do not observe facts affecting attitudes, multiple instanc…
Aligning taxes and spending
Under what circumstances will members of the public hold positive attitudes toward new or higher taxes? While some scholars have posited that the practice of “earmarking” – designating tax revenues for a particular purpose – can increase support for taxes, the existing literature has not identified the conditions under which earmarking will prove effective in this regard. Here, we draw upon previous research on consumer behavior to hypothesize th…
Can presidential misinformation on climate change be corrected? Evidence from Internet and phone experiments
Can presidential misinformation affect political knowledge and policy views of the mass public, even when that misinformation is followed by a fact-check? We present results from two experiments, conducted online and over the telephone, in which respondents were presented with Trump misstatements on climate change. While Trump’s misstatements on their own reduced factual accuracy, corrections prompted the average subject to become more accurate. …
The Elusive Backfire Effect
Taking Fact-Checks Literally But Not Seriously? The Effects of Journalistic Fact-Checking on Factual Beliefs and Candidate Favorability
Partisanship, Bureaucratic Responsiveness, and Election Administration
Though political candidates, observers, and voters often express concern about partisan meddling in supposedly neutral elections, existing research has not directly studied partisan bias among election administrators. We report results from a field experiment conducted in Wisconsin during the 2014 general election. Local election clerks were sent an information request from a putative constituent, randomizing the sender's partisanship. Our findin…
Correcting Bias in Perceptions of Public Opinion Among American Elected Officials
While concerns about the public's receptivity to factual information are widespread, much less attention has been paid to the factual receptivity, or lack thereof, of elected officials. Recent survey research has made clear that US legislators and legislative staff systematically misperceive their constituents' opinions on salient public policies. This study reports the results from two field experiments designed to correct misperceptions of sitt…
Conceptual Replication of Four Key Findings about Factual Corrections and Misinformation during the 2020 US Election
In the final two months of the 2020 US election, we conducted eight panel experiments to evaluate the immediate and medium-term effects of misinformation and factual corrections. Our results corroborate four sets of existing findings: fact-checks reliably improve factual accuracy, while misinformation degrades it; effects of fact-checks on belief accuracy endure, though they fade with time; effects on attitudes are minuscule; and there are import…
Placebo Selection in Survey Experiments
Although placebo conditions are ubiquitous in survey experiments, little evidence guides common practices for their use and selection. How should scholars choose and construct placebos? First, we review the role of placebos in published survey experiments, finding that placebos are used inconsistently. Then, drawing on the medical literature, we clarify the role that placebos play in accounting for nonspecific effects (NSEs), or the effects of an…
Latino-Targeted Misinformation and the Power of Factual Corrections
Do individual, interpersonal, or institutional factors condition the effects of misinformation on beliefs? Can interventions such as fact checks stem the tide of the "infodemic" within marginalized communities? We explore the sudden flood of misinformation and disinformation targeting Latinos during the 2020 election and global COVID-19 pandemic to answer these questions. In a preregistered experiment, we find that exposure to misinformation can …
Political Misinformation and Factual Corrections on the Facebook News Feed
As concerns about the spread of political misinformation have mounted, scholars have found that fact-checks can reduce the extent to which people believe misinformation. Whether this finding extends to social media is unclear. Social media is a high-choice environment in which the cognitive effort required to separate truth from fiction, individuals' penchant for select exposure, and motivated reasoning all may render fact-checks ineffective. Fur…
Does digital advertising affect vote choice? Evidence from a randomized field experiment
Despite the increasing sums devoted to online political advertising, our understanding of the persuasive effects of such advertising is limited. We report the results of a ZIP code level randomized field experiment conducted over Facebook and Instagram during the 2018 U.S. midterm elections in Florida. The ads, produced by a Democratic-leaning political action committee, were designed to spur Democratic vote share and were seen more than 1.1 mill…
Can presidential misinformation on climate change be corrected? Evidence from Internet and phone experiments
Can presidential misinformation affect political knowledge and policy views of the mass public, even when that misinformation is followed by a fact-check? We present results from two experiments, conducted online and over the telephone, in which respondents were presented with Trump misstatements on climate change. While Trump’s misstatements on their own reduced factual accuracy, corrections prompted the average subject to become more accurate. …
Information, Knowledge, and Attitudes
To better understand the relationship between information and political knowledge, we evaluate an ambitious government initiative: the nationwide dissemination of “taxpayer receipts,” or personalized, itemized accounts of government spending, by the UK government in fall 2014. In coordination with the British tax authorities, we embedded a survey experiment in a nationally representative panel. We find that citizens became more knowledgeable abou…
Race, Interracial Families, and Political Advertising in the Obama Era
Across two studies of race and interracial families in political advertising, this article finds that significant benefits accrue to Black candidates who present themselves as part of interracial families. These findings suggest Black candidates are more likely to succeed when they engage in displays of "racial novelty," or counter-stereotypical behavior, provided that behavior signals closer affinity to White voters. For Study 1, we tested four …
Factual Corrections Eliminate False Beliefs About Covid-19 Vaccines
The spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines threatens to prolong the pandemic, with prior evidence indicating that exposure to misinformation has negative effects on intent to be vaccinated. We describe results from randomized experiments in the United States (n = 5,075) that allow us to measure the effects of factual corrections on false beliefs about the vaccine and vaccination intent. Our evidence makes clear that corrections eliminat…
The public's dilemma
This paper explores perceptions of the killings of African-Americans by police officers. We show how characteristics of the victim, officer and surrounding environment, as well as political cues, shape such perceptions. In the first study, we employ a conjoint survey experiment, wherein subjects are exposed to descriptions of hypothetical police killings. Focusing on subjects who score high on the Symbolic Racism Scale (SRS), we identify what lea…
Can the Political Ambition of Young Women Be Increased? Evidence from U.S. High School Students
The under-representation of women in American politics can likely be explained, at least in part, by women’s comparatively lower levels of political ambition. We analyze a co-ed, religious program for high school students in which participants lobby their Members of Congress and receive political skills training. By leveraging longitudinal survey data about the participants and a difference-indifferences design, we find that the program successfu…
Identifying Media Effects Through Low-Cost, Multiwave Field Experiments
Field experiments are notoriously difficult to implement when studying media effects. They are often prohibitively expensive, require the cooperation of a nonacademic entity, and measure effects some time after exposure to treatment. In this article, we outline a design for low-cost, multiwave field experiments of media effects. Researchers can implement this design on their own and can control the timing of when they measure effects. We demonstr…
Sex Trafficking, Russian Infiltration, Birth Certificates, and Pedophilia
Following the 2016 U.S. election, researchers and policymakers have become intensely concerned about the dissemination of “fake news,” or false news stories in circulation (Lazer et al., 2017). Research indicates that fake news is shared widely and has a pro-Republican tilt (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017). Facebook now flags dubious stories as disputed and tries to block fake news publishers (Mosseri, 2016). While the typical misstatements of politi…
Increasing Demand for Fact-Checking
Analogic Perspective-Taking and Attitudes Toward Political Organizations
Attitudes toward social out-groups can be improved through “analogic perspective-taking,” whereby respondents are encouraged to use an analogy to take the perspective of the group. It is unclear, however, whether analogic perspective-taking can improve attitudes toward political organizations; how perspective-taking fares compared to the provision of narrative alone; and the limits of the attitude changes it creates. We report results from an exp…
Race, Interracial Families, and Political Advertising in the Obama Era
Across two studies of race and interracial families in political advertising, this article finds that significant benefits accrue to Black candidates who present themselves as part of interracial families. These findings suggest Black candidates are more likely to succeed when they engage in displays of "racial novelty," or counter-stereotypical behavior, provided that behavior signals closer affinity to White voters. For Study 1, we tested four …
The public's dilemma
This paper explores perceptions of the killings of African-Americans by police officers. We show how characteristics of the victim, officer and surrounding environment, as well as political cues, shape such perceptions. In the first study, we employ a conjoint survey experiment, wherein subjects are exposed to descriptions of hypothetical police killings. Focusing on subjects who score high on the Symbolic Racism Scale (SRS), we identify what lea…
Sex Trafficking, Russian Infiltration, Birth Certificates, and Pedophilia
Following the 2016 U.S. election, researchers and policymakers have become intensely concerned about the dissemination of “fake news,” or false news stories in circulation (Lazer et al., 2017). Research indicates that fake news is shared widely and has a pro-Republican tilt (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017). Facebook now flags dubious stories as disputed and tries to block fake news publishers (Mosseri, 2016). While the typical misstatements of politi…
Information, Knowledge, and Attitudes
To better understand the relationship between information and political knowledge, we evaluate an ambitious government initiative: the nationwide dissemination of “taxpayer receipts,” or personalized, itemized accounts of government spending, by the UK government in fall 2014. In coordination with the British tax authorities, we embedded a survey experiment in a nationally representative panel. We find that citizens became more knowledgeable abou…
Partisanship, Bureaucratic Responsiveness, and Election Administration
Though political candidates, observers, and voters often express concern about partisan meddling in supposedly neutral elections, existing research has not directly studied partisan bias among election administrators. We report results from a field experiment conducted in Wisconsin during the 2014 general election. Local election clerks were sent an information request from a putative constituent, randomizing the sender's partisanship. Our findin…
False Alarm
Americans are not invulnerable to factual information. They do not 'backfire'; facts do not make them less accurate. Instead, they become more accurate, even when corrections target co-partisans. Corrections of fake news yield similar results. Among Republicans, Trump's misstatements are less susceptible to corrections than identical misstatements attributed to other Republicans. While we do not observe facts affecting attitudes, multiple instanc…
Aligning taxes and spending
Under what circumstances will members of the public hold positive attitudes toward new or higher taxes? While some scholars have posited that the practice of “earmarking” – designating tax revenues for a particular purpose – can increase support for taxes, the existing literature has not identified the conditions under which earmarking will prove effective in this regard. Here, we draw upon previous research on consumer behavior to hypothesize th…
Can presidential misinformation on climate change be corrected? Evidence from Internet and phone experiments
Can presidential misinformation affect political knowledge and policy views of the mass public, even when that misinformation is followed by a fact-check? We present results from two experiments, conducted online and over the telephone, in which respondents were presented with Trump misstatements on climate change. While Trump’s misstatements on their own reduced factual accuracy, corrections prompted the average subject to become more accurate. …
Withdrawn
Identifying Media Effects Through Low-Cost, Multiwave Field Experiments
Field experiments are notoriously difficult to implement when studying media effects. They are often prohibitively expensive, require the cooperation of a nonacademic entity, and measure effects some time after exposure to treatment. In this article, we outline a design for low-cost, multiwave field experiments of media effects. Researchers can implement this design on their own and can control the timing of when they measure effects. We demonstr…
The Elusive Backfire Effect
Measuring the predictability of life outcomes with a scientific mass collaboration
How predictable are life trajectories? We investigated this question with a scientific mass collaboration using the common task method; 160 teams built predictive models for six life outcomes using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a high-quality birth cohort study. Despite using a rich dataset and applying machine-learning methods optimized for prediction, the best predictions were not very accurate and were only slightly…
Consumer Citizen
Taking Fact-Checks Literally But Not Seriously? The Effects of Journalistic Fact-Checking on Factual Beliefs and Candidate Favorability
Elite rhetoric can undermine democratic norms
Significance Democracies depend on candidates and parties affirming the legitimacy of election results even when they lose. These statements help maintain confidence that elections are free and fair and thereby facilitate the peaceful transfer of power. However, this norm has recently been challenged in the United States, where former president Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the integrity of the 2020 US election. We evaluate the effect of t…
The global effectiveness of fact-checking
Significance Little evidence exists on the global effectiveness, or lack thereof, of potential solutions to misinformation. We conducted simultaneous experiments in four countries to investigate the extent to which fact-checking can reduce false beliefs. Fact-checks reduced false beliefs in all countries, with most effects detectable more than 2 wk later and with surprisingly little variation by country. Our evidence underscores that fact-checkin…
Why Public Sector Union Members Support Their Unions
Despite their decline, unions, and especially public sector unions, remain important civic and economic associations. Yet, we lack an understanding of why public sector union members voluntarily support unions. We report on a field experiment conducted during a 2017 Iowa teachers union recertification election. We randomly assigned union members to receive emails describing union benefits and measured effects on turnout effort (N = 10,461). Membe…
Analogic Perspective-Taking and Attitudes Toward Political Organizations
Attitudes toward social out-groups can be improved through “analogic perspective-taking,” whereby respondents are encouraged to use an analogy to take the perspective of the group. It is unclear, however, whether analogic perspective-taking can improve attitudes toward political organizations; how perspective-taking fares compared to the provision of narrative alone; and the limits of the attitude changes it creates. We report results from an exp…
Can the Political Ambition of Young Women Be Increased? Evidence from U.S. High School Students
The under-representation of women in American politics can likely be explained, at least in part, by women’s comparatively lower levels of political ambition. We analyze a co-ed, religious program for high school students in which participants lobby their Members of Congress and receive political skills training. By leveraging longitudinal survey data about the participants and a difference-indifferences design, we find that the program successfu…
Correcting Bias in Perceptions of Public Opinion Among American Elected Officials
While concerns about the public's receptivity to factual information are widespread, much less attention has been paid to the factual receptivity, or lack thereof, of elected officials. Recent survey research has made clear that US legislators and legislative staff systematically misperceive their constituents' opinions on salient public policies. This study reports the results from two field experiments designed to correct misperceptions of sitt…
Does digital advertising affect vote choice? Evidence from a randomized field experiment
Despite the increasing sums devoted to online political advertising, our understanding of the persuasive effects of such advertising is limited. We report the results of a ZIP code level randomized field experiment conducted over Facebook and Instagram during the 2018 U.S. midterm elections in Florida. The ads, produced by a Democratic-leaning political action committee, were designed to spur Democratic vote share and were seen more than 1.1 mill…
Political Misinformation and Factual Corrections on the Facebook News Feed
As concerns about the spread of political misinformation have mounted, scholars have found that fact-checks can reduce the extent to which people believe misinformation. Whether this finding extends to social media is unclear. Social media is a high-choice environment in which the cognitive effort required to separate truth from fiction, individuals' penchant for select exposure, and motivated reasoning all may render fact-checks ineffective. Fur…
Factual Corrections Eliminate False Beliefs About Covid-19 Vaccines
The spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines threatens to prolong the pandemic, with prior evidence indicating that exposure to misinformation has negative effects on intent to be vaccinated. We describe results from randomized experiments in the United States (n = 5,075) that allow us to measure the effects of factual corrections on false beliefs about the vaccine and vaccination intent. Our evidence makes clear that corrections eliminat…
Placebo Selection in Survey Experiments
Although placebo conditions are ubiquitous in survey experiments, little evidence guides common practices for their use and selection. How should scholars choose and construct placebos? First, we review the role of placebos in published survey experiments, finding that placebos are used inconsistently. Then, drawing on the medical literature, we clarify the role that placebos play in accounting for nonspecific effects (NSEs), or the effects of an…
Combating Hateful Attitudes and Online Browsing Behavior
This study adds to the analogic perspective-taking literature by examining whether an online perspective-taking intervention affects both antisemitic attitudes and behaviors – in particular, engagement with antisemitic websites. Subjects who were randomly assigned to the treatment viewed a 90-s video of a college student describing an experience with antisemitism and reflected on its similarity to their own experiences. In a survey, treated subje…
Political science (23 works) · Politics (20 works) · Psychology (20 works) · Law (16 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (13 works) · Media Influence and Politics (13 works) · Social Psychology (13 works)