Mark R Joslyn
Biographic Data
| ID | 341444 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark R Joslyn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark R |
| FAMILY NAME | Joslyn |
| SIGNATURE | JOSLYN M R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kansas |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7172-3124 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 754 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Gun Ownership: The Bridge Between Rural and Urban Voters in 2020
Objective This article examines whether gun ownership can mitigate the impact of place‐based identities on voter choice. Methods The analysis is conducted using 2020 American National Election Studies data. Multivariate logistic regressions investigate the direct effects of gun ownership, place of residence—rural to urban, and the interaction between the two variables on voter choice. Results As in previous studies, the main effects of gun owners…
Conspiracy believers perceive an ideological match with their party
Research demonstrates conspiracy endorsement arises from a strong motivation to preserve beliefs. This same motive is implicated in political projection—the degree to which political judgments about groups are anchored on the self. This paper is the first to test the hypothesis that conspiracy endorsement regulates the magnitude of in-group projection. Empirical evidence from the 2012, 2016 American National Election Surveys is presented. Across …
Intersectionality in Action: Gun Ownership and Women's Political Participation
Objective We hypothesize that gun ownership among women is an important determinant of political engagement. Methods First, using 2013 Pew Research Center data, we examine different types of political participation concerning gun policy. Next, we examine data from a survey experiment embedded in a unique June 2017 national survey of nearly 900 gun owners. Finally, we analyze 2016 American National Election Studies data of behavioral and cognitive…
The Determinants and Consequences of Accurate Beliefs About Childhood Vaccinations
In this article, we examine the individual predictors that are responsible for accurate beliefs about the link between vaccinations and autism. We then show how these beliefs affect policy preferences about vaccines. We derive two hypotheses from motivated reasoning theory and test these on national survey data from Gallup and CBS News. Republicans were less likely to report accurate beliefs than Democrats. In addition, educational attainment mod…
Perceived causes of obesity, emotions, and attitudes about Discrimination Policy
The direct and moderating effects of mass shooting anxiety on political and policy attitudes
In this article, we examine the effects of individual anxiety after the 2016 Orlando, Florida, mass shooting, which killed 49 people and wounded 58 others. Similar to prior research on the influence of anxiety, after the Orlando shooting anxious citizens supported policies and institutions perceived as protective and capable of minimizing future risks. In addition, anxiety counteracted ideology. Anxious citizens largely abandoned ideological proc…
Motivated Innumeracy: Estimating the Size of the Gun Owner Population and Its Consequences for Opposition to Gun Restrictions
Past research suggests that people substantially overestimate the size of minority populations. Labeled “innumeracy,” inflated estimates of minority populations can have a negative impact on intergroup relations and influence policy attitudes toward minority groups. Our research examines people’s estimates of the gun owner population in the United States. We discover that people vastly overestimate gun ownership and similarly misjudge its future …
Distance traveled to polling locations: Are travel costs imposed equally on party members
Previous studies show that geographical distance to polling locations represents a genuine cost of political participation and influences voter turnout. Here we examine whether travel costs are equally distributed across party members and do not manifest themselves randomly
Nanny State” Politics: Causal Attributions About Obesity and Support for Regulation
We posit that individuals develop causal stories to explain the world around them, including events, behaviors, and conditions in society. These are narratives that attribute causes to controllable components, such as individual choices, or uncontrollable components, such as broader forces in the environment. We use attribution theory to understand how group identity and individual characteristics may shape causal attributions about obesity. Base…
Not Threat, But Threatening: Potential Causes and Consequences of Gay Innumeracy
Existing literature on numeracy suggests that people are likely to perceive outgroups as larger if the group is perceived as threatening. However, some studies also suggest that numeracy is a function of wishful thinking or even a lack of political knowledge. We engage the literature on numeracy of the gay and lesbian population by employing data from 1977 and 2013 surveys of American adults. We examine the factors that are associated with estima…
Looters or political protesters? Attributions for civil unrest in American cities
Gun Ownership and Self‐Serving Attributions for Mass Shooting Tragedies
Objective Individuals develop causal narratives that help explain events, behaviors, and conditions. Individuals ascribe events and behaviors to controllable components, such as individual choice, or uncontrollable components, such as broader forces in the environment. We join attribution theory with motivated reasoning and outline how gun ownership structures perceptions of mass shootings and subsequent blame. Methods Using individual‐level data…
Emerging Political Identities? Gun Ownership and Voting in Presidential Elections
Objectives The attitudes of gun owners and nongun owners appear more polarized in the last two decades. We posit that divisions between gun owners and nongun owners reflect emerging political identities, especially among gun owners. Methods Using data from the General Social Survey (1972–2012) we examine if and when this gun ownership divergence began to shape the political behavior of the two groups by analyzing voting patterns in presidential e…
Genetic Attributions, Immutability, and Stereotypical Judgments: An Analysis of Homosexuality
Objectives Individuals employ causal reasoning to explain the world around them, including political events, group behavior, and conditions in society. People may attribute causes of behavior to controllable components, such as individual choices, or uncontrollable elements, such as broader forces in the environment. To this, we add biological or genetic attributions that have received increasing attention. Broadly, we argue that people's underst…
Who Knows Best? Education, Partisanship, and Contested Facts
An alert, informed electorate is considered vital to a robust democracy, and the main path to that electorate includes formal education. The educated citizen is politically attentive, knowledgeable, and participatory, and the uneducated citizen is not. However, this fact conceals a less favorable effect of education. Educated citizens possess the cognitive skills to reject facts inconsistent with prior dispositions. And educated citizens are amon…
The Determinants of Salience of Energy Issues
Studies show that salience of an issue influences the behavior of political elites, policy responses, and the attitudes of the public. Yet while the effects of salience are given considerable attention, less is known about the factors that produce salience. Specifically, what are the determinants of an issue's salience? We examine salience of energy issues in the U nited S tates over the past six decades and make two contributions. First, we prov…
Politicizing biology: Social movements, parties, and the case of homosexuality
We offer an expanded version of attribution theory that incorporates macro- and micro-elements. We then use this theory on a test case and propose an explanation of how individual beliefs about the origins of homosexuality have changed over time and become polarized along partisan lines. We argue that attributions on the origins of homosexuality have been shaped over time by the emergence of a macro-level debate about gay civil rights policy, the…
The Politics of Causes: Mass Shootings and the Cases of the Virginia Tech and Tucson Tragedies
Objective We employ theories of causal reasoning to understand attributions about the 2007 Virginia Tech and 2011 Tucson shootings. We argue that attributions stem from two motives: (1) a partisan motivation to perceive events consistent with party attachments, and (2) a drive to minimize the cognitive burdens associated with extensive reasoning processes. The latter motive is expected to produce a fundamental attribution bias: the least educated…
Culture, Segregation, and Tolerance in Urban America
Objective. The objective of this article is to examine whether racial tolerance attitudes are influenced by the character of the urban subculture in which individuals live. Specifically, is there a significant association between Florida's (2002) concept of creative class and racial tolerance among white survey respondents? Methods. The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey that comprises respondents across some 27 cities provides the data fo…
Pulpits Versus Ivory Towers: Socializing Agents and Evolution Attitudes
Objective. Although debate concerning the theory of evolution is part of an ongoing U.S. dialogue over the proper role of religion in society, academics have provided little in the way of systematic understanding of public opinion on this issue. Important questions, such as the relative influence of socializing agents—religion and education—in shaping attitudes on evolution remain unanswered. Building on socialization and cognitive accessibility …
Beliefs About the Origins of Homosexuality and Support For Gay Rights: An Empirical Test of Attribution Theory
Journal Article Beliefs About the Origins of Homosexuality and Support For Gay Rights: An Empirical Test of Attribution Theory Get access Donald P. Haider-Markel, Donald P. Haider-Markel Address correspondence to Donald P. Haider-Markel; e-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Mark R. Joslyn Mark R. Joslyn Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Q…
Sociotropic Concerns and Support for Counterterrorism Policies
Objective. An individual's personal experiences and perception of the collective experience are often linked to political attitudes, especially those concerning the national economy. In this article, we examine whether personal concern about terrorism and perceptions of public concern about terrorism affect attitudes about counterterrorism policies. In addition, we evaluate which factor is the strongest predictor across several counterterrorism p…
Should We Really “Kill” the Messenger? Framing Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Role of Messengers
Undoubtedly, framing political issues is an effective means of influencing the distribution of opinion. But while most studies have shown the effectiveness of alternative issue frames on opinion, they largely ignore the role of the messenger. Our research examines whether message content or messengers are more important in influencing opinion. Four experimental conditions and a control were embedded in a statewide survey, allowing an explicit com…
Can We Frame the Terrorist Threat? Issue Frames, the Perception of Threat, and Opinions on Counterterrorism Policies
In political disputes, issue frames set parameters for debate and shape which view dominates. This study expands issue framing research to examine the influence of frames on the perception of future terrorist threats as well as subsequent support for related counterterrorism policies. We test several hypotheses using data from an experimental field poll. We find that issue frames clearly influence perceptions of threat. However, our frames, which…
Attributions and the Regulation of Marriage: Considering the Parallels Between Race and Homosexuality
Few would dispute that religion has played a fundamental role in shaping our understanding of human relationships, including marriage, and what types of relationships are permitted. However, science, especially biology, has also played an important role in government regulation of marriage (Bittles and Neel 1994; Ottenheimer 1990; Dupuis 2002; Ellison 2004; Strasser 2002). A cursory overview of government regulations of marriage reveals laws that…
Gun Policy, Opinion, Tragedy, and Blame Attribution: The Conditional Influence of Issue Frames
This is the publisher's version, which is also available electronically from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00077
Beliefs About the Origins of Homosexuality and Support For Gay Rights: An Empirical Test of Attribution Theory
Journal Article Beliefs About the Origins of Homosexuality and Support For Gay Rights: An Empirical Test of Attribution Theory Get access Donald P. Haider-Markel, Donald P. Haider-Markel Address correspondence to Donald P. Haider-Markel; e-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Mark R. Joslyn Mark R. Joslyn Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Q…
The Extensiveness of Group Membership and Social Capital: The Impact on Political Tolerance Attitudes
This article examines the relationship between membership in voluntary associations and political tolerance attitudes. Though the extensive literature on social capital posits a relationship between group involvement and political tolerance, empirical scrutiny of this proposition has yet to emerge. Specifically, we hypothesize that group membership-its extensiveness across a variety of different associational sectors, and the type of group affili…
Cognitive Dissonance and Post‐Decision Attitude Change in Six Presidential Elections
Data from the National Election Studies were examined in an effort to isolate cognitive dissonance of two kinds: dissonance arising from a behavioral commitment in the form of voting, and dissonance arising from inconsistencies associated with having supported the losing candidate. Feeling thermometer ratings of the two principal presidential candidates obtained before and immediately after six elections (1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996) w…
Emerging Political Identities? Gun Ownership and Voting in Presidential Elections
Objectives The attitudes of gun owners and nongun owners appear more polarized in the last two decades. We posit that divisions between gun owners and nongun owners reflect emerging political identities, especially among gun owners. Methods Using data from the General Social Survey (1972–2012) we examine if and when this gun ownership divergence began to shape the political behavior of the two groups by analyzing voting patterns in presidential e…
Minority Group Interests and Political Representation: Gay Elected Officials in the Policy Process
This is the publisher's version, which is also available electronically from http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00026
Attributions and the Regulation of Marriage: Considering the Parallels Between Race and Homosexuality
Few would dispute that religion has played a fundamental role in shaping our understanding of human relationships, including marriage, and what types of relationships are permitted. However, science, especially biology, has also played an important role in government regulation of marriage (Bittles and Neel 1994; Ottenheimer 1990; Dupuis 2002; Ellison 2004; Strasser 2002). A cursory overview of government regulations of marriage reveals laws that…
The Determinants and Consequences of Accurate Beliefs About Childhood Vaccinations
In this article, we examine the individual predictors that are responsible for accurate beliefs about the link between vaccinations and autism. We then show how these beliefs affect policy preferences about vaccines. We derive two hypotheses from motivated reasoning theory and test these on national survey data from Gallup and CBS News. Republicans were less likely to report accurate beliefs than Democrats. In addition, educational attainment mod…
Gun Ownership and Self‐Serving Attributions for Mass Shooting Tragedies
Objective Individuals develop causal narratives that help explain events, behaviors, and conditions. Individuals ascribe events and behaviors to controllable components, such as individual choice, or uncontrollable components, such as broader forces in the environment. We join attribution theory with motivated reasoning and outline how gun ownership structures perceptions of mass shootings and subsequent blame. Methods Using individual‐level data…
Politicizing biology: Social movements, parties, and the case of homosexuality
We offer an expanded version of attribution theory that incorporates macro- and micro-elements. We then use this theory on a test case and propose an explanation of how individual beliefs about the origins of homosexuality have changed over time and become polarized along partisan lines. We argue that attributions on the origins of homosexuality have been shaped over time by the emergence of a macro-level debate about gay civil rights policy, the…
Intersectionality in Action: Gun Ownership and Women's Political Participation
Objective We hypothesize that gun ownership among women is an important determinant of political engagement. Methods First, using 2013 Pew Research Center data, we examine different types of political participation concerning gun policy. Next, we examine data from a survey experiment embedded in a unique June 2017 national survey of nearly 900 gun owners. Finally, we analyze 2016 American National Election Studies data of behavioral and cognitive…
The direct and moderating effects of mass shooting anxiety on political and policy attitudes
In this article, we examine the effects of individual anxiety after the 2016 Orlando, Florida, mass shooting, which killed 49 people and wounded 58 others. Similar to prior research on the influence of anxiety, after the Orlando shooting anxious citizens supported policies and institutions perceived as protective and capable of minimizing future risks. In addition, anxiety counteracted ideology. Anxious citizens largely abandoned ideological proc…
Should We Really “Kill” the Messenger? Framing Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Role of Messengers
Undoubtedly, framing political issues is an effective means of influencing the distribution of opinion. But while most studies have shown the effectiveness of alternative issue frames on opinion, they largely ignore the role of the messenger. Our research examines whether message content or messengers are more important in influencing opinion. Four experimental conditions and a control were embedded in a statewide survey, allowing an explicit com…
Attentiveness to television news and opinion change in the fall 1992 presidential campaign
Who Knows Best? Education, Partisanship, and Contested Facts
An alert, informed electorate is considered vital to a robust democracy, and the main path to that electorate includes formal education. The educated citizen is politically attentive, knowledgeable, and participatory, and the uneducated citizen is not. However, this fact conceals a less favorable effect of education. Educated citizens possess the cognitive skills to reject facts inconsistent with prior dispositions. And educated citizens are amon…
Framing Effects on Personal Opinion and Perception of Public Opinion: The Cases of Physician–Assisted Suicide and Social Security
Objective . A growing body of literature on issue framing has demonstrated the conditional influence of issue frames on self–reported opinion. The effects of frames are conditioned by message content, the medium of communication, and the predispositions of respondents. However, the literature has yet to explore the influence of issue frames on respondents’ perceptions of public opinion. We draw from the psychological literatures on cognitive acce…
Trickle Up Political Socialization: The Impact of Kids Voting USA on Voter Turnout in Kansas
Can a school curriculum influence the political socialization of students? And if so, can such socialization “trickle up” to influence the political socialization of these students' parents? We examine the effects of Kids Voting USA in Kansas to answer these questions. By the 1996 presidential election, Kids Voting was implemented in several Kansas counties. Consequently, we are able to compare turnout—and change in turnout across different elect…
The Politics of Causes: Mass Shootings and the Cases of the Virginia Tech and Tucson Tragedies
Objective We employ theories of causal reasoning to understand attributions about the 2007 Virginia Tech and 2011 Tucson shootings. We argue that attributions stem from two motives: (1) a partisan motivation to perceive events consistent with party attachments, and (2) a drive to minimize the cognitive burdens associated with extensive reasoning processes. The latter motive is expected to produce a fundamental attribution bias: the least educated…
Pulpits Versus Ivory Towers: Socializing Agents and Evolution Attitudes
Objective. Although debate concerning the theory of evolution is part of an ongoing U.S. dialogue over the proper role of religion in society, academics have provided little in the way of systematic understanding of public opinion on this issue. Important questions, such as the relative influence of socializing agents—religion and education—in shaping attitudes on evolution remain unanswered. Building on socialization and cognitive accessibility …
Sociotropic Concerns and Support for Counterterrorism Policies
Objective. An individual's personal experiences and perception of the collective experience are often linked to political attitudes, especially those concerning the national economy. In this article, we examine whether personal concern about terrorism and perceptions of public concern about terrorism affect attitudes about counterterrorism policies. In addition, we evaluate which factor is the strongest predictor across several counterterrorism p…
Individual and Contextual Effects on Attributions about Pornography
This article focuses on individuals' willingness to attribute rape effects to pornography. Using General Social Survey data from 1975 and 1986, the paper examines (1) the attitudinal and experiential variables that shape acceptance of this causal attribution; (2) the impact of elite-level efforts to reframe the pornography issue to incorporate this causal attribution; and (3) interaction effects. The analysis shows the following: 1. Both experien…
The Determinants of Salience of Energy Issues
Studies show that salience of an issue influences the behavior of political elites, policy responses, and the attitudes of the public. Yet while the effects of salience are given considerable attention, less is known about the factors that produce salience. Specifically, what are the determinants of an issue's salience? We examine salience of energy issues in the U nited S tates over the past six decades and make two contributions. First, we prov…
Culture, Segregation, and Tolerance in Urban America
Objective. The objective of this article is to examine whether racial tolerance attitudes are influenced by the character of the urban subculture in which individuals live. Specifically, is there a significant association between Florida's (2002) concept of creative class and racial tolerance among white survey respondents? Methods. The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey that comprises respondents across some 27 cities provides the data fo…
The Determinants and Consequences of Recall Error About Gulf War Preferences
Memory plays a key role in many theories of politics, yet the determinants of inaccurate political memories have not been the subject of much investigation. Combining a dosage‐resistance theory of political communications with a theory of memory lapse and reconstruction, it is predicted that a clearly identifiable cluster of traits ought to render people vulnerable to inaccurate autobiographical memory. Testing this hypothesis with ANES 1990–1992…
The Public Nature of Personal Opinion: The Impact of Collective Sentiment on Individual Appraisal
Candid Ate Evaluations and the Use of Consensus Information: Differental Reliance on Self-Monitoring Propensity
Broadly, the task of this paper is to examine the connection between social and individual opinion. More specifically, does consensus information, as manifested in the relative attractiveness of candidate appearances, affect candidate evaluations? If so, are differences significant, and are all individuals equally affected? By employing an experimental design and incorporating the personality construct of self-monitoring, I find that significant …
Attentiveness to television news and opinion change in the fall 1992 presidential campaign
The Public Nature of Personal Opinion: The Impact of Collective Sentiment on Individual Appraisal
Minority Group Interests and Political Representation: Gay Elected Officials in the Policy Process
This is the publisher's version, which is also available electronically from http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00026
Group Involvement and Democratic Orientations: Social Capital in the Postelection Context
Objective . This article tests the relationship between involvement in voluntary associations and attitudinal changes considered supportive of democratic principles and system legitimacy. Methods . We utilize 1996 pre‐ and postelection American National Election Studies panel data to test the proposed relationship. The effects of reported levels of group involvement are examined across three attitudinal measures of democratic support: trust in go…
Individual and Contextual Effects on Attributions about Pornography
This article focuses on individuals' willingness to attribute rape effects to pornography. Using General Social Survey data from 1975 and 1986, the paper examines (1) the attitudinal and experiential variables that shape acceptance of this causal attribution; (2) the impact of elite-level efforts to reframe the pornography issue to incorporate this causal attribution; and (3) interaction effects. The analysis shows the following: 1. Both experien…
Gun Policy, Opinion, Tragedy, and Blame Attribution: The Conditional Influence of Issue Frames
This is the publisher's version, which is also available electronically from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00077
Cognitive Dissonance and Post‐Decision Attitude Change in Six Presidential Elections
Data from the National Election Studies were examined in an effort to isolate cognitive dissonance of two kinds: dissonance arising from a behavioral commitment in the form of voting, and dissonance arising from inconsistencies associated with having supported the losing candidate. Feeling thermometer ratings of the two principal presidential candidates obtained before and immediately after six elections (1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996) w…
The Extensiveness of Group Membership and Social Capital: The Impact on Political Tolerance Attitudes
Framing Effects on Personal Opinion and Perception of Public Opinion: The Cases of Physician–Assisted Suicide and Social Security
Objective . A growing body of literature on issue framing has demonstrated the conditional influence of issue frames on self–reported opinion. The effects of frames are conditioned by message content, the medium of communication, and the predispositions of respondents. However, the literature has yet to explore the influence of issue frames on respondents’ perceptions of public opinion. We draw from the psychological literatures on cognitive acce…
Trickle Up Political Socialization: The Impact of Kids Voting USA on Voter Turnout in Kansas
Can a school curriculum influence the political socialization of students? And if so, can such socialization “trickle up” to influence the political socialization of these students' parents? We examine the effects of Kids Voting USA in Kansas to answer these questions. By the 1996 presidential election, Kids Voting was implemented in several Kansas counties. Consequently, we are able to compare turnout—and change in turnout across different elect…
The Extensiveness of Group Membership and Social Capital: The Impact on Political Tolerance Attitudes
This article examines the relationship between membership in voluntary associations and political tolerance attitudes. Though the extensive literature on social capital posits a relationship between group involvement and political tolerance, empirical scrutiny of this proposition has yet to emerge. Specifically, we hypothesize that group membership-its extensiveness across a variety of different associational sectors, and the type of group affili…
The Determinants and Consequences of Recall Error about Gulf War Preferences
Memory plays a key role in many theories of politics, yet the determinants of inaccurate political memories have not been the subject of much investigation. Combining a dosage-resistance theory of political communications with a theory of memory lapse and reconstruction, it is predicted that a clearly identifiable cluster of traits ought to render people vulnerable to inaccurate autobiographical memory. Testing this hypothesis with ANES 1990–1992…
Framing the Lewinsky Affair: Third‐Person Judgments by Scandal Frame
Recent studies have documented a “third‐person effect” whereby people are found to judge others as more influenced than themselves by the mass media. Meanwhile, contemporary research on issue framing has demonstrated the powerful role of mass media in shaping people's political judgments. But are the perceptual judgments that define third‐person effects sensitive to how the media frame an issue? Two studies investigated this question in the conte…
The Determinants and Consequences of Recall Error About Gulf War Preferences
Memory plays a key role in many theories of politics, yet the determinants of inaccurate political memories have not been the subject of much investigation. Combining a dosage‐resistance theory of political communications with a theory of memory lapse and reconstruction, it is predicted that a clearly identifiable cluster of traits ought to render people vulnerable to inaccurate autobiographical memory. Testing this hypothesis with ANES 1990–1992…
The Changing Readability of Introductory Political Science Textbooks: A Case Study of Burns and Peltason, Government by the People
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Just How Important Is the Messenger Versus the Message? The Case of Framing Physician-Assisted Suicide
Just How Important Is the Messenger Versus the Message? The Case of Framingphysician-Assisted Suicide
As a political issue, death and dying topics only sometimes reach the political agenda. However, some issues, such as physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been highly salient. This article explores attitudes toward PAS by examining the malleability of opinion when respondents are exposed to issue frames and when specific messengers present those frames. We used 4 experimental conditions in a statewide survey and 1 control group, which allowed us…
Attributions and the Regulation of Marriage: Considering the Parallels Between Race and Homosexuality
Few would dispute that religion has played a fundamental role in shaping our understanding of human relationships, including marriage, and what types of relationships are permitted. However, science, especially biology, has also played an important role in government regulation of marriage (Bittles and Neel 1994; Ottenheimer 1990; Dupuis 2002; Ellison 2004; Strasser 2002). A cursory overview of government regulations of marriage reveals laws that…
Should We Really “Kill” the Messenger? Framing Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Role of Messengers
Undoubtedly, framing political issues is an effective means of influencing the distribution of opinion. But while most studies have shown the effectiveness of alternative issue frames on opinion, they largely ignore the role of the messenger. Our research examines whether message content or messengers are more important in influencing opinion. Four experimental conditions and a control were embedded in a statewide survey, allowing an explicit com…
Can We Frame the Terrorist Threat? Issue Frames, the Perception of Threat, and Opinions on Counterterrorism Policies
In political disputes, issue frames set parameters for debate and shape which view dominates. This study expands issue framing research to examine the influence of frames on the perception of future terrorist threats as well as subsequent support for related counterterrorism policies. We test several hypotheses using data from an experimental field poll. We find that issue frames clearly influence perceptions of threat. However, our frames, which…
Sociotropic Concerns and Support for Counterterrorism Policies
Objective. An individual's personal experiences and perception of the collective experience are often linked to political attitudes, especially those concerning the national economy. In this article, we examine whether personal concern about terrorism and perceptions of public concern about terrorism affect attitudes about counterterrorism policies. In addition, we evaluate which factor is the strongest predictor across several counterterrorism p…
Culture, Segregation, and Tolerance in Urban America
Objective. The objective of this article is to examine whether racial tolerance attitudes are influenced by the character of the urban subculture in which individuals live. Specifically, is there a significant association between Florida's (2002) concept of creative class and racial tolerance among white survey respondents? Methods. The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey that comprises respondents across some 27 cities provides the data fo…
Pulpits Versus Ivory Towers: Socializing Agents and Evolution Attitudes
Objective. Although debate concerning the theory of evolution is part of an ongoing U.S. dialogue over the proper role of religion in society, academics have provided little in the way of systematic understanding of public opinion on this issue. Important questions, such as the relative influence of socializing agents—religion and education—in shaping attitudes on evolution remain unanswered. Building on socialization and cognitive accessibility …
Beliefs About the Origins of Homosexuality and Support For Gay Rights: An Empirical Test of Attribution Theory
Journal Article Beliefs About the Origins of Homosexuality and Support For Gay Rights: An Empirical Test of Attribution Theory Get access Donald P. Haider-Markel, Donald P. Haider-Markel Address correspondence to Donald P. Haider-Markel; e-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Mark R. Joslyn Mark R. Joslyn Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Q…
Psychology (38 works) · Political science (37 works) · Social Psychology (34 works) · Politics (33 works) · Law (29 works) · Social Psychology (23 works) · Economics (19 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (18 works) · Law (18 works) · Sociology (17 works)