Kelly Bergstrand
Biographic Data
| ID | 4265637 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kelly Bergstrand |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kelly |
| FAMILY NAME | Bergstrand |
| SIGNATURE | BERGSTRAND K |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Arlington |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4620-4434 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 118 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Contentious Civic Spheres and Gender Inequality
Gender inequality persists in civic and political arenas. Historically, school volunteer positions have served as a bridge to encourage women’s mobility into politics, specifically through school board elections. This school board service can facilitate women’s advancement into higher political office. However, some school boards have recently experienced high levels of public attention, activism, and conflict around school policies. Further, it …
Targeted appeals
Tailoring messages and calls-to-action to demographic subgroups could give social movement organizations an edge in recruitment and mobilization efforts. But do they engage in this strategy? We analyze the content of 70 social movement organizations’ websites, across seven different issue sectors, to determine the presence and form of customized, age-tailored material across the youth spectrum: children, teens, and young adults. We find that many…
Threat and Emotions
This study examines the false ballistic missile alert that occurred in Hawaii in 2018, which presented a unique opportunity for assessing the civic and mobilizing outcomes of a threat. In the days that followed the scare, we conducted an online experiment to investigate its effects on willingness to engage in activism and concerns about broader issues. Our results show that emotions serve as an important mechanism for channeling threat experience…
The Community Helped Me
This study investigates long-term appraisals of community recovery after a major environmental disaster. Specifically, we conducted a survey of 351 individuals living in coastal counties in Alabama and Florida on the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Using mixed methods that combined content analysis and ordinary least squares regression, we find that residents who believe they live in a community where neighbors help each…
The Advantaged Cause
The role of grievances in drawing public concern and activist support is a surprisingly understudied topic in modern social movement literature. This research is the first to parse issues into core components to understand whether some grievances are more successful than others in evoking reactions that can benefit social movements. Specifically, I use concepts and measures developed by affect control theory scholars that tap into cultural percep…
Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Character Theory and Affect Control Theory
We examine three basic tropes—villain, victim, and hero—that emerge in images, claims, and narratives. We compare recent research on characters with the predictions of an established tradition, affect control theory (ACT). Combined, the theories describe core traits of the villain-victim-hero triad and predict audiences’ reactions. Character theory (CT) can help us understand the cultural roots of evaluation, potency, and activity profiles and th…
Transformative environmental threats
Does experiencing an environmental disaster have the transformative power to change people's attitudes, behaviors, and political actions? Do these effects persist in the longer term? And what elements of environmental disasters are most effective at spurring change?Using survey data collected in two affected coastal counties around the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we find that many residents reported mobilizing effect…
It takes two
Compensation and Community Corrosion
Using data from interviews of residents of four Gulf Coast communities, we examine the extent to which this claims process hindered efforts to recover from this disaster. Our data suggest that while BP money helped some residents in the Gulf during a difficult economic time, many interviewees perceived uncertainty, randomness, and unevenness in the compensation process, which led to negative social comparisons and competition among community memb…
Assessing the Relationship Between Social Vulnerability and Community Resilience to Hazards
The Mobilizing Power of Grievances
This study investigates how the nature of grievances can provide advantages or disadvantages to social movements. I use an experimental design to test the effects of loss aversion and omission bias on people's reactions toward grievances and the campaigns that seek to address them. The results indicate that grievances involving a loss are perceived as more immoral, unjust, and important than grievances involving a gain. Loss-based grievances also…
Negotiating the Unknown
This article documents the role of uncertainty in social exchange. Specifically, it reviews how social exchange theorists incorporate uncertainty when explaining psychological processes and social behaviors. After identifying and examining the structural roots of uncertainty, the article addresses how uncertainty affects actor behavior and attitude formation, from curbing power use to promoting the development of more committed, trusting and cohe…
Cognitive Shocks
Science, through the generation of new knowledge, has the ability to transform commonly held beliefs. Occasionally scientific discoveries produce “cognitive shocks”, which refer to new information that can restructure an individual's beliefs or understandings about the world in a way that affects attitudes toward, and support for, social change. Social movements can play a key role in deploying, framing, and in some cases, producing, cognitive sh…
The Chalkboard Versus the Avatar
Increasingly, colleges and universities are relying on fully online classes to teach students. This article investigates how students evaluate online courses in comparison to more traditional face-to-face courses. Data come from undergraduate student evaluations of 118 sociology courses, and results of a series of hierarchical linear models indicate that students feel they have learned less in online courses, believe they are treated with more re…
Assessing the Relationship Between Social Vulnerability and Community Resilience to Hazards
The Mobilizing Power of Grievances
This study investigates how the nature of grievances can provide advantages or disadvantages to social movements. I use an experimental design to test the effects of loss aversion and omission bias on people's reactions toward grievances and the campaigns that seek to address them. The results indicate that grievances involving a loss are perceived as more immoral, unjust, and important than grievances involving a gain. Loss-based grievances also…
Compensation and Community Corrosion
Using data from interviews of residents of four Gulf Coast communities, we examine the extent to which this claims process hindered efforts to recover from this disaster. Our data suggest that while BP money helped some residents in the Gulf during a difficult economic time, many interviewees perceived uncertainty, randomness, and unevenness in the compensation process, which led to negative social comparisons and competition among community memb…
Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Character Theory and Affect Control Theory
We examine three basic tropes—villain, victim, and hero—that emerge in images, claims, and narratives. We compare recent research on characters with the predictions of an established tradition, affect control theory (ACT). Combined, the theories describe core traits of the villain-victim-hero triad and predict audiences’ reactions. Character theory (CT) can help us understand the cultural roots of evaluation, potency, and activity profiles and th…
Transformative environmental threats
Does experiencing an environmental disaster have the transformative power to change people's attitudes, behaviors, and political actions? Do these effects persist in the longer term? And what elements of environmental disasters are most effective at spurring change?Using survey data collected in two affected coastal counties around the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we find that many residents reported mobilizing effect…
The Community Helped Me
This study investigates long-term appraisals of community recovery after a major environmental disaster. Specifically, we conducted a survey of 351 individuals living in coastal counties in Alabama and Florida on the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Using mixed methods that combined content analysis and ordinary least squares regression, we find that residents who believe they live in a community where neighbors help each…
The Chalkboard Versus the Avatar
Increasingly, colleges and universities are relying on fully online classes to teach students. This article investigates how students evaluate online courses in comparison to more traditional face-to-face courses. Data come from undergraduate student evaluations of 118 sociology courses, and results of a series of hierarchical linear models indicate that students feel they have learned less in online courses, believe they are treated with more re…
It takes two
Negotiating the Unknown
This article documents the role of uncertainty in social exchange. Specifically, it reviews how social exchange theorists incorporate uncertainty when explaining psychological processes and social behaviors. After identifying and examining the structural roots of uncertainty, the article addresses how uncertainty affects actor behavior and attitude formation, from curbing power use to promoting the development of more committed, trusting and cohe…
The Advantaged Cause
The role of grievances in drawing public concern and activist support is a surprisingly understudied topic in modern social movement literature. This research is the first to parse issues into core components to understand whether some grievances are more successful than others in evoking reactions that can benefit social movements. Specifically, I use concepts and measures developed by affect control theory scholars that tap into cultural percep…
Targeted appeals
Tailoring messages and calls-to-action to demographic subgroups could give social movement organizations an edge in recruitment and mobilization efforts. But do they engage in this strategy? We analyze the content of 70 social movement organizations’ websites, across seven different issue sectors, to determine the presence and form of customized, age-tailored material across the youth spectrum: children, teens, and young adults. We find that many…
Threat and Emotions
This study examines the false ballistic missile alert that occurred in Hawaii in 2018, which presented a unique opportunity for assessing the civic and mobilizing outcomes of a threat. In the days that followed the scare, we conducted an online experiment to investigate its effects on willingness to engage in activism and concerns about broader issues. Our results show that emotions serve as an important mechanism for channeling threat experience…
Negotiating the Unknown
This article documents the role of uncertainty in social exchange. Specifically, it reviews how social exchange theorists incorporate uncertainty when explaining psychological processes and social behaviors. After identifying and examining the structural roots of uncertainty, the article addresses how uncertainty affects actor behavior and attitude formation, from curbing power use to promoting the development of more committed, trusting and cohe…
Cognitive Shocks
Science, through the generation of new knowledge, has the ability to transform commonly held beliefs. Occasionally scientific discoveries produce “cognitive shocks”, which refer to new information that can restructure an individual's beliefs or understandings about the world in a way that affects attitudes toward, and support for, social change. Social movements can play a key role in deploying, framing, and in some cases, producing, cognitive sh…
The Chalkboard Versus the Avatar
Increasingly, colleges and universities are relying on fully online classes to teach students. This article investigates how students evaluate online courses in comparison to more traditional face-to-face courses. Data come from undergraduate student evaluations of 118 sociology courses, and results of a series of hierarchical linear models indicate that students feel they have learned less in online courses, believe they are treated with more re…
The Mobilizing Power of Grievances
This study investigates how the nature of grievances can provide advantages or disadvantages to social movements. I use an experimental design to test the effects of loss aversion and omission bias on people's reactions toward grievances and the campaigns that seek to address them. The results indicate that grievances involving a loss are perceived as more immoral, unjust, and important than grievances involving a gain. Loss-based grievances also…
Compensation and Community Corrosion
Using data from interviews of residents of four Gulf Coast communities, we examine the extent to which this claims process hindered efforts to recover from this disaster. Our data suggest that while BP money helped some residents in the Gulf during a difficult economic time, many interviewees perceived uncertainty, randomness, and unevenness in the compensation process, which led to negative social comparisons and competition among community memb…
Assessing the Relationship Between Social Vulnerability and Community Resilience to Hazards
It takes two
Transformative environmental threats
Does experiencing an environmental disaster have the transformative power to change people's attitudes, behaviors, and political actions? Do these effects persist in the longer term? And what elements of environmental disasters are most effective at spurring change?Using survey data collected in two affected coastal counties around the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we find that many residents reported mobilizing effect…
Villains, Victims, and Heroes in Character Theory and Affect Control Theory
We examine three basic tropes—villain, victim, and hero—that emerge in images, claims, and narratives. We compare recent research on characters with the predictions of an established tradition, affect control theory (ACT). Combined, the theories describe core traits of the villain-victim-hero triad and predict audiences’ reactions. Character theory (CT) can help us understand the cultural roots of evaluation, potency, and activity profiles and th…
The Advantaged Cause
The role of grievances in drawing public concern and activist support is a surprisingly understudied topic in modern social movement literature. This research is the first to parse issues into core components to understand whether some grievances are more successful than others in evoking reactions that can benefit social movements. Specifically, I use concepts and measures developed by affect control theory scholars that tap into cultural percep…
The Community Helped Me
This study investigates long-term appraisals of community recovery after a major environmental disaster. Specifically, we conducted a survey of 351 individuals living in coastal counties in Alabama and Florida on the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Using mixed methods that combined content analysis and ordinary least squares regression, we find that residents who believe they live in a community where neighbors help each…
Targeted appeals
Tailoring messages and calls-to-action to demographic subgroups could give social movement organizations an edge in recruitment and mobilization efforts. But do they engage in this strategy? We analyze the content of 70 social movement organizations’ websites, across seven different issue sectors, to determine the presence and form of customized, age-tailored material across the youth spectrum: children, teens, and young adults. We find that many…
Threat and Emotions
This study examines the false ballistic missile alert that occurred in Hawaii in 2018, which presented a unique opportunity for assessing the civic and mobilizing outcomes of a threat. In the days that followed the scare, we conducted an online experiment to investigate its effects on willingness to engage in activism and concerns about broader issues. Our results show that emotions serve as an important mechanism for channeling threat experience…
Contentious Civic Spheres and Gender Inequality
Gender inequality persists in civic and political arenas. Historically, school volunteer positions have served as a bridge to encourage women’s mobility into politics, specifically through school board elections. This school board service can facilitate women’s advancement into higher political office. However, some school boards have recently experienced high levels of public attention, activism, and conflict around school policies. Further, it …
Psychology (13 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Economics (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (6 works) · Geography (4 works) · Risk Perception and Management (4 works)