Elizabeth Theiss‐morse
Biographic Data
| ID | 4395002 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elizabeth Theiss‐morse |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elizabeth |
| FAMILY NAME | Theiss‐morse |
| SIGNATURE | MORSE E T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nebraska–Lincoln |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 399 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Who do the people want to govern
Relative to the well-developed theory and extensive survey batteries on people’s preferences for substantive policy solutions, scholarly understanding of people’s preferences for the mechanisms by which policies should be adopted is disappointing. Theory rarely goes beyond the assumption that people would prefer to rule themselves rather than leave decisions up to elites and measurement rests largely on four items that are not up to the task. In …
The effect of political candidates’ occupational background on voters’ perceptions of and support for candidates
Our study investigates how political candidates’ occupational background and gender influence voters’ perceptions of candidates’ competence to handle a variety of policy issues and voters’ support for candidates. Using experimental data collected among American and New Zealand students (N = 794), our multivariate analyses indicate that students perceive candidates with political experience as most competent in handling security-related issues, ca…
Love Thy Neighbor? Trust in Foreigners and Support for Transnational Policies
This study assesses the extent to which individual levels of trust in foreigners relate to preferences about regional transnational policies. We use a nationally representative survey from Mexico (2003), an emerging democracy with relatively high levels of nationalism and several multinational trade agreements. We argue that clarifying the target of social trust is essential for understanding the attitudes of citizens of less powerful countries t…
Belonging In a “Christian Nation: The Explicit and Implicit Associations between Religion and National Group Membership
If many consider the United States to be a Christian nation, how does this affect individuals who are American citizens but not Christian? We test two major hypotheses: (1) Americans consider Christians to be more fully American than non-Christians. We examine whether Americans explicitly and implicitly connect being Christian with being a true American; and (2) Christian Americans are more likely to be patriotic and set exclusive boundaries on t…
Who Counts as an American?: The Boundaries of National Identity
Why is national identity such a potent force in people's lives? And is the force positive or negative? In this thoughtful and provocative book, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse develops a social theory of national identity and uses a national survey, focus groups, and experiments to answer these important questions in the American context. Her results show that the combination of group commitment and the setting of exclusive boundaries on the national grou…
Press One for English: Language Policy, Public Opinion, and American Identity – Deborah J. Schildkraut
The Emotional Foundation of Political Cognition: The Impact of Extrinsic Anxiety on the Formation of Political Tolerance Judgments
Common sense recognizes emotion's ability to influence judgments. We argue that affective processes, in addition to generating feeling states, also influence how political cognition is manifested. Drawing on the theory of affective intelligence, we examine the role that anxiety plays in how and when people rely on predispositions and when they rely on contemporaneous information in making political tolerance judgments. We report on two experiment…
Citizenship and Civic Engagement
Is it possible for people to join their way to good citizenship? Contemporary thinking, both academic and popular, often leaves the impression that it is, but a careful investigation of the evidence raises serious doubts. In actuality, belonging to voluntary associations is a woefully inadequate foundation for good citizenship for three primary reasons: People join groups that are homogeneous, not heterogeneous; civic participation does not lead …
National Identity and Self-Esteem
Is the self-esteem of individuals tied to their nation? If so, is that a good reason to strive for a world of safe, secure nations? Many liberal nationalists answer yes to these questions, but they do so without looking at the large social-psychology literature on groups and self-esteem. We examine the claims of liberal nationalists in light of this literature. The good news is that self-respectWe use the terms self-respect and self-esteem interc…
Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs About How Government Should Work
Americans often complain about the operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people's preferred type of government. In this provocative and timely book, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the governmental procedures Americans desire. Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about mos…
Linking Neuroscience to Political Intolerance and Political Judgment
There is substantial evidence that intolerance arises from perceptions of difference. A prevailing view holds that even if intolerance is understandable as a defense mechanism, or as an attitude intended to ward off threatening groups and noxious activities, it often is the result of human irrationality and indulgence of prejudice. This conclusion is supported by studies that seem to demonstrate the apparent irrelevance of the actual level of thr…
The Media's Role in Public Negativity Toward Congress: Distinguishing Emotional Reactions and Cognitive Evaluations
Theory: The nature of political news as presented by the mass media in the modern United States is such that it affects people's emotional reactions more than their cognitive evaluations of political actors and institutions. Hypotheses: People who rely on electronic media for their news and people who consume a great deal of news from the mass media will not be more likely to evaluate Congress negatively but will be more likely to have negative e…
Too Much of a Good Thing: More Representative is Not Necessarily Better
Reform sentiments are much in evidence on the American political scene as we approach the end of the century, and improving the way public opinion is represented in political institutions is often the major motivation of reformers. This is clear from the essays in this collection, from the activities of contemporary political elites, and from the mood of ordinary people. Gross dissatisfaction exists with the nature of representation perceived to …
Civics Is Not Enough: Teaching Barbarics in K-12
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button
With Malice toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments
With Malice toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments addresses an issue integral to democratic societies: how people faced with a complex variety of considerations decide whether or not to tolerate extremist groups. Relying on several survey-experiments, Marcus, Sullivan, Theiss-Morse, and Wood identify and compare the impact on decision making of contemporary information, long-standing predispositions, and enduring values and belie…
Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes toward American Political Institutions
This timely book describes and explains the American people's alleged hatred of their own branch of government, the US Congress. Intensive focus group sessions held across the country and a specially designed national survey indicate that much of the negativity is generated by popular perceptions of the processes of governing visible in Congress. John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse argue that, although the public is deeply disturbed by debate…
Conceptualizations of good citizenship and political participation
Mixing Methods: A Multistage Strategy for Studying Patriotism and Citizen Participation
We propose a methodological strategy that addresses some of the widespread criticisms of survey research. Traditional survey research has, to a great extent, neglected the role of contested concepts in politics and respondents' subjectivity. Our mix of methods—including conceptual analysis,Q-methodology, and survey research—enables us to measure people's subjective understandings of contested concepts while allowing us to reap the benefits of sur…
Citizenship and Civic Engagement
Is it possible for people to join their way to good citizenship? Contemporary thinking, both academic and popular, often leaves the impression that it is, but a careful investigation of the evidence raises serious doubts. In actuality, belonging to voluntary associations is a woefully inadequate foundation for good citizenship for three primary reasons: People join groups that are homogeneous, not heterogeneous; civic participation does not lead …
Conceptualizations of good citizenship and political participation
The Emotional Foundation of Political Cognition: The Impact of Extrinsic Anxiety on the Formation of Political Tolerance Judgments
Common sense recognizes emotion's ability to influence judgments. We argue that affective processes, in addition to generating feeling states, also influence how political cognition is manifested. Drawing on the theory of affective intelligence, we examine the role that anxiety plays in how and when people rely on predispositions and when they rely on contemporaneous information in making political tolerance judgments. We report on two experiment…
National Identity and Self-Esteem
Is the self-esteem of individuals tied to their nation? If so, is that a good reason to strive for a world of safe, secure nations? Many liberal nationalists answer yes to these questions, but they do so without looking at the large social-psychology literature on groups and self-esteem. We examine the claims of liberal nationalists in light of this literature. The good news is that self-respectWe use the terms self-respect and self-esteem interc…
The Media's Role in Public Negativity Toward Congress: Distinguishing Emotional Reactions and Cognitive Evaluations
Theory: The nature of political news as presented by the mass media in the modern United States is such that it affects people's emotional reactions more than their cognitive evaluations of political actors and institutions. Hypotheses: People who rely on electronic media for their news and people who consume a great deal of news from the mass media will not be more likely to evaluate Congress negatively but will be more likely to have negative e…
Who do the people want to govern
Relative to the well-developed theory and extensive survey batteries on people’s preferences for substantive policy solutions, scholarly understanding of people’s preferences for the mechanisms by which policies should be adopted is disappointing. Theory rarely goes beyond the assumption that people would prefer to rule themselves rather than leave decisions up to elites and measurement rests largely on four items that are not up to the task. In …
Belonging In a “Christian Nation: The Explicit and Implicit Associations between Religion and National Group Membership
If many consider the United States to be a Christian nation, how does this affect individuals who are American citizens but not Christian? We test two major hypotheses: (1) Americans consider Christians to be more fully American than non-Christians. We examine whether Americans explicitly and implicitly connect being Christian with being a true American; and (2) Christian Americans are more likely to be patriotic and set exclusive boundaries on t…
Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs About How Government Should Work
Americans often complain about the operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people's preferred type of government. In this provocative and timely book, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the governmental procedures Americans desire. Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about mos…
The effect of political candidates’ occupational background on voters’ perceptions of and support for candidates
Our study investigates how political candidates’ occupational background and gender influence voters’ perceptions of candidates’ competence to handle a variety of policy issues and voters’ support for candidates. Using experimental data collected among American and New Zealand students (N = 794), our multivariate analyses indicate that students perceive candidates with political experience as most competent in handling security-related issues, ca…
Mixing Methods: A Multistage Strategy for Studying Patriotism and Citizen Participation
We propose a methodological strategy that addresses some of the widespread criticisms of survey research. Traditional survey research has, to a great extent, neglected the role of contested concepts in politics and respondents' subjectivity. Our mix of methods—including conceptual analysis,Q-methodology, and survey research—enables us to measure people's subjective understandings of contested concepts while allowing us to reap the benefits of sur…
Linking Neuroscience to Political Intolerance and Political Judgment
There is substantial evidence that intolerance arises from perceptions of difference. A prevailing view holds that even if intolerance is understandable as a defense mechanism, or as an attitude intended to ward off threatening groups and noxious activities, it often is the result of human irrationality and indulgence of prejudice. This conclusion is supported by studies that seem to demonstrate the apparent irrelevance of the actual level of thr…
Love Thy Neighbor? Trust in Foreigners and Support for Transnational Policies
This study assesses the extent to which individual levels of trust in foreigners relate to preferences about regional transnational policies. We use a nationally representative survey from Mexico (2003), an emerging democracy with relatively high levels of nationalism and several multinational trade agreements. We argue that clarifying the target of social trust is essential for understanding the attitudes of citizens of less powerful countries t…
Civics Is Not Enough: Teaching Barbarics in K-12
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button
Press One for English: Language Policy, Public Opinion, and American Identity – Deborah J. Schildkraut
Too Much of a Good Thing: More Representative is Not Necessarily Better
Reform sentiments are much in evidence on the American political scene as we approach the end of the century, and improving the way public opinion is represented in political institutions is often the major motivation of reformers. This is clear from the essays in this collection, from the activities of contemporary political elites, and from the mood of ordinary people. Gross dissatisfaction exists with the nature of representation perceived to …
Mixing Methods: A Multistage Strategy for Studying Patriotism and Citizen Participation
We propose a methodological strategy that addresses some of the widespread criticisms of survey research. Traditional survey research has, to a great extent, neglected the role of contested concepts in politics and respondents' subjectivity. Our mix of methods—including conceptual analysis,Q-methodology, and survey research—enables us to measure people's subjective understandings of contested concepts while allowing us to reap the benefits of sur…
Conceptualizations of good citizenship and political participation
With Malice toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments
With Malice toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments addresses an issue integral to democratic societies: how people faced with a complex variety of considerations decide whether or not to tolerate extremist groups. Relying on several survey-experiments, Marcus, Sullivan, Theiss-Morse, and Wood identify and compare the impact on decision making of contemporary information, long-standing predispositions, and enduring values and belie…
Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes toward American Political Institutions
This timely book describes and explains the American people's alleged hatred of their own branch of government, the US Congress. Intensive focus group sessions held across the country and a specially designed national survey indicate that much of the negativity is generated by popular perceptions of the processes of governing visible in Congress. John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse argue that, although the public is deeply disturbed by debate…
Civics Is Not Enough: Teaching Barbarics in K-12
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button
Linking Neuroscience to Political Intolerance and Political Judgment
There is substantial evidence that intolerance arises from perceptions of difference. A prevailing view holds that even if intolerance is understandable as a defense mechanism, or as an attitude intended to ward off threatening groups and noxious activities, it often is the result of human irrationality and indulgence of prejudice. This conclusion is supported by studies that seem to demonstrate the apparent irrelevance of the actual level of thr…
The Media's Role in Public Negativity Toward Congress: Distinguishing Emotional Reactions and Cognitive Evaluations
Theory: The nature of political news as presented by the mass media in the modern United States is such that it affects people's emotional reactions more than their cognitive evaluations of political actors and institutions. Hypotheses: People who rely on electronic media for their news and people who consume a great deal of news from the mass media will not be more likely to evaluate Congress negatively but will be more likely to have negative e…
Too Much of a Good Thing: More Representative is Not Necessarily Better
Reform sentiments are much in evidence on the American political scene as we approach the end of the century, and improving the way public opinion is represented in political institutions is often the major motivation of reformers. This is clear from the essays in this collection, from the activities of contemporary political elites, and from the mood of ordinary people. Gross dissatisfaction exists with the nature of representation perceived to …
Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs About How Government Should Work
Americans often complain about the operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people's preferred type of government. In this provocative and timely book, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the governmental procedures Americans desire. Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about mos…
National Identity and Self-Esteem
Is the self-esteem of individuals tied to their nation? If so, is that a good reason to strive for a world of safe, secure nations? Many liberal nationalists answer yes to these questions, but they do so without looking at the large social-psychology literature on groups and self-esteem. We examine the claims of liberal nationalists in light of this literature. The good news is that self-respectWe use the terms self-respect and self-esteem interc…
The Emotional Foundation of Political Cognition: The Impact of Extrinsic Anxiety on the Formation of Political Tolerance Judgments
Common sense recognizes emotion's ability to influence judgments. We argue that affective processes, in addition to generating feeling states, also influence how political cognition is manifested. Drawing on the theory of affective intelligence, we examine the role that anxiety plays in how and when people rely on predispositions and when they rely on contemporaneous information in making political tolerance judgments. We report on two experiment…
Citizenship and Civic Engagement
Is it possible for people to join their way to good citizenship? Contemporary thinking, both academic and popular, often leaves the impression that it is, but a careful investigation of the evidence raises serious doubts. In actuality, belonging to voluntary associations is a woefully inadequate foundation for good citizenship for three primary reasons: People join groups that are homogeneous, not heterogeneous; civic participation does not lead …
Press One for English: Language Policy, Public Opinion, and American Identity – Deborah J. Schildkraut
Who Counts as an American?: The Boundaries of National Identity
Why is national identity such a potent force in people's lives? And is the force positive or negative? In this thoughtful and provocative book, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse develops a social theory of national identity and uses a national survey, focus groups, and experiments to answer these important questions in the American context. Her results show that the combination of group commitment and the setting of exclusive boundaries on the national grou…
Belonging In a “Christian Nation: The Explicit and Implicit Associations between Religion and National Group Membership
If many consider the United States to be a Christian nation, how does this affect individuals who are American citizens but not Christian? We test two major hypotheses: (1) Americans consider Christians to be more fully American than non-Christians. We examine whether Americans explicitly and implicitly connect being Christian with being a true American; and (2) Christian Americans are more likely to be patriotic and set exclusive boundaries on t…
Love Thy Neighbor? Trust in Foreigners and Support for Transnational Policies
This study assesses the extent to which individual levels of trust in foreigners relate to preferences about regional transnational policies. We use a nationally representative survey from Mexico (2003), an emerging democracy with relatively high levels of nationalism and several multinational trade agreements. We argue that clarifying the target of social trust is essential for understanding the attitudes of citizens of less powerful countries t…
The effect of political candidates’ occupational background on voters’ perceptions of and support for candidates
Our study investigates how political candidates’ occupational background and gender influence voters’ perceptions of candidates’ competence to handle a variety of policy issues and voters’ support for candidates. Using experimental data collected among American and New Zealand students (N = 794), our multivariate analyses indicate that students perceive candidates with political experience as most competent in handling security-related issues, ca…
Who do the people want to govern
Relative to the well-developed theory and extensive survey batteries on people’s preferences for substantive policy solutions, scholarly understanding of people’s preferences for the mechanisms by which policies should be adopted is disappointing. Theory rarely goes beyond the assumption that people would prefer to rule themselves rather than leave decisions up to elites and measurement rests largely on four items that are not up to the task. In …
Political science (16 works) · Law (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Democracy (5 works)