A M Enders
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 54149 |
|---|---|
| NOME | A M Enders |
| PRENOMES | A M |
| SOBRENOME | Enders |
| ASSINATURA | ENDERS A M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Louisville |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9315-8178 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 45 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 881 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 45 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2017 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 18 |
The Dynamics of Anti-Establishment Politics
Recent work theorizes that the American mass opinion space is organized along two broad, uncorrelated dimensions––a left–right one and an “anti-establishment” one––that jointly explain recent events in American politics, such as the election of Donald Trump and belief in conspiracy theories. In this paper, we test several previously untested predictions of this theory, including those involving temporal dynamics. Utilizing a time series of cross-…
Toward a Theory and Measure of Racial Benevolence
Left–right political orientations are not systematically related to conspiracism
Researchers have long sought to make generalizable conclusions about the relationship between conspiracism and political identities. However, this literature remains deeply conflicted. The “extremity hypothesis” argues that, due to the psychology of extremism, individuals who identify as extremely left or right wing should display higher levels of conspiracism than centrists. But the “asymmetry hypothesis” argues that, due to the psychology of co…
Belief in White Replacement
The "White Replacement" conspiracy theory, that government and corporate leaders are "replacing" white people, is linked to several mass shootings. Given its recent ubiquity in mainstream elite rhetoric, concerns have arisen about how widespread beliefs in the "White Replacement" conspiracy theory are in the United States. However, political scientists have yet to understand why people believe or act upon this idea, or what the political and psyc…
The Disparate Correlates of Populist Support in the United States
Recent years have witnessed a global uptick in populist candidates and sentiment. Populist communication and campaign styles are well-studied, but whom in the U.S. mass public is attracted to populist ideas and why is still subject to debate. Using unique survey data, we employ latent profile analysis to estimate constellations of characteristics and orientations that relate to support for populist ideas in the United States. Instead of a single,…
The New Satanic Panic
A moral panic animated by conspiracy theories alleging ritual sex abuse swept through the United States in the 1980s. During that “Satanic Panic,” as it came to be known, people expressed fears of social change regarding gender and sexuality. Beginning in 2022, conservative politicians, pundits, and pastors in the United States levied similar accusations of child grooming, sex trafficking, and satanic sex abuse at the LGBTQ + community, teachers,…
The Partisan Contours of Attitudes About Rights and Liberties
Who Supports Political Violence
The last few years have witnessed an increase in democratic “backsliding” in the United States—a decline in the quality of democracy, typically accompanied by an influx of non-normative behavior, such as political violence. Despite the real consequences of support for violence, fairly little is known about such an extremist attitude outside studies of terrorism or aggression. Using a unique survey containing many psychological, political, and soc…
Race, belief system complexity, and partisan-ideological sorting
Despite a great deal of scholarly attention to the concept of partisan-ideological sorting, few analyses have investigated differences in sorting patterns among subgroups of Americans, with most opting to examine broader trends among the entirety of the mass public instead. However, recent work shows that Black Americans have not sorted to the same degree as Whites. We (1) extend previous studies to include an examination of Latinos and (2) offer…
The impact of social desirability bias on conspiracy belief measurement across cultures
Polls asking respondents about their beliefs in conspiracy theories have become increasingly commonplace. However, researchers have expressed concern about the willingness of respondents to divulge beliefs in conspiracy theories due to the stigmatization of those ideas. We use an experimental design similar to a list experiment to decipher the effect of social desirability bias on survey responses to eight conspiratorial statements. Our study inc…
Filling in the Gaps
While cognitive psychologists have learned a great deal about people's propensity for constructing and acting on false memories, the connection between false memories and politics remains understudied. If partisan bias guides the adoption of beliefs and colors one's interpretation of new events and information, so too might it prove powerful enough to fabricate memories of political circumstances. Across two studies, we first distinguish false me…
Are Republicans and Conservatives More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories
The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
What Is a Conspiracy Theory and Why Does It Matter
Growing concern has been expressed that we have entered a “post-truth” era in which each of us willfully believes whatever we choose, aided and abetted by alternative and social media that spin alternative realities for boutique consumption. A prime example of the belief in alternative realities is said to be acceptance of “conspiracy theories”—a term that is often used as a pejorative to indict claims of conspiracy that are so obviously absurd t…
How Anti-Social Personality Traits and Anti-Establishment Views Promote Beliefs in Election Fraud, QAnon, and Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
Conspiracy theories and misinformation (CTM) became a salient feature of the Trump era. However, traditional explanations of political attitudes and behaviors inadequately account for beliefs in CTM or the deleterious behaviors they are associated with. Here, we integrate disparate literatures to explain beliefs in CTM regarding COVID-19, QAnon, and voter fraud. We aim to provide a more holistic accounting, and to determine which political, psych…
Have beliefs in conspiracy theories increased over time?
The public is convinced that beliefs in conspiracy theories are increasing, and many scholars, journalists, and policymakers agree. Given the associations between conspiracy theories and many non-normative tendencies, lawmakers have called for policies to address these increases. However, little evidence has been provided to demonstrate that beliefs in conspiracy theories have, in fact, increased over time. We address this evidentiary gap. Study …
Biased Interviewer Assessments of Respondent Knowledge Based on Perceptions of Skin Tone
A rich literature documents the effects of survey interviewer race on respondents’ answers to questions about political issues and factual knowledge. In this paper, we advance the study of interviewer effects in two ways. First, we examine the impact of race on interviewers’ subjective evaluations of respondents’ political knowledge. Second, we substitute measures of respondent/interviewer racial self-identification with interviewer perceptions o…
Say it again with feeling
Objectives We investigate to what extent partisan political candidates in the United States pay attention to different issues in their campaign communication, and whether they systematically deliver messages using different types of sentiment. Methods We analyze the 267,538 tweets issued by candidates for the U.S. Congress during the 2018 midterm elections using a combination of latent topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and regression analysis, …
Who Supports QAnon? A Case Study in Political Extremism
The QAnon conspiracy theory has garnered increasing attention as more than 80 pro-QAnon congressional candidates vied for nominations in 2020 primary races. The QAnon movement is widely characterized as "far right" and "growing," but such claims rest on flimsy evidence. Using six public opinion polls from 2018 to 2020, we find that support for QAnon is both meager and stable across time. QAnon also appears to find support among both the political…
Why Me?’ The Role of Perceived Victimhood in American Politics
Christian Nationalism and Political Violence
Racial Resentment, Electoral Loss, and Satisfaction with Democracy Among Whites in the United States
Sociopolitical and psychological correlates of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States during summer 2021
Do conspiracy beliefs form a belief system? Examining the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs
Despite regular reference to conspiracy theories as a “belief system,” few studies have attempted to explore the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs beyond an examination of correlations between those beliefs. Employing unique data from two national surveys that includes respondent beliefs in 27 conspiracy theories, we decipher the substantive dimensions along which conspiracy beliefs are organized, as well as subgroupings within tho…
The Role of Anti-Establishment Orientations During the Trump Presidency
Growing levels of polarization and out-group hostility have become fashionable explanations for the caustic politics of the Trump presidency. However, partisan and ideological identities cannot explain popular attraction to Trump’s anti-elite and populist rhetoric, nor can polarization and sorting account for rising levels of mass identification as political independents. In light of these discrepancies, we offer an explanation for the Trump era …
American Politics in Two Dimensions
Contemporary political ills at the mass behavior level (e.g., outgroup aggression, conspiracy theories) are often attributed to increasing polarization and partisan tribalism. We theorize that many such problems are less the product of left‐right orientations than an orthogonal “anti‐establishment” dimension of opinion dominated by conspiracy, populist, and Manichean orientations. Using two national surveys from 2019 and 2020, we find that this d…
Christian Nationalism and Political Violence
The Differential Effects of Actual and Perceived Polarization
The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
The Increasing Racialization of American Electoral Politics, 1988-2016
In this article, we examine the relationship between racial resentment and a host of political attitudes, predispositions, and behaviors across 28 years and 7 presidential elections. We find, contrary to the suggestions of recent work of the role of race in the Obama era, that the racialization of seemingly nonracial political issues began many years before the debut of Barack Obama and extends beyond his presidency. More specifically, we find, c…
Are Republicans and Conservatives More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories
Are All ‘Birthers’ Conspiracy Theorists? On the Relationship Between Conspiratorial Thinking and Political Orientations
While research on conspiracy theories and those who believe them has recently undergone a renaissance, there still exists a great deal of uncertainty about the measurement of conspiratorial beliefs and orientations, and the consequences of a conspiratorial mindset for expressly political attitudes and behaviors. We first demonstrate, using data from the 2012 American National Election Study, that beliefs in a variety of specific conspiracy theori…
Values and Political Predispositions in the Age of Polarization
The correlation between ideology and partisanship in the mass public has increased in recent decades amid a climate of persistent and growing elite polarization. Given that core values shape subsequent political predispositions, as well as the demonstrated asymmetry of elite polarization, this article hypothesizes that egalitarianism and moral traditionalism moderate the relationship between ideology and partisanship in that the latter relationsh…
A Matter of Principle? On the Relationship Between Racial Resentment and Ideology
Informational Cues, Partisan-Motivated Reasoning, and the Manipulation of Conspiracy Beliefs
In this article, we examine the relationship between partisan-motivated reasoning and uncertainty-inducing official information cues with respect to conspiracy beliefs. We find that while partisanship matters when it comes to conspiracy beliefs, the uncertainty-inducing and countervailing nature of official cues can further inflame conspiracy beliefs when it is not in the political interest of individuals to subscribe to a given conspiracy theory…
The partisan contours of conspiracy theory beliefs
The “conspiracy theories are for losers” argument suggests that out-of-power groups use conspiracy theories to sensitize minds, close ranks, and encourage collective action. Two necessary conditions of this argument are that (1) group members subscribe mostly to conspiracy theories that malign out-groups or bolster their in-group, and (2) group members must recognize whether conspiracy theories emanate from their own group, an opposing group, or …
Who Supports Political Violence
The last few years have witnessed an increase in democratic “backsliding” in the United States—a decline in the quality of democracy, typically accompanied by an influx of non-normative behavior, such as political violence. Despite the real consequences of support for violence, fairly little is known about such an extremist attitude outside studies of terrorism or aggression. Using a unique survey containing many psychological, political, and soc…
Why Me?’ The Role of Perceived Victimhood in American Politics
The 2020 presidential election and beliefs about fraud
Do conspiracy beliefs form a belief system? Examining the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs
Despite regular reference to conspiracy theories as a “belief system,” few studies have attempted to explore the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs beyond an examination of correlations between those beliefs. Employing unique data from two national surveys that includes respondent beliefs in 27 conspiracy theories, we decipher the substantive dimensions along which conspiracy beliefs are organized, as well as subgroupings within tho…
Value extremity contributes to affective polarization in the US
A wealth of research documents the rise of affective polarization, or the increasing disdain for the out-party in American politics. In this paper, we analyze ANES data from 1988 to 2016 to investigate the contribution of core value polarization to the phenomenon of out-party enmity. We find that greater differences in fundamental principles relate significantly to emotionally intense evaluations of the opposing party and its candidates, as well …
Who Supports QAnon? A Case Study in Political Extremism
The QAnon conspiracy theory has garnered increasing attention as more than 80 pro-QAnon congressional candidates vied for nominations in 2020 primary races. The QAnon movement is widely characterized as "far right" and "growing," but such claims rest on flimsy evidence. Using six public opinion polls from 2018 to 2020, we find that support for QAnon is both meager and stable across time. QAnon also appears to find support among both the political…
Are misinformation, antiscientific claims, and conspiracy theories for political extremists
Extremist political groups, especially “extreme” Republicans and conservatives, are increasingly charged with believing misinformation, antiscientific claims, and conspiracy theories to a greater extent than moderates and those on the political left by both a burgeoning scholarly literature and popular press accounts. However, previous investigations of the relationship between political orientations and alternative beliefs have been limited in t…
Issues versus Affect
Conventional wisdom holds that political elites harbor more ideologically constrained issue attitudes and are more polarized on such issues than their mass counterparts. In contrast, the mass public is more polarized in its emotional reactions to political stimuli. How affective polarization among the mass public compares to affective polarization among elites is, however, an open question. Using items common to the Convention Delegate Studies an…
The role of affective orientations in promoting perceived polarization
Recent work on political divisions in the mass public has identified several manifestations of polarization linked to different types of attitudes, orientations, and behaviors. Of these, affective polarization and perceived polarization have attracted increasing attention, though we still know fairly little of the links between these variants of polarization. In this paper, we examine the association between affective and perceived polarization, …
Racial Resentment, Electoral Loss, and Satisfaction with Democracy Among Whites in the United States
Sociopolitical and psychological correlates of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States during summer 2021
Affective Polarization and Support for the U.S. Supreme Court
Support for the U.S. Supreme Court does not appear to be polarized on ideological or partisan lines. However, the form of polarization for which the mass political behavior field has amassed substantial support is affective in nature. We reconsider the hypothesis that polarization does not bear on Court support by examining the role of affective polarization. Using three sources of nationally representative survey data, we consistently find a neg…
Who Are Conspiracy Theorists? A Comprehensive Approach to Explaining Conspiracy Beliefs
Objective This study disentangles the known correlates of conspiracy beliefs—such as the general predisposition toward conspiratorial thinking, authoritarianism, and partisan and ideological predispositions—in order to better understand the psychological antecedents of such beliefs and answer the question: Who are conspiracy theorists? Methods We use classification and regression tree models to explain individual beliefs in specific conspiracy th…
What Is a Conspiracy Theory and Why Does It Matter
Growing concern has been expressed that we have entered a “post-truth” era in which each of us willfully believes whatever we choose, aided and abetted by alternative and social media that spin alternative realities for boutique consumption. A prime example of the belief in alternative realities is said to be acceptance of “conspiracy theories”—a term that is often used as a pejorative to indict claims of conspiracy that are so obviously absurd t…
The partisan contours of conspiracy theory beliefs
The “conspiracy theories are for losers” argument suggests that out-of-power groups use conspiracy theories to sensitize minds, close ranks, and encourage collective action. Two necessary conditions of this argument are that (1) group members subscribe mostly to conspiracy theories that malign out-groups or bolster their in-group, and (2) group members must recognize whether conspiracy theories emanate from their own group, an opposing group, or …
On the measurement of conspiracy beliefs
Are so-called “birthers” best thought of as true conspiracy theorists, or are they merely partisans expressing a sharp dislike of Barack Obama? Recent work on conspiracy beliefs finds that “birthers” are the product of partisan and ideological motivated reasoning. In this manuscript, we explore how the measurement strategies we employ on public opinion surveys may influence the substantive conclusions we draw about conspiratorial beliefs, rumors,…
Who Are Conspiracy Theorists? A Comprehensive Approach to Explaining Conspiracy Beliefs
Objective This study disentangles the known correlates of conspiracy beliefs—such as the general predisposition toward conspiratorial thinking, authoritarianism, and partisan and ideological predispositions—in order to better understand the psychological antecedents of such beliefs and answer the question: Who are conspiracy theorists? Methods We use classification and regression tree models to explain individual beliefs in specific conspiracy th…
Enchanted America
Since the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, America has, by many popular accounts, been propelled into a new and deeply troubling “age of alternative facts” and “age of conspiracy theories.” This modern America, the story goes, is one where polarized political agents are at war for the minds of the masses, a malleable group whose beliefs and orientations are susceptible to the persuasive forces of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Entertaini…
Informational Cues, Partisan-Motivated Reasoning, and the Manipulation of Conspiracy Beliefs
In this article, we examine the relationship between partisan-motivated reasoning and uncertainty-inducing official information cues with respect to conspiracy beliefs. We find that while partisanship matters when it comes to conspiracy beliefs, the uncertainty-inducing and countervailing nature of official cues can further inflame conspiracy beliefs when it is not in the political interest of individuals to subscribe to a given conspiracy theory…
The Differential Effects of Actual and Perceived Polarization
The Increasing Racialization of American Electoral Politics, 1988-2016
In this article, we examine the relationship between racial resentment and a host of political attitudes, predispositions, and behaviors across 28 years and 7 presidential elections. We find, contrary to the suggestions of recent work of the role of race in the Obama era, that the racialization of seemingly nonracial political issues began many years before the debut of Barack Obama and extends beyond his presidency. More specifically, we find, c…
Why do people believe Covid-19 conspiracy theories
As conspiracy theories about COVID-19 take root in the United States, understanding the psychological foundations of conspiracy beliefs is increasingly critical. Our research shows that beliefs in two popular variants of COVID-19 conspiracy theory are the joint product of the psychological predispositions 1) to reject information coming from experts and other authority figures and 2)
Are All ‘Birthers’ Conspiracy Theorists? On the Relationship Between Conspiratorial Thinking and Political Orientations
While research on conspiracy theories and those who believe them has recently undergone a renaissance, there still exists a great deal of uncertainty about the measurement of conspiratorial beliefs and orientations, and the consequences of a conspiratorial mindset for expressly political attitudes and behaviors. We first demonstrate, using data from the 2012 American National Election Study, that beliefs in a variety of specific conspiracy theori…
Values and Political Predispositions in the Age of Polarization
The correlation between ideology and partisanship in the mass public has increased in recent decades amid a climate of persistent and growing elite polarization. Given that core values shape subsequent political predispositions, as well as the demonstrated asymmetry of elite polarization, this article hypothesizes that egalitarianism and moral traditionalism moderate the relationship between ideology and partisanship in that the latter relationsh…
Do conspiracy beliefs form a belief system? Examining the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs
Despite regular reference to conspiracy theories as a “belief system,” few studies have attempted to explore the structure and organization of conspiracy beliefs beyond an examination of correlations between those beliefs. Employing unique data from two national surveys that includes respondent beliefs in 27 conspiracy theories, we decipher the substantive dimensions along which conspiracy beliefs are organized, as well as subgroupings within tho…
The Role of Anti-Establishment Orientations During the Trump Presidency
Growing levels of polarization and out-group hostility have become fashionable explanations for the caustic politics of the Trump presidency. However, partisan and ideological identities cannot explain popular attraction to Trump’s anti-elite and populist rhetoric, nor can polarization and sorting account for rising levels of mass identification as political independents. In light of these discrepancies, we offer an explanation for the Trump era …
No home court advantage
Although the U.S. Supreme Court goes to great lengths to avoid the “political thicket,” it is sometimes unwittingly pulled in. We employ several experimental treatments—each of which is composed of real behaviors that took place during the Trump impeachment trial—to understand the impact of the trial on attitudes about the Court. We find that Chief Justice Roberts’ presence and behaviors during the trial failed to legitimize the proceeding and ma…
Are misinformation, antiscientific claims, and conspiracy theories for political extremists
Extremist political groups, especially “extreme” Republicans and conservatives, are increasingly charged with believing misinformation, antiscientific claims, and conspiracy theories to a greater extent than moderates and those on the political left by both a burgeoning scholarly literature and popular press accounts. However, previous investigations of the relationship between political orientations and alternative beliefs have been limited in t…
Affective Polarization and Support for the U.S. Supreme Court
Support for the U.S. Supreme Court does not appear to be polarized on ideological or partisan lines. However, the form of polarization for which the mass political behavior field has amassed substantial support is affective in nature. We reconsider the hypothesis that polarization does not bear on Court support by examining the role of affective polarization. Using three sources of nationally representative survey data, we consistently find a neg…
Issues versus Affect
Conventional wisdom holds that political elites harbor more ideologically constrained issue attitudes and are more polarized on such issues than their mass counterparts. In contrast, the mass public is more polarized in its emotional reactions to political stimuli. How affective polarization among the mass public compares to affective polarization among elites is, however, an open question. Using items common to the Convention Delegate Studies an…
The role of affective orientations in promoting perceived polarization
Recent work on political divisions in the mass public has identified several manifestations of polarization linked to different types of attitudes, orientations, and behaviors. Of these, affective polarization and perceived polarization have attracted increasing attention, though we still know fairly little of the links between these variants of polarization. In this paper, we examine the association between affective and perceived polarization, …
Value extremity contributes to affective polarization in the US
A wealth of research documents the rise of affective polarization, or the increasing disdain for the out-party in American politics. In this paper, we analyze ANES data from 1988 to 2016 to investigate the contribution of core value polarization to the phenomenon of out-party enmity. We find that greater differences in fundamental principles relate significantly to emotionally intense evaluations of the opposing party and its candidates, as well …
A Matter of Principle? On the Relationship Between Racial Resentment and Ideology
American Politics in Two Dimensions
Contemporary political ills at the mass behavior level (e.g., outgroup aggression, conspiracy theories) are often attributed to increasing polarization and partisan tribalism. We theorize that many such problems are less the product of left‐right orientations than an orthogonal “anti‐establishment” dimension of opinion dominated by conspiracy, populist, and Manichean orientations. Using two national surveys from 2019 and 2020, we find that this d…
On Modeling the Social-Psychological Foundations of Support for Donald Trump
Scholars have identified many social-psychological factors correlated with support for Donald Trump; however, attempts at modeling these factors tend to suffer from omitted variable bias on the one hand, or multicollinearity on the other. Both issues obscure inferences. Using two nationally representative surveys, we demonstrate the perils of including or failing to include many of these factors in models of Trump support. We then reconceptualize…
The 2020 presidential election and beliefs about fraud
Have beliefs in conspiracy theories increased over time?
The public is convinced that beliefs in conspiracy theories are increasing, and many scholars, journalists, and policymakers agree. Given the associations between conspiracy theories and many non-normative tendencies, lawmakers have called for policies to address these increases. However, little evidence has been provided to demonstrate that beliefs in conspiracy theories have, in fact, increased over time. We address this evidentiary gap. Study …
Biased Interviewer Assessments of Respondent Knowledge Based on Perceptions of Skin Tone
A rich literature documents the effects of survey interviewer race on respondents’ answers to questions about political issues and factual knowledge. In this paper, we advance the study of interviewer effects in two ways. First, we examine the impact of race on interviewers’ subjective evaluations of respondents’ political knowledge. Second, we substitute measures of respondent/interviewer racial self-identification with interviewer perceptions o…
Say it again with feeling
Objectives We investigate to what extent partisan political candidates in the United States pay attention to different issues in their campaign communication, and whether they systematically deliver messages using different types of sentiment. Methods We analyze the 267,538 tweets issued by candidates for the U.S. Congress during the 2018 midterm elections using a combination of latent topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and regression analysis, …
Political science (40 obras) · Psychology (36 obras) · Politics (35 obras) · Social Psychology (33 obras) · Law (30 obras) · Law (26 obras) · Social Psychology (26 obras) · Sociology (23 obras) · Ideology (21 obras) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (19 obras)