Kevin B Smith
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 3628048 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Kevin B Smith |
| PRENOMES | Kevin B |
| SOBRENOME | Smith |
| ASSINATURA | SMITH K B |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Nebraska–Lincoln |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0424-9367 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 55 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 853 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 55 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1981 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 16 |
When Politics Causes Panic
Objective We compare an eight‐item political anxiety measure developed by Smith, Weinschenk, and Panagopoulos to previous surveys. We replicate and extend previous analyses using a more detailed measure of generalized anxiety. We also examine the correlates of political and general anxiety. Methods Using data from an original survey fielded in 2025, we report the results of a factor analysis and several regression models. Results We report confir…
Symposium introduction
The following is an introduction by the editors to a symposium on "taking behavior literally" in BPA. We published the manuscripts for this symposium in our 2023 issue. You can find those articles here: Vol. 6 (2023) | Journal of Behavioral Public Administration (journal-bpa.org)
The Psychophysiology of Political Ideology
This article presents a large-scale, empirical evaluation of the psychophysiological correlates of political ideology and, in particular, the claim that conservatives react with higher levels of electrodermal activity to threatening stimuli than liberals. We (1) conduct two large replications of this claim, using locally representative samples of Danes and Americans; (2) reanalyze all published studies and evaluate their reliability and validity;…
Political attitudes vary with detection of androstenone
Building on a growing body of research suggesting that political attitudes are part of broader individual and biological orientations, we test whether the detection of the hormone androstenone is predictive of political attitudes. The particular social chemical analyzed in this study is androstenone, a nonandrogenic steroid found in the sweat and saliva of many mammals, including humans. A primary reason for scholarly interest in odor detection i…
Do People Really Become More Conservative as They Age
Folk wisdom has long held that people become more politically conservative as they grow older, although several empirical studies suggest political attitudes are stable across time. Using data from the Michigan Youth-Parent Socialization Panel Study, we analyze attitudinal change over a major portion of the adult life span. We document changes in party identification, self-reported ideology, and selected issue positions over this time period and …
Analyzing American Democracy
This is an introductory American politics text covering the constitutional framework of American government, political behavior and informal institutions, the formal institutions of American government, and a concluding chapter on public policy. Every chapter highlights the most current thinking in political science research and discusses related public policy. This text teaches students to think analytically by presenting current political scien…
Darwin’s bureaucrat
The study of bureaucratic behavior-focusing on control, decision-making, and institutional arrangements-has historically leaned heavily on theories of rational choice and bounded rationality. Notably absent from this research, however, is attention to the growing literature on biological and especially evolutionary human behavior. This article addresses this gap by closely examining the extant economic and psychological frameworks-which we refer …
Ideology Justifies Morality
Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is employed as a causal explanation of ideology that posits political attitudes are products of moral intuitions. Prior theoretical models, however, suggest the opposite causal path, that is, that moral judgments are driven by political beliefs. In both instances, however, extant research has assumed rather than explicitly tested for causality. So do moral intuitions drive political beliefs or do political beliefs d…
Genetic Attributions
Many scholars argue that people who attribute human characteristics to genetic causes also tend to hold politically and socially problematic attitudes. More specifically, public acceptance of genetic influences is believed to be associated with intolerance, prejudice, and the legitimation of social inequities and laissez-faire policies. We test these expectations with original data from two nationally representative samples that allow us to ident…
Intuitive Ethics and Political Orientations
Originally developed to explain cultural variation in moral judgments, moral foundations theory (MFT) has become widely adopted as a theory of political ideology. MFT posits that political attitudes are rooted in instinctual evaluations generated by innate psychological modules evolved to solve social dilemmas. If this is correct, moral foundations must be relatively stable dispositional traits, changes in moral foundations should systematically …
Analyzing American Democracy
How can political science help you understand the world you live in? Modern approaches to the study of politics analyze why Congress, the president, the courts, and other political actors do what they do. Learning to think critically about power, institutions, and rules helps citizens engage constructively in politics and the wider world around them and helps us systematically identify false claims, biases, and misconceptions. Analyzing American …
Physiological Arousal and Self-Reported Valence for Erotica Images Correlate with Sexual Policy Preferences
Individuals do not always accurately report the forces driving their policy preferences. Such inaccuracy may result from the fact that true justifications are socially undesirable or less persuasive than competing justifications or are unavailable in conscious awareness. Because of the delicate nature of these issues, people may be particularly likely to misstate the reasons for preferences on gay marriage, abortion, abstinence-only education, an…
Case Against School Choice
Governing States and Localities
Speaking Different Languages or Reading From the Same Script? Word Usage of Democratic and Republican Politicians
This article refers to:Speaking Different Languages or Reading from the Same Script? Word Usage of Democratic and Republican Politicians
Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology
Disputes between those holding differing political views are ubiquitous and deep-seated, and they often follow common, recognizable lines. The supporters of tradition and stability, sometimes referred to as conservatives, do battle with the supporters of innovation and reform, sometimes referred to as liberals. Understanding the correlates of those distinct political orientations is probably a prerequisite for managing political disputes, which a…
Beyond Survey Self-Reports
Some aspects of our attitudes are composed of things outside of our consciousness. However, traditional survey research does not use measurements that are able to tap into these aspects of public opinion. We describe, recommend, and demonstrate a procedure by which non-self-reported responses can be measured in order to test whether these responses have independent effects on individuals’ preferences. We use one of the better-known physiological …
Applying the Flanker Task to Political Psychology
One of the two stated objectives of the new “Research Note” section of Political Psychology is to present short reports that highlight novel methodological approaches. Toward that end, we call readers' attention to the “flanker task,” a research protocol widely employed in the study of the cognitive processes involved with detection, recognition, and distraction. The flanker task has increasingly been modified to study social traits, and we belie…
Side by Side, Worlds Apart
The degree to which people desire policy change is a function of two factors: preferences for future policies and perceptions of current policies. Political scientists, pollsters, and pundits know a good deal about people’s policy preferences but surprisingly little about the distance of those preferences from policy perceptions. In this article, we assess the distance between policy perceptions and policy preferences to calculate the amount of p…
Predisposed
Buried in many people and operating largely outside the realm of conscious thought are forces inclining us toward liberal or conservative political convictions. Our biology predisposes us to see and understand the world in different ways, not always reason and the careful consideration of facts. These predispositions are in turn responsible for a significant portion of the political and ideological conflict that marks human history. With verve an…
Genetic and Environmental Transmission of Political Orientations
This article reports results from the first twin study of adults in the United States that focuses exclusively and comprehensively on political traits. These data allow us to test whether a common set of genetic and environmental influences act upon a broad variety of values, personality traits, and political attitudes. In short, it allows us to empirically investigate whether there are a core set of predispositions that form the basis of our pol…
OLS is AOK for ACE
The Physiology of Political Participation
Candidate Genes and Voter Turnout
Recently in this journal, Charney and English (2012) presented an extensive critique of candidate gene association studies using the widely noted Fowler and Dawes (2008) article on the relationship between self-reported voter turnout and both 5-HTT (serotonin transporter) and MAOA (monoamine oxidase A) as the driving example of their evaluation. Reanalysis of the Fowler and Dawes data by Charney and English, based on four critiques of candidate g…
The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad
We report evidence that individual-level variation in people's physiological and attentional responses to aversive and appetitive stimuli are correlated with broad political orientations. Specifically, we find that greater orientation to aversive stimuli tends to be associated with right-of-centre and greater orientation to appetitive (pleasing) stimuli with left-of-centre political inclinations. These findings are consistent with recent evidence…
Ideology Justifies Morality
Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) is employed as a causal explanation of ideology that posits political attitudes are products of moral intuitions. Prior theoretical models, however, suggest the opposite causal path, that is, that moral judgments are driven by political beliefs. In both instances, however, extant research has assumed rather than explicitly tested for causality. So do moral intuitions drive political beliefs or do political beliefs d…
The Politics of Punishment
Why have incarceration rates dramatically increased even as crime rates have remained stable or even declined? This is a question of considerable policy and theoretical relevance that currently has no satisfactory answer. I attempt to address this question by examining the key political explanations of prison populations and the unit of analysis and data limitation obstacles that make it difficult to conduct a comprehensive empirical analysis of …
Do People Really Become More Conservative as They Age
Folk wisdom has long held that people become more politically conservative as they grow older, although several empirical studies suggest political attitudes are stable across time. Using data from the Michigan Youth-Parent Socialization Panel Study, we analyze attitudinal change over a major portion of the adult life span. We document changes in party identification, self-reported ideology, and selected issue positions over this time period and …
Not by Twins Alone
Variance components estimates of political and social attitudes suggest a substantial level of genetic influence, but the results have been challenged because they rely on data from twins only. In this analysis, we include responses from parents and nontwin full siblings of twins, account for measurement error by using a panel design, and estimate genetic and environmental variance by maximum‐likelihood structural equation modeling. By doing so, …
Intuitive Ethics and Political Orientations
Originally developed to explain cultural variation in moral judgments, moral foundations theory (MFT) has become widely adopted as a theory of political ideology. MFT posits that political attitudes are rooted in instinctual evaluations generated by innate psychological modules evolved to solve social dilemmas. If this is correct, moral foundations must be relatively stable dispositional traits, changes in moral foundations should systematically …
When All's Fair
Studies of newspaper coverage of political campaigns have found gender-based patterns that disadvantage women. However, recent media portrayals of female candidates seem to have been more positive. Have historical coverage patterns shifted? Analyzing statewide campaigns in 1994, I find much smaller coverage differences than in studies relying on pre-1990 data. This indicates such a shift may be underway. Although systematic gender-based patterns …
Linking Genetics and Political Attitudes
In this paper, we trace the route by which genetics could ultimately connect to issue attitudes and suggest that central to this connection are chronic dispositional preferences for mass‐scale social rules, order, and conduct—what we label political ideology. The need to resolve bedrock social dilemmas concerning such matters as leadership style, protection from outgroups, and the degree to which norms of conduct are malleable, is present in any …
Typologies, Taxonomies, and the Benefits of Policy Classification
Although one of the most durable analytic frameworks in political science, policy typologies suffer from some well‐known flaws. Key among these is the problem of classification: thus far, it has proved impossible to consistently and objectively assign specific policies into conceptually distinct categories. The ambitious original promise of policy typologies, that is, to provide a precursor to a general theory of politics has gone unfulfilled in …
Rags, Riches, and Bootstraps
Specific beliefs pertaining to wealth and poverty emanate from metatheories about socioeconomic inequalities. As cognitions, these metatheories filter social perceptions and generate beliefs about the specific causes of wealth and poverty. Four metatheories coexist in American culture and compete for public support. The four are individualism, culturalism, structuralism/situationalism, and fatalism. Using public opinion data on beliefs about 38 o…
Genetic and Environmental Transmission of Political Orientations
This article reports results from the first twin study of adults in the United States that focuses exclusively and comprehensively on political traits. These data allow us to test whether a common set of genetic and environmental influences act upon a broad variety of values, personality traits, and political attitudes. In short, it allows us to empirically investigate whether there are a core set of predispositions that form the basis of our pol…
Evolutionary Theory and Political Leadership
Central to social systems are the attitudes of the rank and file toward those who make political decisions (leaders), and attitudes toward leaders are known to be characterized by two fundamental features. First, the modal attitude is acceptance of the necessity of leaders coupled with acute aversion to leaders who are believed to be motivated by ambition and avarice; second, people are highly variable with some being markedly more sensitive than…
Speaking Different Languages or Reading From the Same Script? Word Usage of Democratic and Republican Politicians
This article refers to:Speaking Different Languages or Reading from the Same Script? Word Usage of Democratic and Republican Politicians
Clean Thoughts and Dirty Minds; The Politics of Porn
Various justiftcations are givenfor regulating sexually explicit material, including that it causes social härm by eroding behavioral norms or violating basic civil rights. Theories ofmorality politics and policy, however, suggest that regulation of sexually explicit material is driven by attempts to redistribute values, i.e., by groups/vho seek to use the coercive power ofthe state to impose their moral codes on others. The analysis here tests f…
Public Choice in Education
School choice is an increasingly popular education reform. Proponents of choice argue that market forces can improve education through the mechanism of competition-the schools that best satisfy the demands of parents and students will attract clientele and prosper and those that do not will close. A key assumption of choice theorists is that the engine driv ing an education marketplace will be a demand for a higher quality educa tion. This demand…
Politics, Bureaucrats, and Schools
In a provocative analysis, Chubb and Moe (1990, 1988) argue that private schools perform better than public schools. They reason that efforts by democratic institutions and the complex environments of public schools generate greater levels of bureaucracy in public schools than in private schools. Rules, regulations, and controls restrict the autonomy of teachers and prevent them from doing what they do best - teach. Only by permitting teachers to…
Seeing justice in poverty
The aim of this research was to empirically link the belief in a just world to a variety of ideas about social inequalities. Drawing from cognitive dissonance theory, it was argued that adherents of the Just World Belief redefine and reinterpret perceived inequalities in order to reduce or eliminate the contradiction between the two cognitions. Using data from a probability sample of adults, six hypotheses were formally stated and empirically tes…
Candidate Genes and Voter Turnout
Recently in this journal, Charney and English (2012) presented an extensive critique of candidate gene association studies using the widely noted Fowler and Dawes (2008) article on the relationship between self-reported voter turnout and both 5-HTT (serotonin transporter) and MAOA (monoamine oxidase A) as the driving example of their evaluation. Reanalysis of the Fowler and Dawes data by Charney and English, based on four critiques of candidate g…
OLS is AOK for ACE
Policy, Markets, and Bureaucracy
Public choice is an idea that is gaining support as a policy option for the nation's schools. Advocates of choice argue decoupling education from the control of democratic institutions and substituting a market mechanism will promote effective schools. This paper analyzes the underlying premises of the public choice argument and empirically tests them on a district-level data set of Florida schools. The relationships hypothesized by public choice…
The Psychophysiology of Political Ideology
This article presents a large-scale, empirical evaluation of the psychophysiological correlates of political ideology and, in particular, the claim that conservatives react with higher levels of electrodermal activity to threatening stimuli than liberals. We (1) conduct two large replications of this claim, using locally representative samples of Danes and Americans; (2) reanalyze all published studies and evaluate their reliability and validity;…
The Biology of Political Behavior
A broad cross-section of the social sciences is increasingly turning to biology and evolutionary theory to help explain human behavior. Political science is a notable exception to this trend, even though there are sound conceptual reasons for expecting biological processes to play an important role in explaining political behavior. While agreeing with the conceptual arguments, the authors believe original empirical research is the most persuasive…
A Mixed Relationship
We argue the negative relationship between school bureaucracy and school performance that is commonly reported in the bureaucracy and educational policy literature is theoretically and empirically incomplete. Like most public agencies operating in complex task environments, we suggest that schools have to make trade‐offs between the multiple outputs they are expected to produce. Bureaucracy plays an important role in determining the nature of the…
Beyond Survey Self-Reports
Some aspects of our attitudes are composed of things outside of our consciousness. However, traditional survey research does not use measurements that are able to tap into these aspects of public opinion. We describe, recommend, and demonstrate a procedure by which non-self-reported responses can be measured in order to test whether these responses have independent effects on individuals’ preferences. We use one of the better-known physiological …
The Physiology of Political Participation
Politics and the Quality of Education
Social science has provided poor guidance for educational policymakers interested in improving student performance. While education research is a large and active field of scholarship, much of the literature has concen trated on influences beyond the control of policymakers. This paper ex plores the influences of realistic policy options. Several policies are identified that meet the criteria of a positive relationship with student per formance a…
Class Structure and Intergenerational Mobility from a Marxian Perspective
Four mobility and attainment propositions are extracted from a theoretical discussion relating class mobility and attainment processes to the development of capitalism. These propositions are evaluated empirically using United States Labor Statistics, General Social Survey data, and primary data collected from a SMSA. The first proposition maintains that paralleling the development of capitalism will be a structural decrease in the relative size …
Individual Correlates of the Belief in a Just World
The relationships between perceived social inequality, evaluated social inequality, the work ethic, political preference, several social-identity variables, and the belief in a just world were examined using data from a sample of 233 adults drawn from a metropolitan area. All seven variables were significantly associated with the belief in a just world except sex, educational attainment, and occupational prestige
Individual and Social Correlates of the Just World Belief
This paper reports the results of a study to identify empirically the nature and correlates of the Just World Belief among Taiwanese college students. Data were collected from over 1,000 students enrolled in two major Taiwanese universities. Similar to Western findings, the average Just World Scale score fell almost exactly at the midpoint of the acceptance-rejection attitudinal continuum. Also similar to Western findings were strong correlations…
I made It Because of Me
Using probability data collected from a sample of metropolitan residents, variation in beliefs about the “causes” of wealth and poverty was examined. It was found that respondents generally preferred individualistic explanations of wealth and poverty over structural ones. By comparing results from this study with those from other studies, it was concluded that many stratification beliefs are remarkably similar across locations and stable over tim…
Seeing justice in poverty
The aim of this research was to empirically link the belief in a just world to a variety of ideas about social inequalities. Drawing from cognitive dissonance theory, it was argued that adherents of the Just World Belief redefine and reinterpret perceived inequalities in order to reduce or eliminate the contradiction between the two cognitions. Using data from a probability sample of adults, six hypotheses were formally stated and empirically tes…
Rags, Riches, and Bootstraps
Specific beliefs pertaining to wealth and poverty emanate from metatheories about socioeconomic inequalities. As cognitions, these metatheories filter social perceptions and generate beliefs about the specific causes of wealth and poverty. Four metatheories coexist in American culture and compete for public support. The four are individualism, culturalism, structuralism/situationalism, and fatalism. Using public opinion data on beliefs about 38 o…
Politics, Bureaucrats, and Schools
In a provocative analysis, Chubb and Moe (1990, 1988) argue that private schools perform better than public schools. They reason that efforts by democratic institutions and the complex environments of public schools generate greater levels of bureaucracy in public schools than in private schools. Rules, regulations, and controls restrict the autonomy of teachers and prevent them from doing what they do best - teach. Only by permitting teachers to…
Policy, Markets, and Bureaucracy
Public choice is an idea that is gaining support as a policy option for the nation's schools. Advocates of choice argue decoupling education from the control of democratic institutions and substituting a market mechanism will promote effective schools. This paper analyzes the underlying premises of the public choice argument and empirically tests them on a district-level data set of Florida schools. The relationships hypothesized by public choice…
Politics and the Quality of Education
Public Choice in Education
Public Choice in Education
School choice is an increasingly popular education reform. Proponents of choice argue that market forces can improve education through the mechanism of competition-the schools that best satisfy the demands of parents and students will attract clientele and prosper and those that do not will close. A key assumption of choice theorists is that the engine driv ing an education marketplace will be a demand for a higher quality educa tion. This demand…
Politics and the Quality of Education
Social science has provided poor guidance for educational policymakers interested in improving student performance. While education research is a large and active field of scholarship, much of the literature has concen trated on influences beyond the control of policymakers. This paper ex plores the influences of realistic policy options. Several policies are identified that meet the criteria of a positive relationship with student per formance a…
Explaining Variation in State-Level Homicide Rates
This study presents a systematic examination of the impact of competing crime policies on homicide rates in the 50 states from 1975 to 1990. The findings indicate that politically popular options for addressing violent crime, especially those that increase prison populations, are not achieving their policy objectives While there is some weak evidence for deterrence policies, the most promising policy approach appears to be long-term commitments t…
Explaining Variation in State–Level Homicide Rates
This study presents a systematic examination of the impact of competing crime policies on homicide rates in the 50 states from 1975 to 1990. The findings indicate that politically popular options for addressing violent crime, especially those that increase prison populations, are not achieving their policy objectives While there is some weak evidence for deterrence policies, the most promising policy approach appears to be long-term commitments t…
When All's Fair
Studies of newspaper coverage of political campaigns have found gender-based patterns that disadvantage women. However, recent media portrayals of female candidates seem to have been more positive. Have historical coverage patterns shifted? Analyzing statewide campaigns in 1994, I find much smaller coverage differences than in studies relying on pre-1990 data. This indicates such a shift may be underway. Although systematic gender-based patterns …
Expensive Lessons
Expensive Lessons
Economic development has long been an important focus of state politics; and political scientists have devoted considerable effort to analyzing the ability of policymakers to influence local economic conditions. Unfortunately, analysis in this area of state politics has been hampered by the lack of a stable and generalizable model of state-level political economy. We seek to contribute to such a model by arguing that previous research theoretical…
Clean Thoughts and Dirty Minds; The Politics of Porn
Various justiftcations are givenfor regulating sexually explicit material, including that it causes social härm by eroding behavioral norms or violating basic civil rights. Theories ofmorality politics and policy, however, suggest that regulation of sexually explicit material is driven by attempts to redistribute values, i.e., by groups/vho seek to use the coercive power ofthe state to impose their moral codes on others. The analysis here tests f…
Typologies, Taxonomies, and the Benefits of Policy Classification
Although one of the most durable analytic frameworks in political science, policy typologies suffer from some well‐known flaws. Key among these is the problem of classification: thus far, it has proved impossible to consistently and objectively assign specific policies into conceptually distinct categories. The ambitious original promise of policy typologies, that is, to provide a precursor to a general theory of politics has gone unfulfilled in …
Money Only Matters if You Want It To? Exposing the Normative Implications of Empirical Research
Political scientists have widely employed production function models as tools for theory confirmation and policy prescription. Although an important part of a growing literature within the discipline, production function research frequently produces contradictory results, an inconsistency that raises questions about the role of normative preferences in quantitative analysis. In this article we seek to explain the variation in the empirical result…
A Mixed Relationship
We argue the negative relationship between school bureaucracy and school performance that is commonly reported in the bureaucracy and educational policy literature is theoretically and empirically incomplete. Like most public agencies operating in complex task environments, we suggest that schools have to make trade‐offs between the multiple outputs they are expected to produce. Bureaucracy plays an important role in determining the nature of the…
The Politics of Punishment
Why have incarceration rates dramatically increased even as crime rates have remained stable or even declined? This is a question of considerable policy and theoretical relevance that currently has no satisfactory answer. I attempt to address this question by examining the key political explanations of prison populations and the unit of analysis and data limitation obstacles that make it difficult to conduct a comprehensive empirical analysis of …
Representational Altruism
What drives policymakers to put the interests of others above their own? If human nature is inherently selfish, it makes sense to institutionalize incentives that counter decision makers' temptations to use their positions to benefit themselves over others. A growing literature rooted in evolutionary theories of human behavior, however, suggests that humans, under certain circumstances, have inherent predispositions towards “representational altr…
The Biology of Political Behavior
A broad cross-section of the social sciences is increasingly turning to biology and evolutionary theory to help explain human behavior. Political science is a notable exception to this trend, even though there are sound conceptual reasons for expecting biological processes to play an important role in explaining political behavior. While agreeing with the conceptual arguments, the authors believe original empirical research is the most persuasive…
Balancing Ambition and Gender Among Decision Makers
In this article, we use an original laboratory experiment to test how people react to ambitious decision makers, allowing for interactions with gender. In the experiment, participants are told two decision makers will be dividing some valuable resource on their behalf. One decision maker (either high or low in ambition) is “appointed.” Participants vote from a slate of candidates, about whom they have information on gender and ambition, for the s…
Political science (45 obras) · Politics (40 obras) · Law (34 obras) · Psychology (32 obras) · Law (30 obras) · Economics (27 obras) · Social Psychology (25 obras) · Social Psychology (23 obras) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (21 obras) · Sociology (18 obras)