Public opinion can often seem mercurial. Obamacare was widely unpopular—until it took effect. The Republican tax plan was widely derided when it was proposed and debated, but people now seem to be warming to it. Why the shifts? New research offers one likely answer: Once something becomes real, we are […] Read more »
Exploring ‘Truth Decay’
Over the past two decades, the role of facts and analysis in American public life has been diminishing, posing a threat to democracy and policymaking. With donor support, RAND president and CEO Michael Rich initiated a project with RAND political scientist Jennifer Kavanagh to investigate the phenomenon of “Truth Decay.” […] Read more »
Powerful or warm? Liberal and conservative voters favor different traits in a politician
Several decades of research in political and electoral behaviour have concluded that a candidate’s personality matters when voters cast their ballots. Unsurprisingly, the main take-away from most of these studies is that voters tend to vote for candidates that they find appealing. However, existing research is still unclear about the […] Read more »
Republicans’ beliefs are bending to Trump. Here’s why they might not even notice.
If you look at polling data, there are a few issues on which Republican voters seem to have changed their beliefs since Donald Trump began his campaign for the presidency. … It’s easy to look at these changing poll numbers and see something blatantly hypocritical — that these Americans are […] Read more »
Does ‘us’ need ‘them’?
Democrats and Republicans dislike each other more than ever before. Donald Trump won the White House, in part, by creating an identity for his followers — distinguishing sharply between an aggrieved “us” and a guilty “them.” Disregarding the definitional problems I’ve treated before, America feels deeply polarized. How did that […] Read more »
Sex, power and the systems that enable men like Harvey Weinstein
… When we learn of injustice, it’s only human to focus on how to eliminate or punish the person responsible. But my research into the social psychology of power suggests that — without exculpating corrupt individuals — we also need to take a hard look at the social systems in which […] Read more »