Research
Publications and working papers.
2024
-
Messages Designed to Increase Perceived Electoral Closeness Increase TurnoutDaniel R. Biggers, David J. Hendry, and Gregory A. HuberAmerican Politics Research, 2024The decision-theoretic Downsian model and other related accounts predict that increasing perceptions of election closeness will increase turnout. Does this prediction hold? Past observational and experimental tests raise generalizability and credible inference issues. Prior field experiments either (1) compare messages emphasizing election closeness to non-closeness messages, potentially conflating changes in closeness perceptions with framing effects of the voter encouragement message, or (2) deliver information about a particular race’s closeness, potentially altering beliefs about the features of that election apart from its closeness. We address the limitations of prior work in a large-scale field experiment conducted in seven states and find that a telephone message describing a class of contests as decided by fewer, as opposed to more, votes increases voter turnout. Furthermore, this effect exceeds that of a standard election reminder. The results imply expected electoral closeness affects turnout and that perceptions of closeness can be altered to increase participation.
@article{biggersetal2024-closeness, author = {Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J. and Huber, Gregory A.}, title = {Messages Designed to Increase Perceived Electoral Closeness Increase Turnout}, year = {2024}, journal = {American Politics Research}, volume = {52}, number = {1}, pages = {11--22}, doi = {10.1177/1532673X231206139}, }
2022
-
Can Raising the Stakes of Election Outcomes Increase Participation? Results from a Large-Scale Field Experiment in Local ElectionsGregory A. Huber, Alan S. Gerber, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryBritish Journal of Political Science, 2022Political campaigns frequently emphasize the material stakes at play in election outcomes to motivate participation. However, field-experimental academic work has given greater attention to other aspects of voters’ decisions to participate despite theoretical models of turnout and substantial observational work signaling that a contest’s perceived importance affects the propensity to vote. We identify two classes of treatments that may increase the material incentive to participate and test these messages in a largescale placebo-controlled field experiment in which approximately 24,500 treatment letters were delivered during Connecticut’s 2013 municipal elections. We find some evidence that these messages are effective in increasing participation, as well as that some of them may be more effective than typical nonpartisan getout-the-vote appeals. While these results remain somewhat preliminary, our findings have important implications for our understanding of how voters decide whether to participate and how best to mobilize citizens who would otherwise sit out elections.
@article{huberetal2022-localfieldexperiment, author = {Huber, Gregory A. and Gerber, Alan S. and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Can Raising the Stakes of Election Outcomes Increase Participation? Results from a Large-Scale Field Experiment in Local Elections}, year = {2022}, journal = {British Journal of Political Science}, volume = {52}, number = {4}, pages = {1635--1650}, doi = {10.1017/S0007123421000600}, } -
The Psychophysiology of Political Ideology: Replications, Reanalysis and RecommendationsMathias Osmundsen, David J. Hendry, Lasse Laustsen, Kevin B. Smith, and Michael Bang PetersenJournal of Politics, 2022This 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; and (3) test several features to enhance the validity of psychophysiological measures and offer a number of recommendations. Overall, we find little empirical support for the claim. This is caused by significant reliability and validity problems related to measuring threat sensitivity using electrodermal activity. When assessed reliably, electrodermal activity in the replications and published studies captures individual differences in the physiological changes associated with attention shifts, which are unrelated to ideology. In contrast to psychophysiological reactions, self-reported emotional reactions to threatening stimuli are reliably associated with ideology.
@article{osmundsenetal2022-ideologyandphysiology, author = {Osmundsen, Mathias and Hendry, David J. and Laustsen, Lasse and Smith, Kevin B. and Petersen, Michael Bang}, title = {The Psychophysiology of Political Ideology: Replications, Reanalysis and Recommendations}, year = {2022}, journal = {Journal of Politics}, volume = {84}, number = {1}, pages = {50--66}, doi = {10.1086/714780}, }
2021
-
Conformity Effects on Public Opinion in the Face of Looming Social PressureDavid J. HendryJournal of Future Politics (미래정치연구), 2021A high-profile shift in social norms recent decades has been a movement from support for hierarchical structures defining relationships between social groups to rejection of hierarchy in favor of egalitarian values. In the process of such norm displacement, the individuals that comprise a society should be expected to have the newly socially appropriate attitude reinforced through social interactions. Though this process is widely theorized and discussed, it remains difficult to examine empirically because most of the reinforcement takes place in everyday interpersonal interactions, many of which are private. This paper presents a laboratory experiment in which individuals learn that the distribution of opinions on a set of survey questions among a proximate group of peers is opposed to broader egalitarian norms, and that their opinions on those same survey questions will be made public to that peer group. Results indicate that this form of social pressure is at least weakly predictive in moving participants away from egalitarian attitude expressions toward the opinion of the peer group.
@article{hendry2021-conformitylooming, author = {Hendry, David J.}, title = {Conformity Effects on Public Opinion in the Face of Looming Social Pressure}, year = {2021}, journal = {Journal of Future Politics (미래정치연구)}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, pages = {137--178}, doi = {10.20973/jofp.2021.11.1.137}, }
2017
-
Can Political Participation Prevent Crime? Results from a Field Experiment about Citizenship, Participation, and CriminalityAlan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryPolitical Behavior, 2017Democratic theory and prior empirical work support the view that political participation, by promoting social integration and pro-social attitudes, reduces one’s propensity for anti-social behavior, such as committing crimes. Previous investigations examine observational data, which are vulnerable to bias if omitted factors affect both propensity to participate and risk of criminality or their reports. A field experiment encouraging 552,525 subjects aged 18–20 to register and vote confirms previous observational findings of the negative association between participation and subsequent criminality. However, comparing randomly formed treatment and control groups reveals that the intervention increased participation but did not reduce subsequent criminality. Our results suggest that while participation is correlated with criminality, it exerts no causal effect on subsequent criminal behavior.
@article{gerberetal2017-birthdays, author = {Gerber, Alan S. and Huber, Gregory A. and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Can Political Participation Prevent Crime? Results from a Field Experiment about Citizenship, Participation, and Criminality}, year = {2017}, journal = {Political Behavior}, volume = {39}, number = {4}, pages = {909--934}, doi = {10.1007/s11109-016-9385-1}, } - Does Incarceration Reduce Voting? Evidence about the Political Consequences of Spending Time in PrisonAlan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Marc Meredith, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryJournal of Politics, 2017
The rise in mass incarceration provides a growing impetus to understand the effect that interactions with the criminal justice system have on political participation. While a substantial body of prior research studies the political consequences of criminal disenfranchisement, less work examines why eligible ex-felons vote at very low rates. We use administrative data on voting and interactions with the criminal justice system from Pennsylvania to assess whether the association between incarceration and reduced voting is causal. Using administrative records that reduce the possibility of measurement error, we employ several different research designs to investigate the possibility that the observed negative correlation between incarceration and voting might result from differences across individuals that lead both to incarceration and to low participation. As this selection bias issue is addressed, we find that the estimated effect of serving time in prison on voting falls dramatically and for some research designs vanishes entirely.
@article{gerberetal2017-felonobservational, author = {Gerber, Alan S. and Huber, Gregory A. and Meredith, Marc and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Does Incarceration Reduce Voting? Evidence about the Political Consequences of Spending Time in Prison}, year = {2017}, journal = {Journal of Politics}, volume = {79}, number = {4}, pages = {1130--1146}, doi = {10.1086/692670}, } -
Guidelines for Generating Right-censored Outcomes from a Cox Model Extended to Accommodate Time-varying CovariatesMaria E. Montez-Rath, Kristopher Kapphahn, Maya Mathur, Aya Mitani, David J. Hendry, and Manisha DesaiJournal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods\hspace-1mm, 2017Simulating studies with right-censored outcomes as functions of time-varying covariates is discussed. Guidelines on the use of an algorithm developed by Zhou and implemented by Hendry are provided. Through simulation studies, the sensitivity of the method to user inputs is considered.
@article{montezrathetal2017-guidelines, author = {Montez-Rath, Maria E. and Kapphahn, Kristopher and Mathur, Maya and Mitani, Aya and Hendry, David J. and Desai, Manisha}, title = {Guidelines for Generating Right-censored Outcomes from a Cox Model Extended to Accommodate Time-varying Covariates}, year = {2017}, journal = {Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods\hspace{-1mm}}, volume = {16}, number = {1}, pages = {86--106}, doi = {10.22237/jmasm/1493597100}, } -
Why Don’t People Vote in U.S. Primary Elections? Assessing Theoretical Explanations for Reduced ParticipationAlan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryElectoral Studies, 2017Primary election participation in the United States is consistently lower than general election turnout. Despite this well-documented voting gap, our knowledge is limited as to the individual-level factors that explain why some general election voters do not show up for primary contests. We provide important insights into this question, using a novel new survey to examine three theoretical perspectives on participation never before empirically applied to primary races. Compared to general elections, we find that for U.S. House primary elections sizable segments of the electorate consider the stakes lower and the costs of voting greater, feel less social pressure to turn out and hold exclusionary beliefs about who should participate, and are more willing to defer to those who know and care more about the contests. Multivariate analysis reveals that these attitudes explain validated primary election participation. These findings point to new directions for future research.
@article{gerberetal2017-hewlettprimarysurvey, author = {Gerber, Alan S. and Huber, Gregory A. and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Why Don't People Vote in U.S. Primary Elections? Assessing Theoretical Explanations for Reduced Participation}, year = {2017}, journal = {Electoral Studies}, volume = {45}, pages = {119--129}, doi = {10.1016/j.electstud.2016.11.003}, } -
Self Interest, Beliefs, and Policy Opinions: Understanding the Economic Source of Immigration Policy PreferencesAlan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryPolitical Research Quarterly, 2017Research on how economic factors affect attitudes toward immigration often focuses on labor market effects, concluding that, because workers’ skill levels do not predict opposition to low- versus highly skilled immigration, economic self-interest does not shape policy attitudes. We conduct a new survey to measure beliefs about a range of economic, political, and cultural consequences of immigration. When economic self-interest is broadened to include concerns about the fiscal burdens created by immigration, beliefs about these economic effects strongly correlate with immigration attitudes and explain a significant share of the difference in support for highly versus low-skilled immigration. Although cultural factors are important, our results suggest that previous work underestimates the importance of economic self-interest as a source of immigration policy preferences and attitudes more generally.
@article{gerberetal2017-immigrationsurvey, author = {Gerber, Alan S. and Huber, Gregory A. and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Self Interest, Beliefs, and Policy Opinions: Understanding the Economic Source of Immigration Policy Preferences}, year = {2017}, journal = {Political Research Quarterly}, volume = {70}, number = {1}, pages = {155--171}, doi = {10.1177/1065912916684032}, }
2016
-
A Field Experiment Shows That Subtle Linguistic Cues Might Not Affect Voter BehaviorAlan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016One of the most important recent developments in social psychology is the discovery of minor interventions that have large and enduring effects on behavior. A leading example of this class of results is in the work by Bryan et al. [Bryan CJ, Walton GM, Rogers T, Dweck CS (2011) *Proc Natl Acad Sci USA* 108(31):12653–12656], which shows that administering a set of survey items worded so that subjects think of themselves as voters (noun treatment) rather than as voting (verb treatment) substantially increases political participation (voter turnout) among subjects. We revisit these experiments by replicating and extending their research design in a large-scale field experiment. In contrast to the 11 to 14% point greater turnout among those exposed to the noun rather than the verb treatment reported in the work by Bryan et al., we find no statistically significant difference in turnout between the noun and verb treatments (the point estimate of the difference is approximately zero). Furthermore, when we benchmark these treatments against a standard get out the vote message, we estimate that both are less effective at increasing turnout than a much shorter basic mobilization message. In our conclusion, we detail how our study differs from the work by Bryan et al. and discuss how our results might be interpreted.
@article{gerberetal2016-pnasresponse, author = {Gerber, Alan S. and Huber, Gregory A. and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {A Field Experiment Shows That Subtle Linguistic Cues Might Not Affect Voter Behavior}, year = {2016}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {113}, number = {26}, pages = {7112--7117}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1513727113}, }
2015
-
Reassessing Schoenfeld Residual Tests of Proportional Hazards in Political Science Event History AnalysesSunhee Park and David J. HendryAmerican Journal of Political Science, 2015An underlying assumption of proportional hazards models is that the effect of a change in a covariate on the hazard rate of event occurrence is constant over time. For scholars using the Cox model, a Schoenfeld residual-based test has become the disciplinary standard for detecting violations of this assumption. However, using this test requires researchers to make a choice about a transformation of the time scale. In practice, this choice has largely consisted of arbitrary decisions made without justification. Using replications and simulations, we demonstrate that the decision about time transformations can have profound implications for the conclusions reached. In particular, we show that researchers can make far more informed decisions by paying closer attention to the presence of outlier survival times and levels of censoring in their data. We suggest a new standard for best practices in Cox diagnostics that buttresses the current standard with in-depth exploratory data analysis.
@article{parkandhendry2015-schoenfeld, author = {Park, Sunhee and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Reassessing Schoenfeld Residual Tests of Proportional Hazards in Political Science Event History Analyses}, year = {2015}, journal = {American Journal of Political Science}, volume = {59}, number = {4}, pages = {1072--1087}, doi = {10.1111/ajps.12176}, } - Can Incarcerated Felons Be (Re)integrated into the Political System? Results from a Field ExperimentAlan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Marc Meredith, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryAmerican Journal of Political Science, 2015
How does America’s high rate of incarceration shape political participation? Few studies have examined the direct effects of incarceration on patterns of political engagement. Answering this question is particularly relevant for the 93% of formerly incarcerated individuals who are eligible to vote. Drawing on new administrative data from Connecticut, we present evidence from a field experiment showing that a simple informational outreach campaign to released felons can recover a large proportion of the reduction in participation observed following incarceration. The treatment effect estimates imply that efforts to reintegrate released felons into the political process can substantially reduce the participatory consequences of incarceration.
@article{gerberetal2015-ctfelons, author = {Gerber, Alan S. and Huber, Gregory A. and Meredith, Marc and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Can Incarcerated Felons Be (Re)integrated into the Political System? Results from a Field Experiment}, year = {2015}, journal = {American Journal of Political Science}, volume = {59}, number = {4}, pages = {912--926}, doi = {10.1111/ajps.12166}, }
2014
-
Reporting Guidelines for Experimental Research: A Report from the Experimental Research Section Standards CommitteeAlan S. Gerber, Kevin Arceneaux, Cheryl Boudreau, Conor M. Dowling, D. Sunshine Hillygus, Thomas R. Palfrey, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryJournal of Experimental Political Science, 2014The Standards Committee of the Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association has produced reporting guidelines that aim to increase the clarity of experimental research reports. This paper describes the Committee’s rationale for the guidelines it developed and includes our Recommended Reporting Standards for Experiments (Laboratory, Field, Survey). It begins with a content analysis of current reporting practices in published experimental research. Although researchers report most important aspects of their experimental designs and data, we find substantial omissions that could undermine the clarity of research practices and the ability of researchers to assess the validity of study conclusions. With the need for reporting guidelines established, the report describes the process the Committee used to develop the guidelines, the feedback received during the comment period, and the rationale for the final version of the guidelines.
@article{gerberetal2014-experimentreporting, author = {Gerber, Alan S. and Arceneaux, Kevin and Boudreau, Cheryl and Dowling, Conor M. and Hillygus, D. Sunshine and Palfrey, Thomas R. and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Reporting Guidelines for Experimental Research: A Report from the Experimental Research Section Standards Committee}, year = {2014}, journal = {Journal of Experimental Political Science}, volume = {1}, number = {1}, pages = {81--98}, doi = {10.1017/xps.2014.11}, } - Ballot Secrecy Concerns and Voter Mobilization: New Experimental Evidence about Message Source, Context, and the Duration of Mobilization EffectsAlan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Daniel R. Biggers, and David J. HendryAmerican Politics Research, 2014
Recent research finds that doubts about the integrity of the secret ballot as an institution persist among the American public. We build on this finding by providing novel field experimental evidence about how information about ballot secrecy protections can increase turnout among registered voters who had not previously voted. First, we show that a private group’s mailing designed to address secrecy concerns modestly increased turnout in the highly contested 2012 Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election. Second, we exploit this and an earlier field experiment conducted in Connecticut during the 2010 congressional midterm election season to identify the persistent effects of such messages from both governmental and non-governmental sources. Together, these results provide new evidence about how message source and campaign context affect efforts to mobilize previous non-voters by addressing secrecy concerns, as well as show that attempting to address these beliefs increases long-term participation.
@article{gerberetal2014-wictballotsecrecy, author = {Gerber, Alan S. and Huber, Gregory A. and Biggers, Daniel R. and Hendry, David J.}, title = {Ballot Secrecy Concerns and Voter Mobilization: New Experimental Evidence about Message Source, Context, and the Duration of Mobilization Effects}, year = {2014}, journal = {American Politics Research}, volume = {42}, number = {5}, pages = {896--923}, doi = {10.1177/1532673X14524269}, } -
Uplifting Manhood to Wonderful Heights? News Coverage of the Human Costs of Military Conflict from World War One to Gulf War TwoScott L. Althaus, Nathaniel Swigger, Svitlana Chernykh, David J. Hendry, Sergio C. Wals, and Christopher TiwaldPolitical Communication, 2014Domestic political support is an important factor constraining the use of American military power around the world. Although the dynamics of war support are thought to reflect a cost-benefit calculus, with costs represented by numbers of friendly war deaths, no previous study has examined how information about friendly, enemy, and civilian casualties is routinely presented to domestic audiences. This article establishes a baseline measure of historical casualty reporting by examining *New York Times* coverage of five major wars that occurred over the past century. Despite important between-war differences in the scale of casualties, the use of conscription, the type of warfare, and the use of censorship, the frequency of casualty reporting and the framing of casualty reports have remained fairly consistent over the past 100 years. Casualties are rarely mentioned in American war coverage. When casualties are reported, it is often in ways that minimize or downplay the human costs of war.
@article{althausetal2014, author = {Althaus, Scott L. and Swigger, Nathaniel and Chernykh, Svitlana and Hendry, David J. and Wals, Sergio C. and Tiwald, Christopher}, title = {Uplifting Manhood to Wonderful Heights? News Coverage of the Human Costs of Military Conflict from World War One to Gulf War Two}, year = {2014}, journal = {Political Communication}, volume = {31}, number = {2}, pages = {193--217}, doi = {10.1080/10584609.2014.894159}, } -
Data Generation for the Cox Proportional Hazards Model with Time-Dependent Covariates: A Method for Medical ResearchersDavid J. HendryStatistics in Medicine, 2014The proliferation of longitudinal studies has increased the importance of statistical methods for time-to-event data that can incorporate time-dependent covariates. The Cox proportional hazards model is one such method that is widely used. As more extensions of the Cox model with time-dependent covariates are developed, simulations studies will grow in importance as well. An essential starting point for simulation studies of time-to-event models is the ability to produce simulated survival times from a known data generating process. This paper develops a method for the generation of survival times that follow a Cox proportional hazards model with time-dependent covariates. The method presented relies on a simple transformation of random variables generated according to a truncated piecewise exponential distribution and allows practitioners great flexibility and control over both the number of time-dependent covariates and the number of time periods in the duration of follow-up measurement. Within this framework, an additional argument is suggested that allows researchers to generate time-to-event data in which covariates change at integer-valued steps of the time scale. The purpose of this approach is to produce data for simulation experiments that mimic the types of data structures applied that researchers encounter when using longitudinal biomedical data. Validity is assessed in a set of simulation experiments, and results indicate that the proposed procedure performs well in producing data that conform to the assumptions of the Cox proportional hazards model.
@article{hendry2014, author = {Hendry, David J.}, title = {Data Generation for the Cox Proportional Hazards Model with Time-Dependent Covariates: A Method for Medical Researchers}, year = {2014}, journal = {Statistics in Medicine}, volume = {33}, number = {3}, pages = {436--454}, doi = {10.1002/sim.5945}, }
2011
- Assumed Transmission in Political Science: A Call for Bringing Description Back InScott L. Althaus, Nathaniel Swigger, Svitlana Chernykh, David J. Hendry, Sergio C. Wals, and Christopher TiwaldJournal of Politics, 2011
News outlets cannot serve as reliable conveyors of social facts, nor do their audiences crave such content. Nonetheless, much political science scholarship assumes that objective information about social, political, and economic topics is routinely transmitted to the mass public through the news. This article addresses the problem of selection bias in news content and illustrates the problem with a content analytic study of *New York Times* coverage given to American war deaths in five major conflicts that occurred over the past century. We find that news coverage of war deaths is unrelated to how many American combatants have recently died. News coverage is more likely to mention war deaths when reporting combat operations and less likely to mention them when a war is going well. These findings underscore the need to document selection biases in information flows before theorizing about proximate causes underlying the relationships between political systems and public opinion.
@article{althausetal2011, author = {Althaus, Scott L. and Swigger, Nathaniel and Chernykh, Svitlana and Hendry, David J. and Wals, Sergio C. and Tiwald, Christopher}, title = {Assumed Transmission in Political Science: A Call for Bringing Description Back In}, year = {2011}, journal = {Journal of Politics}, volume = {73}, number = {4}, pages = {1065--1080}, doi = {10.1017/S0022381611000788}, }