Browsing by Author "Smith, Kevin B."

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    Beyond Survey Self-Reports: Using Physiology to Tap Political Orientations
    (Oxford, 2015) Wagner, Michael W.; Deppe, Kristen D.; Jacobs, Carly M.; Friesen, Amanda; Smith, Kevin B.; Hibbing, John R.; Department of Political Science, School of Liberal Arts
    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 measures—electrodermal activity or skin conductance—and illustrate its potential by reporting our own study of attitudes toward President Barack Obama. We find that both self-reported emotional responses and physiological responses to Obama’s image independently correlate with variation in the intensity of attitudes regarding his job approval and his central policy proposal: health-care reform.
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    Physiological Arousal and Self-Reported Valence for Erotica Images Correlate with Sexual Policy Preferences
    (Oxford Journals, 2016-04-29) Friesen, Amanda; Smith, Kevin B.; Hibbing, John R.; Department of Political Science, School of Liberal Arts
    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, and premarital sex. Advocates on both sides typically justify their preferences in terms of preserving social order, maintaining moral values, or protecting civil liberties, not in terms of their own sexual preferences. Though these are the stated reasons, in empirical tests we find that psychophysiological response to sexual images also may be a significant driver of policy attitudes.
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    Political attitudes vary with detection of androstenone
    (Cambridge UP, 2020) Friesen, Amanda; Gruszczynski, Mike; Smith, Kevin B.; Alford, John R.; Political Science, School of Liberal Arts
    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 is that it varies so dramatically from person to person. Using participants’ self-reported perceptions of androstenone intensity, together with a battery of survey items testing social and political preferences and orientations, this research supports the idea that perceptions of androstenone intensity relate to political orientations—most notably, preferences for social order—lending further support to theories positing the influence of underlying biological traits on sociopolitical attitudes and behaviors.