2021. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (with Sanaz Talaifar, Gabriella Harari, and Samuel Gosling)

Socializing, moving, working, and leisure form the foundation of human experience. We examined whether these foundational, ostensibly nonpolitical behaviors are nevertheless bifurcated along political fault lines, revealing “lifestyle polarization.” Study 1 quantified the association between political identity and 61 social, movement, work, and leisure behaviors collected from smartphone sensors and logs (i.e., GPS, microphone, calls, texs, unlocks, activity recognition) and ecological momentary assessments (i.e., querying activity level, activity type, interaction partners, locations) at multiple temporal levels (i.e., daily, mornings, afternoon, evenings, nights, weekends, weekdays) in a sample of up to 1,229 students on a college campus. We found that liberals and conservatives behave differently in everyday life; the behavioral differences were small but robust, not accounted for by other plausible factors (e.g., demographics), and most pronounced in the leisure domain. Study 2 showed that the behavioral differences between liberals and conservatives were not accurately discerned by other students, who overestimated the extent of lifestyle polarization present on their campus. Together, these studies suggest that political identity has penetrated some of the most foundational aspects of everyday life, but not to the degree that people think. We discuss how communities may feel divided not only because of deep ideological disagreements across partisan lines but also because such disagreements are accompanied by distinct lifestyles—both real and (mis)perceived—that may prevent liberals and conservatives from engaging in cross-partisan contact and developing mutual understanding.

2026. Acceptance at American Political Science Review (with Trent Ollerenshaw and Andrew Trexler)

We re-examine recent influential claims that repeated measure experimental designs do not introduce bias and offer large precision gains in survey research (Clifford, Sheagley, and Piston 2021). We test these claims by experimentally varying the design of six classic political science experiments across three distinct large samples of U.S. adults (total N = 13, 163). In contrast to the original study, we observe consistent attenuation of treatment effects in repeated measure designs. However, this average design effect is small enough, and the precision gains large enough, that largely we affirm the recommendation to employ repeated measure designs in many practical research applications—though post-only designs with large samples may be preferable when estimating the precise magnitude of the treatment effect is a priority. We additionally extend the literature on repeated measure designs by exploring how several design considerations affect the bias-precision trade-off, such as the use of within-subject versus between-groups designs, the relative separation of repeated measures within single surveys, and differences in respondent characteristics across sample types.

R&R at Political Behavior

Recent research on political persuasion suggests that narrative- and evidence-based messages can effectively change attitudes in settings such as canvassing, video presentations, and survey experiments. Yet less is known about how these persuasive strategies operate in reciprocal, cross-partisan political conversations. This study examines the relationship between persuasive message types, conversational reciprocity, and post-discussion attitudes using survey and text data from 966 U.S. participants engaged in anonymous one-on-one political discussions on DiscussIt, a mobile chat platform. I analyze how evidence-based arguments and personal narratives relate to both conversational interaction outcomes and measurable attitude change. Participants exposed to more personal narratives were more likely to perceive their conversation partner as influential and reported more positive conversational experiences, particularly when narrative exchanges were mutually reciprocated. In contrast, evidence-based exchanges were associated with lower perceived interpersonal influence, lower conversational enjoyment, and greater perceptions of relative knowledge. Despite these differences in conversational dynamics, neither persuasive strategy nor conversation structure was associated with significant changes in immediate or delayed political attitudes. Unlike prior research focused on one-directional or professionally crafted persuasive messages, this study examines spontaneous peer-to-peer political interaction in which participants simultaneously attempt to persuade one another. The findings suggest that persuasive strategies in cross-partisan conversation shape relational and experiential dimensions of interaction more than political attitudes themselves.

2024 James W. Protho Student Paper Award Honorable Mention

Under Review

Congressional communication occurs in a variety of venues that each have distinct affordances and audiences, which may make them differentially useful for discussing particular topics in particular ways. However, substantive research in congressional communication typically examines one venue at a time. We test the extent to which venue selection on the part of the researcher may contribute to the inferences they draw by exploring what topics members discuss and how they discuss them across Twitter, Facebook, press releases, e-newsletters, and one-minute speeches in the 116th Congress. We find that while some highly salient topics are discussed at similar rates across all venues, others receive differential emphasis and partisan differences in how topics are discussed also vary across venues. Our results suggest that researchers should explicitly consider how features of their data sources may encourage some forms of communication over others, and should make cross-platform comparisons when possible.