Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Political Science

Elections, and the winner-take-all competition between partisan group it represents, is often captured by common metaphors about politics being similar to a sports competition. In a three article dissertation, I examine how a focus on closeness of political partisan competition affects people's people degree of affective polarization, their tolerance of election cheating, and how it does not affect political engagement. Article 1: In recent political history, most elections have become increasingly non-competitive. Yet even though most elections are non-competitive, the Americans have become increasingly polarized and have even grown to hate or loath their opposing partisan group. If there is so little struggle over partisan control of the U.S. government, then why are Americans so entrenched against their partisan out-group? Using a survey of Americans' perceptions of election competitiveness, I explore what drives people's perceptions of competition and how it influences attitudes. I find people are biased towards perceiving elections as competitive and partisans are bias in vote-share perceptions. Greater perceptions of national partisan competition, but not other levels of office, is a predictor of higher levels of affective polarization. Real levels of partisan competition also affect people's level of affective polarization but in more nuanced ways. Given these findings, I discuss insight on effective methods for reducing partisan competition and thus affective polarization. Article 2: American government supports that highly competitive practices like elections are the best way to represent the will of voters. However, in an era of high partisan animus, it is worth examining the negative effects that this focus has on people's attitudes. Using an original survey experiment, I investigate the effects of salient partisan competition on people's tolerance of election cheating. I find that greater salience of partisan competition increases participants' tol (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Thomas Nelson (Committee Chair); Gregory Calderia (Committee Member); Thomas Wood (Committee Member); Thomas Nelson (Advisor) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Political Science; Psychology

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, Design

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world stage was an unprecedented situation in contemporary western life. In this unprecedented situation there was a crucial need for high quality information available to the public so that they might make informed choices about their health and about prevention. This project aims to explore different barriers to the dissemination of quality information in a pandemic. This is done through the research for and design of a prototype source for COVID-19 information. Over the course of this investigation the problem of political polarization in coverage of COVID-19 is uncovered and examined. The problem of political polarization is further considered in exploratory features of the prototype. User-centered and design research techniques were employed to explore this problem area and used to inform the choices at the design level. Research was conducted over the course of four separate phases with protocol including online survey, card sorting, and group workshops. Insights gathered from this research helped inform users' information needs and existing information sourcing habits. This information was utilized in the creation of a user-centered app for COVID-19 information. Users' information sourcing biases were also examined and used to explore different ways for reducing political bias in the presentation of COVID-19 news through interface design. From this research additional design-based recommendations for designing during a pandemic are uncovered and discussed.

Committee: Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders Ph.D (Advisor); Peter Kwok Chan Ph.D (Committee Member); Sébastien Proulx Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Design

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, EDU Teaching and Learning

Race and racism have and continue to shape public education (Kendi, 2016) and teacher education (Carter Andrews, 2021) in the United States. This qualitative case study, informed by Stake (1995) and Esposito and Evans-Winters (2022), explores how race shows up in social studies teaching and learning. Specifically, the participants and I engaged in interviews and focus group conversations to examine how racial identity and racialized experiences inform secondary social studies educators' career choices, professional goals, and perceived roles and responsibilities in the classroom. At its core, social studies education studies history, culture, geography, economics, and politics. These topics have become increasingly politicized in this era of historic political polarization (Stoddard & Hess, 2024). History and social studies educators are asked to navigate issues related to pedagogy, policy, and politics in today's teaching climate. In paying attention to how identity informs social studies educators' engagement with the curriculum and the profession in general, teacher education programs can provide individualized and more meaningful support. Furthermore, given the diversity among the participants, this work offers insight into addressing the teacher education gap (Love, 2019) between the nation's eighty percent White teaching force and the steadily diversifying student population (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023).

Committee: Timothy San Pedro (Advisor); Nimo Abdi (Committee Member); Binaya Subedi (Committee Member); Cynthia Tyson (Committee Member); James Moore III (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Multicultural Education; Social Studies Education; Teacher Education

Honors Theses, Ohio Dominican University, 2022, Honors Theses

This thesis covers the multi-variant reasons for extensive hyper-partisanship in both the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as how they compare on this topic. Both nations are currently in a period of polarization, with the US suffering from the effects of a divisive leader, and the UK still conflicted over the issue of their exit from the European Union. This thesis explains how the different issues like the role of media, leadership, and political structures, have had an impact on the political climate of today, and which nation is experiencing the highest levels of hyper-partisanship.

Committee: Ronald Carstens Dr. (Advisor); Harry McKnight Prof. (Other); Martin Brick Dr. (Other) Subjects: Demographics; European Studies; History; International Relations; Modern History; Political Science; Public Administration; Public Policy

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2021, Journalism (Communication)

Spread of mis- and dis-information has emerged as one of the most concerning threat to democratic processes in the United States. Who is to blame for such a rise in the spread of mis- and dis-information is yet to be decided, however, this study aimed to explore how such forms of information is consumed and believed by the audiences. This research expands on our understanding of how ideological cues work to promote mis/disinformation consumption along with other factors like, political opinion leaders, cognitive dissonance and personal ideology. Furthermore, the study explores the two-step selective evaluation process, which an information consumer goes through before making any decision on the information. The decision is then further rationalized in post-decisional effects. A survey experiment was conducted on 429 respondents who showed that any information content will be palatable to them if those information carries ideologically confirming cues. Moreover, the study used opinion leader as manipulation to test cognitive dissonance, consonance, and resonance against the personal ideology of the respondents to further divulge into the process of mis/disinformation consumption. A deductive thematic analysis of audience responses gives a direction to the decision-making process when faced with congruent or incongruent information.

Committee: Victoria LaPoe (Advisor) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Communication; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Political Science

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 0, Psychology

The phenomenon wherein personal feelings towards others are defined by political party identity, termed affective polarization (AP), has been shown to be on the rise since 1960 and is thought to result in several forms of interpersonal conflict. While past research has explained AP in terms of ideology, political sorting, and social identity theory (SIT), the present work aimed to examine the potential for fundamental social motives (FSM) to further explain the potential function of AP for the individual. This study used archival data from multiple timepoints to model relationships among FSM, AP, ideological extremism (IE), and political/moral conflict (PMC) both cross-sectionally and over a 6-month time-period (N = 1777, 1261 respectively). Results showed IE to be a more robust predictor of AP than social motives. AP demonstrated no significant connection to PMC, but IE and the Status motive predicted PMC cross-sectionally. Exploratory analyses also demonstrated small but significant relationships between Status and IE, and Status and PMC at a single time point. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed. Further research is necessary to understand the complex interplay between IE, AP, and conflict, but the current results demonstrate that IE and AP may be more closely linked than current literature implies.

Committee: Joshua Grubbs PhD (Advisor); Catherine Stein PhD (Committee Member); Michael Zickar PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science; Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Communication

Research suggests that negative affect between political groups may impact the way that group members interact with counter-attitudinal information. Increasing the affective polarization of political group members may cause them to rate two-sided and counter-attitudinal news headlines as lower in credibility. It may also increase their sensitivity to injunctive norms promoted by in-party elites. These theories are tested in a pair of experiments manipulating participants' affective polarization in order to examine changes in their credibility perceptions of political headlines and their sensitivity to injunctive norms, respectively. This manipulation failed to produce statistically significant effects. These relationships were subsequently tested cross-sectionally based on natural variation in participants' affective polarization. However, these tests also failed to detect a significant relationship between affective polarization and the outcomes of interest. Although these results are inconclusive, a broad examination of patterns within the studies' non-results suggests that further theorizing in this area may be required.

Committee: R. Kelly Garrett Ph.D. (Advisor); Robert Bond Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.), Xavier University, 2020, Psychology

Prior work in the field of psychology has demonstrated that people do not always think or act autonomously: People tend to obey relevant authority figures (Milgram, 1963), conform to social norms (Asch, 1951), and behave uncharacteristically when playing a social role (Haney et al., 1973). These landmark studies have demonstrated how social forces – an authority figure, a social group, or situational role – can influence decision making. The purpose of this study was to understand the potential relationship between political prejudice (i.e., Political Manichaeism, or PM), political orientation, and moral conformity. In addition, PM's relationship to various personality factors was explored. The primary result was that partisan participants were most likely to conform with political ingroups under morally ambiguous circumstances, but participants did not deviate from other groups in their evaluation of the basic morality of unambiguous situations. Results for the second set of hypotheses indicated that participants with higher absolute PM tended to have higher negative emotionality (neuroticism), lower ambiguity tolerance, and lower agreeableness when compared to lower PM participants. The current study demonstrates that moral conformity and/or moral distancing can occur with relatively little external pressure. However, other factors, including the content of the dilemmas, may make it more- or less-likely for conformity to occur. Future research in this area might elucidate the conditions under which moral conformity is likely to occur.

Committee: Karl Stukenberg Ph.D., ABPP (Committee Chair); Tammy Sonnentag Ph.D. (Committee Member); Morrie Mullins Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology; Social Psychology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Arts and Sciences: Political Science

Partisans in the United States Congress have become more polarized over the past several decades. Now, most elite Democrats are liberals and most elite Republicans are conservatives in Congress. When parties head towards the extremes, independents (whose ideological position is usually moderate) may feel that they are more distant from parties, and thus not being represented. So, how has the elite polarization affected independents' political attitudes and participation? Some scholars, such as Abramowitz and Saunders, argue that the elite polarization has enabled ordinary Americans to recognize parties' ideological differences easily, which means that more moderate citizens can be involved in political process and turnout to vote. Other scholars, such as Fiorina, Abrams and Pope, argue that polarization in Congress is alienating many moderate citizens from the political process, further turning the moderate citizens off to politics. This disagreement on the effects of political polarization raises the question: has the polarization increased independents' political participation or not? Then, what kinds of independents are more involved in politics and what kinds of independents are turned off by the polarization? I examine how the polarization in Congress has affected independent voters' political attitudes on ideological policy positions, political efficacy, trust in government and affection for parties. The research also focuses on independent voters' political participation such as campaign participation and voter turnout. I find that the elite partisan polarization in Congress has allowed independent voters to understand party differences more easily, which has made independents move towards a more ideologically extreme position and achieve greater political efficacy. Also, the elite partisan polarization in Congress has made independents dislike polarized political parties and distrust government more. As a result, the elite partisan polarization in Congress h (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Stephen Mockabee Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Barbara Bardes Ph.D. (Committee Member); Andrew Lewis PH.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Communication

The purpose of this study was to examine the 2004 Presidential election, both the “top-down” and “bottom-up” processes, by integrating the research areas of media framing, social identity, political discussion, and opinion leadership. In addition to replicating prior research, this study extended these areas of research to consider the possible differential effects that these “top down” and “bottom up” processes may have had on political efficacy and mobilization based on partisan identity. I conducted a quantitative content analysis of media with some qualitative observations, a secondary analysis of the National Election Studies 2004 time-series data, and a field study of the volunteer opinion leaders for the political campaigns in the battleground state of Ohio. Examining the media content during the two months prior to the election, I found that the polarization frame was used quite frequently across two different types of media, newspapers and television. While the use of the polarization frame did not seem to vary over time during those two months, certain key words and phrases indicating the presence of the polarization frame were more prominent in news coverage. The campaign media at times portrayed the United States as consisting of blue states, red states, and battleground states; as a nation sharply divided; as a nation consisting of a polarized electorate, split 50/50; as a nation of clashing cultures; as a nation filled with bitter, angry people. The survey results indicate that attention to media coverage of the campaign, frequency of political discussion with family and friends, and opinion leadership are all significant predictors of political efficacy and mobilization. In addition to these main effects, the survey results suggest that the effects of media attention, political discussion, and contact with an opinion leader are sometimes moderated by partisan identity. Replicating prior work on the functional role of opinion leadership, opinion leader (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Gerald Kosicki (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies and Public Affairs, Cleveland State University, 2009, Levin College of Urban Affairs

The Republic of Korea's efforts to accelerate the development of its economy in the aftermath of an extremely destructive civil war led to the concentration of capital and activity in areas that resemble the growth poles described by Perroux (1950) and Hirschman (1958). These poles led to an extreme centralization of economic activity and people in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA). More than 48 percent of the GDP, 90 percent of the headquarters of major firms, and 48 percent of the population is concentrated in 11.8 percent of the Republic's land (2006 figures). Despite the agglomeration economies, the national government has investigated policies and practices to spatially reorganize the growth-pole regions' industrial base to bring more balanced growth to other parts of the country. These efforts have been mostly unsuccessful. To better understand factors that could be undermining efforts to decentralize and enhance the distribution of economic activity this study looks at the relationship between social linkages among power elites and the concentration of economic activity. After assessing the existence of growth poles and their dominance, this study also analyzes the consequences of the concentration of capital into two regions. The third and main part of the study uses social network analysis (SNA) to identify the existence of a powerful social system that sustains these growth-pole regions and impede meaningful change. The data analysis strongly suggests that changes in the ‘creative destruction' of social patterns at a minimum must occur at the same time that efforts are made to alter path-dependent economic patterns. The final section of the dissertation presents some recommendations to achieve the needed reforms in social networks that must precede any change in the concentration of economic activity.

Committee: Mark Rosentraub PhD (Committee Chair); William Bowen PhD (Other); Harlow-Rosentraub Karen PhD (Other); Lee Sugie PhD (Other) Subjects: Area Planning and Development; Economic Theory; Geography; Public Administration; Social Structure; Sociology; Urban Planning