Eric Merkley

Join us next Thursday, November 6 for our event on political polarization and social media featuring @ericmerkley.bsky.social !

More details can be found at www.eventbrite.ca/e/social-med...

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Registration Registration is now open for the 2025 Toronto Political Behaviour Workshop, taking place November 7 & 8 at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy The deadline to ...

🚨Registration is open for the TPBW🚨

Join us on Nov. 7-8 to discuss exciting political behavior/behaviour research. We have an awesome list of presentations and posters from all around the 🌏🌍🌎
Program: www.rubenson.org/events
Registration: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

🚨The Toronto Political Behaviour Workshop🚨

Back for the 11th time with another great line up. Join us Nov 7-8.

Details 👇🏼

Good job team! 🌭 @pearl-uoft.bsky.social

He's right, and it's not just Brazil.

Around the world, at least 31 democratic leaders who committed similar crimes have been jailed or banned from office since 2010. The failure to hold Trump accountable in the US was a unique and systemic failure of our institutions and political culture.

2) Too little focus on how personality can constrain or facilitate polarization based on downstream attitudes. Three cheers for conscientious conservatives!

Thanks to the @MediaEcosystem for facilitating data collection! END/

Takeaways: 1) personality may be stable, but its effects might not be. More studies needed observing how they interact with rapidly changing information environments 5/

Finding 3: Personality conditions effects of ideology and expert distrust on pandemic attitudes. Conscientiousness, agreeableness, and negative emotionality typically dampened polarization on these dimensions 4/

Finding 2: Personality differences in protective behaviour were generally stable, but differences in risk perceptions and especially lockdown policy preferences weakened as pandemic conditions improved 3/

Finding 1: Traits conform to expectations on average; linked to more protective behaviour and lockdown support, except for extraversion; neuroticism or emotional negativity most important for risk perception 2/

New article with @melissabaker.bsky.social out at Politics and the Life Sciences on the dynamic and conditional effects of Big-5 traits on COVID-19 attitudes and behaviours 1/

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

New paper with @ericmerkley.bsky.social! Relationship between personality & precautionary pandemic behavior is mostly stable as pandemic circumstances change but relationship between personality & gov policy support/risk perception weaken as circumstances improve. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

PEARL @pearl-uoft.bsky.social is now on BlueSky. Give us a follow!

bsky.app/profile/pear...

Thread below covers the highlights! 2/

bsky.app/profile/eric...

🚨New open access article out at @cjps-rcsp.bsky.social on the (lack of) partisan media echo chamber in Canada as demonstrated with behavioural data. Check it out! 1/

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🚨 The Toronto Political Behavior Workshop is back for its 11th edition!

📍Nov 7–8/25 @uoft.bsky.social @uoft.bsky.social #Munk

Apply to present a paper/poster by July 11: nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

@dktrdr.bsky.social @ericmerkley.bsky.social @sborwein.bsky.social @mjdonnelly.bsky.social

"The American regime today arrested a member of the legislative opposition, after declaring it would 'liberate' that senator's province from opposition control using the armed forces"

PIZZABALLA ROLLED BY CHICAGO DEEP-DISH CARDINAL

Not even trying to hide the intent

bsky.app/profile/atru...

A display of force designed to send a chill through the judiciary. We are heading into very dangerous waters.

PEARL/UofT Poli sci at #MPSA2025

If you're at #MPSA2025 and interested in AI as a tool for persuasion, I will be presenting our paper comparing effects of AI and human source cues in reducing certainty in false beliefs on Saturday at 5:10pm (Political Knowledge, Palmer House 7th floor)

Pre-print: osf.io/preprints/os...

MPSA attendees! Join us this Friday for a great panel + wine and snacks!

If you’re interested in joining APLS, please sign up for the newsletter here: aplsnet.org

If you are visiting the United States, having a negative view of Trump is enough to get you denied entry.
If this was coming out of Russia or China, we would deplore such an authoritarian attack on freedom of expression.

Thanks to the old 2019 DDP team for collecting these data @PeejLoewen @taylor_owen (and others no longer on Twitter). Pre-print is 👇Check it out!

osf.io/preprints/os...

This project had hiccups. We didn't collect the N we hoped. We *really* need more/better use of online behavioural data in Canada so we can better characterize the info environment and its connection to concepts like polarization (more on this in my forthcoming book) 9/

Comparisons to self-reports suggest survey measures inflate media use in general and exaggerate the connection between attitudinal strength and partisan media use. Other interesting stuff in here using measures of partisan media use intensity too 8/

Very little partisan differentiation. For instance 6% of CPC partisans visited Fox over 4 weeks, compared to 4% of Liberal and NDP partisans. Partisan media exposure is more strongly linked to measures of political interest and sophistication than attitudinal strength 7/