🧵 Why do facts often change beliefs but not attitudes?
In a new WP with @yamilrvelez.bsky.social and @scottclifford.bsky.social, we caution against interpreting this as rigidity or motivated reasoning. Often, the beliefs *relevant* to people’s attitudes are not what researchers expect.
Science communication has never been more important.
In this animation, @yamilrvelez.bsky.social, Donald Green and I break down our research exploring whether AI chatbots can increase political engagement among young, politically unaligned voters.
Link to animation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCuX...
🚨New WP: Can an AI voter guide (grounded in information from a nonpartisan, fact-checked source) help voters’ decision making? 🚨
We built and evaluated an LLM-based chatbot that provided voting info in CA & TX (N=2,474) right before the 2024 election. 🧵👇
🎺 Call for proposals 🎺
1️⃣ replicate an existing experiment
2️⃣ run a novel experiment
on repdata.com
3️⃣ coauthor with Mary McGrath and me to meta-analyze the replications and existing studies
4️⃣ publish your study
details: alexandercoppock.com/replication_...
applications open Feb 1
please repost!
This paper was a blast to work on. The challenge: present party positions across many issues, in real time, using language voters actually use. 🧵 on why we went with a more involved retrieval-based approach and where I think these tools are headed.
An AI Voter bot improves knowledge about politics
But, the AI bot has weak effects on downstream outcomes like vote preferences and party evaluations among respondents whose primary issue position aligns closely with one of the parties.
Partisan action is hard to change.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Thanks, Rohan!
Whether AI is ultimately used for good or ill largely depends on how govts, campaigns, and civil society orgs navigate this technological transformation. We hope our work spurs more innovation in building tools that expand access to democracy.
Last week, Science and Nature published two articles highlighting the potential for AI chatbots to persuade and manipulate voters. We take a different approach: using AI to make political information more accessible.
We discuss the potential for future interventions that might strengthen the alignment between issues and partisan affiliation.
Despite these knowledge gains, we observed little evidence of voters shifting toward the more proximate party, suggesting that issue proximity may not figure as prominently in the partisan attachments of young voters.
Across three experiments in the US, we found that VAA Bot enhanced knowledge of party stances on voters’ core issues by ~13 percentage points, with smaller spillovers on general issue knowledge (~4pp).
We designed a chatbot-based voting advice application – VAA Bot – to provide young voters with verified information drawn from party platforms and official sources.
🚨Excited to share our new paper published in PNAS (joint with @yamilrvelez.bsky.social and Don Green)! AI can enhance political knowledge and provide balanced information about politics with proper guardrails and vetted sources (e.g., party platforms).
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
It’s true, the paparazzi (aka my mom) won’t stop calling! 🥰
Quite a 24 hours in Canadian Politics, two Conservatives out (one to the Liberals, one gone altogether), a new Budget on the table, and my debut on Power & Politics! Nothing beats watching your research come to life.
Full interview here: gem.cbc.ca/power-politics
#cdnpoli
Our study of every election since 1867 shows party switchers in Canada once thrived, but now they face steep losses. Here is a summary of our results: policyoptions.irpp.org/2018/09/rese... #cdnpoli
@utoronto.ca, do better! The Uni is excluding recent hires from cost-of-living adjustments that an arbitrator decided ALL faculty/librarians deserve. This harms junior colleagues struggling w/ inflation: we’ve organized a petition demanding @utoronto.ca change course. Spread the word! www.utfa.org
Congrats, Jacob!!
Which Canadian MPs are on Bluesky and what do they post?
My new paper w/ @rohanalexander.bsky.social in @cjps-rcsp.bsky.social unpacks these questions, finding MPs
use it like Twitter to discuss policy, the Ottawa bubble & constituency
Read more: doi.org/10.1017/S000...
#polsky #commsky #cdnpoli
Congrats! Can't wait to read this.
Very cool! Looking forward to read these. The last one is intriguing 😉
Thanks. Republicans appear more biased, but that doesn't mean they're more likely to hide it. We didn't measure overt bias.
Thanks! Would love to hear more about what you're doing with list experiments.
🚨NEW STUDY: Do Americans support a woman president? Our list experiment during the 2024 election, when @kamalaharris.com was on the ballot, reveals hidden bias, and it's more widespread than you'd expect.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Congrats, Alex!! I’m so happy for you!
🪃Do legislators trade proposals?
➡️Leveraging a lottery in the Canadian Parliament, @semrasevi.bsky.social & D.P. Green find little evidence MPs second motions to gain favor. Support seems driven by shared interests, not quid pro quo www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView
Why is reciprocity so weak in 🇨🇦?
Strong party discipline limits side deals even in the more flexible world of PMBs.
Our study, using a rare real-world lottery, shows:
Legislative support often reflects shared values, not traded favours.
Not all politics is transactional.
So why second at all?
✅ Shared party
✅ Common values
✅ Constituency interests
In other words: homophily, not horse-trading.
Sometimes, MPs just support what they believe in, not because they expect payback.
Weak evidence for strategic seconding.
MPs with better lottery spots are slightly more likely to second others, and there's almost no evidence that favours are returned in future parliaments.
