We measured brain activity using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm and conducted a whole-brain analysis while healthy adult Democrats and Republicans made non-hypothetical food choices. While the food purchase decisions were not significantly different, we found that brain activation during decision-making differs according to the participant’s party affiliation. Models of partisanship based on left insula, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, superior frontal gyrus, or premotor/supplementary motor area activations achieve better than expected accuracy. Understanding the differential function of neural systems that lead to indistinguishable choices may provide leverage in explaining the broader mechanisms of partisanship.

There is a longstanding belief amongst scholars of psychophysiology that activation is positively associated with attention. However, recent work on news avoidance suggests that activation from negative content is linked to decreased attention. The current study seeks to investigate these different expectations and suggests that both increased and decreased activation can be linked to both attention and avoidance. Using an experiment that employs skin conductance levels and heart rate to evaluate subjects’ media selection choices, the author finds that even as deactivation is most likely to precede the decision to turn away from content, roughly 30% of the time activation precedes turning away. These findings confirm prior conclusions from the psychophysiological communications literature, and in the news avoidance literature, but it also highlights the need for more nuanced expectations where activation and media selection are concerned.

In 2022, Russia invoked Articles V and VI of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), requesting a formal meeting to discuss, and subsequent investigation of, alleged U.S.-funded biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine. Such allegations have been dismissed as false by scholars and diplomats alike, many of whom have argued that Russia’s actions represented an abuse of BTWC provisions and risked undermining the Convention. However, few scholars have assessed the implications of Russia’s ongoing efforts to level false allegations in BTWC meetings following the Article V and VI procedures. Using mixed-methods analysis of BTWC meeting recordings, transcripts, and documents, we assessed the volume, consequences, and framing of Russian false allegations at the BTWC Ninth Review Conference. Analysis revealed that discussion of Russian allegations took over three hours and contributed to a stunted Final Document. Additional potential consequences are discussed, including increased division among states parties and the erosion of nonproliferation norms.

The political involvement of adolescents is characterized by a substantial socioeconomic gradient already at a young age with enduring effects into adulthood. This study investigates whether high parental income creates an enhancing environment that increases the influence of genetic dispositions on political interest using the German TwinLife study (2014–2020, age 10–29, n = 6,174, 54% female, 19% migration background). While 30–40% of the total variance in political interest of twin adolescents (age 10–18) can be attributed to genetic influences, a gene–environment interaction model shows that this share is much lower among poor compared to rich families. Family fixed-effects models among early adults further show no significant effect of income differences on political interest after controlling for family background and genetic influences. This study suggests that the income gap in political participation cannot be fully understood without accounting for life cycle processes and genetic background.

The endorsement of conspiracy theories may be increased by subjectively perceived stress. Yet, it is not known whether this correlation is caused by the effects of the acute stress reaction on the brain or other psychological, social, or methodological factors. The effect of an experimentally induced acute stress reaction on conspiracy thinking was tested on a sample (n = 115) of students of medicine. Although the stress procedure caused a substantial increase in salivary cortisol, there was no significant effect on endorsing conspiracy theories or adopting conspiracy interpretations of novel information. The results confirmed no effect of the acute stress reaction on conspiracy thinking, suggesting it may be absent or weaker than expected. The study demonstrated the viability of psychophysiological experimental design in conspiracy research and may inspire further examination of the physiological mechanisms underlying susceptibility to conspiracy theories.

In the absence of a treaty protocol or verification regime, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) instituted confidence-building measures (CBMs) as a mechanism to increase confidence in compliance by enhancing transparency and mitigating ambiguities regarding states parties’ biological activities. While a promising tool to support treaty compliance, low participation, concerns regarding the completeness and accuracy of CBM submissions, a dearth of analysis, and restricted access to many submissions have limited CBMs’ value. Through interviews with 53 international experts—38 from BWC delegations and 15 independent experts—we identified concrete opportunities to increase CBMs’ value while mitigating the burden on states parties. This study supports states parties’ efforts in the BWC Working Group on the Strengthening of the Convention, as part of a series of research on BWC assurance that aims to characterize challenges around BWC verification and increase certainty in BWC compliance.

There is growing concern about the impact of declining political trust on democracies. Psychological research has introduced the concept of epistemic (mis)trust as a stable disposition acquired through development, which may influence our sociopolitical engagement. Given trust’s prominence in current politics, we examined the relationship between epistemic trust and people’s choices of (un)trustworthy political leaders. In two representative samples in the UK and US (N = 1096), we tested whether epistemic trust predicts political leader choices through three political dimensions: dogmatism, political trust, and ideology. Although epistemic trust did not directly predict choices of political leaders, it predicted dogmatism and political ideology, which in turn predicted choices of political leaders. A network analysis revealed that epistemic trust and political dimensions only interact through their common connection with dogmatism. These findings suggest that cognitive and affective development may underlie an individual’s political ideology and associated beliefs.

The cognitive deterioration of politicians is a critical emerging issue. As professions including law and medicine develop and implement cognitive assessments, their insights may inform the proper strategy within politics. The aging, lifetime-appointed judiciary raises legal and administrative questions of such assessments, while testing of older physicians experiencing cognitive decline provides real-life examples of implementation. In politics, cognitive assessment must contend with the field’s unique challenges, also taking context-dependent interpretations of cognitive-neuropsychological status into account. These perspectives, from legal and medical experts, political scientists, and officeholders, can contribute toward an equitable, functioning, and non-discriminatory system of assessing cognition that educates the public and enables politicians to maintain their public responsibilities. With proper implementation and sufficient public knowledge, we believe cognitive assessments for politicians, particularly political candidates, can be valuable for maintaining properly functioning governance. We offer recommendations on the development, implementation, and execution of such assessments, grappling with their democratic and legal implications.

This preregistered study replicates and extends studies concerning emotional response to wartime rally speeches and applies it to U.S. President Donald Trump’s first national address regarding the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020. We experimentally test the effect of a micro-expression (ME) by Trump associated with appraised threat on change in participant self-reported distress, sadness, anger, affinity, and reassurance while controlling for followership. We find that polarization is perpetuated in emotional response to the address which focused on portraying the COVID-19 threat as being of Chinese provenance. We also find a significant, albeit slight, effect by Trump’s ME on self-reported sadness, suggesting that this facial behavior served did not diminish his speech, instead serving as a form of nonverbal punctuation. Further exploration of participant response using the Linguistic Inventory and Word Count software reinforces and extends these findings.

Research in social psychology has long argued that exposure to objectifying portrayals of women can lead to increasingly misogynist attitudes and behavior. We argue that such images can also impact on gendered policy attitudes. We suggest that objectifying images prime sexist attitudes and reduce perceptions of women’s agency, warmth, and competence. We argue that this may translate into decreased support for reproductive rights and other gender-salient policies. Furthermore, these effects may vary by the gender of those exposed to these images. In two survey experiments with brief exposures to objectifying images, we find mixed support for these predictions. Although we find some negative effects as predicted, we also find positive effects of objectification among women in the sample that are suggestive of a backlash effect. We discuss potential explanations for this heterogeneity. Overall, our results suggest interesting avenues to further explore the effects of objectification on political outcomes.

Recently, there has been growing interest in the concept of political anxiety. One important question that remains unanswered is whether political anxiety is just a symptom of general anxiety—that those reporting anxiety tied to politics are the same individuals who would already score highly on measures of general anxiety. Using survey data collected in 2023 (N = 436), we find that measures of political and generalized anxiety do not appear to be tapping into a single underlying construct. In addition, the systematic correlates of these measures identified by previous literature are not equivalent predictors of the different types of anxiety. Politics seems to be a source of apprehensiveness and worry that affects individuals who are not necessarily suffering from general anxiety.

Opinion formation and information processing are affected by unconscious affective responses to stimuli—particularly in politics. Yet we still know relatively little about such affective responses and how to measure them. In this study, we focus on emotional valence and examine facial electromyography (fEMG) measures. We demonstrate the validity of these measures, discuss ways to make measurement and analysis more robust, and consider validity trade-offs in experimental design. In doing so, we hope to support scholars in designing studies that will advance scholarship on political attitudes and behavior by incorporating unconscious affective responses to political stimuli—responses that have too often been neglected by political scientists.

Scholars, policymakers, and citizens alike remain invested in the impact of infectious diseases worldwide. Studies have found that emerging diseases and disease outbreaks burden global economies and public health goals. This article explores the potential link between measles outbreaks and various forms of civil unrest, such as demonstrations, riots, strikes, and other anti-government violence, in four central African countries from 1996 to 2005. Using a difference-in-differences model, we examine whether disease outbreaks have a discernible impact on the prevalence of civil unrest. While our findings indicate that the relationship between disease and civil unrest is not as strong as previously suggested, we identify a notable trend that warrants further investigation. These results have significant implications for health and policy officials in understanding the complex interplay between state fragility, civil unrest, and the spread of disease.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights a long-known but often neglected aspect of international relations: the ability of disease to challenge and change all aspects of security, as well as the ability of public policies to change the course of disease progression. Diseases, especially mass epidemics like COVID-19, clearly affect political, economic, and social structures, but they can also be ameliorated or exacerbated by political policies, including public health policies. The threat of pandemic disease poses a widespread and increasing threat to international stability. Indeed, the political implications of pandemic disease have become increasingly evident as COVID-19 has precipitated death, economic collapse, and political instability around the globe. Any pandemic disease can precipitate catastrophes, from increasing health care costs to decreased productivity. This theoretical discussion highlights the intertwined interactions between social, political, and economic forces and the emergence and evolution of pandemic disease, with widespread implications for governance and international security.

Partisans in the American electorate are affectively polarized, which coincides with the tendency for partisan geographic sorting. Could mate selection pressures contribute to this geographic tendency, and how might they interact with out-party affect? I propose a model in which an individual’s perception of their mate success in a niche is key. I argue that perceived mate success is a function of a niche’s partisanship and one’s out-party affect, which in turn, incentivizes sorting. The model is partially tested with conjoint experiments on multiple U.S. samples. Results show that partisans perceive a lower probability of mate success in niches with greater shares of out-partisans and that mate success interacts with negative out-party affect. I also replicate findings on political mate choice preferences with a more appropriate method. Lastly, this project links instrumentality and affect, which is a departure from past work. In doing so, it contributes to research on the consequences of mate pressures for political behavior.

This article uses a behavioral genetics approach to study gender differences in expressed political interest, applying the enriched environment hypothesis to gendered political socialization. As girls are less stimulated to develop an interest in politics than boys, we theorize that these differences in the socialization environment reduce the expression of girls’ genetic predispositions compared to boys’, leading to a gender gap in the heritability of this trait. Analyses using data on German twins (11–25 years) demonstrate relevant differences by gender and age in heritability estimates. While differences in political interest between boys are largely explained by genes, this is less the case for girls, as they have considerably higher shared environment estimates. Our results imply that gender differences in expressed political interest are sustained by both genetic variation and environmental influences (such as socialization), as well as the interaction between the two.

We examine the likely acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine in the period prior to political polarization around vaccine mandates. Two representative cross-sectional surveys of 1,000 respondents were fielded in August and December 2020. The surveys included items about the COVID-19 vaccine and vaccine mandates. Respondents self-identifying as liberal were the least likely to believe the vaccine had undisclosed harmful effects (p< .001), conservatives were the most likely (p < .001), and moderates fell in between. Individuals with a bachelor’s degree were less likely to think the vaccine had undisclosed harmful effects than individuals without a bachelor’s degree (p < .001), and 60.5% of those individuals did not support a government vaccine mandate. Political ideology was more often strongly associated with avoiding government involvement compared to education level. In summary, both liberal political ideology and higher education were significantly associated with endorsing intended vaccine uptake. We discuss these results in terms of positive versus negative rights.

Partisans have biased perceptions of objective conditions. At first glance, the COVID-19 pandemic would appear to be an example of this phenomenon. Noting that most citizens have consistently agreed about the pandemic, I argue that we have overlooked pre-political factors that are as influential as partisanship in shaping citizens’ responses to the pandemic. I identify one such construct in perceived vulnerability to infectious disease (PVD). In one cross-sectional study and one panel study, I find that the influence of PVD on citizens’ perceptions of COVID-19 equals that of partisanship. I also find that PVD can moderate the influence of partisanship on perceptions of harmfulness, nearly erasing the impact of being a Republican on perceiving COVID-19 as a threat. When led by PVD as well as partisanship to accurately perceive harm, citizens, including Republicans, attribute more responsibility to former president Donald Trump for his failed handling of the crisis.

According to the bioethical principle of individual decisional autonomy, the patient has a right of informed consent to any medical or experimental procedure. The principle is politically liberal by advocating significant individual freedom as guaranteed by law and secured by civil liberties. When practiced in illiberal communities, might it have a political liberalizing effect? I respond first by analyzing cross-national norms of individual decisional autonomy to identify tensions with illiberal community; second, by examining examining Singapore in a single case study to show that liberal bioethics does not promote political liberalization; and third, by showing that the possibility of practicing liberal bioethics in research, clinically as well as in education, does not require a democratic order, and that liberal bioethics is unlikely to encourage the liberalization of illiberal political communities. Hence, it may never contribute to the development of globally effective cross-national norms for the legal regulation of bioethical research and clinical practice. Fourth, to bolster this analysis, I anticipate several possible objections to various of its aspects.

This article offers a new perspective on when and why individual-level authoritarian perceptions of security threats change. We reexamine claims that authoritarian members of the public responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in a counterintuitive fashion. The response was counterintuitive in that, rather than a desire for a stronger government with the ability to impose measures to address the pandemic and its consequences, authoritarian individuals rejected a stronger government response and embraced individual autonomy. The article draws on perceptions of security threats—issues that directly or indirectly harm personal or collective safety and welfare—from surveys in two different contexts in England: 2012, when perceptions of the threat from infectious disease was low relative to most other security threats, and 2020, when perceptions of the personal and collective threat of COVID-19 superseded all other security threats. We argue that the authoritarian response was not counterintuitive once we account for the type of threat it represented.