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In the United States, the general public typically disapproves of trophy hunting. Given the global ubiquity of the practice, its potential to benefit conservation when properly managed, and the substantial role played by American hunter-tourists, changing these attitudes can help to maintain the practice as a wildlife management tool. Existing trophy hunting communications, which are currently neither well-designed nor widely distributed, are unable to effectively do so. We used an online survey to explore current American attitudes regarding trophy hunting and assess the efficacy of different messaging strategies in influencing these attitudes. Respondents were randomly sorted into nine treatment groups, each of which received both an identity-focused priming item (or lack thereof, as a control) and a message about trophy hunting. The priming items prompted respondents to consider either their personal values (personal identity) or political affiliation (social identity) before reading their assigned message. All three messages evaluated in this study contained a brief informative paragraph about trophy hunting, and additional information concerning either the ecological or socioeconomic benefits associated with the practice was appended onto this paragraph for respondents assigned to treatments featuring an experimental message frame. Based on the responses of 2000 U.S. residents, we found that negative attitudes regarding trophy hunting were pervasive and resistant to change. Messages framed around the ecological or socioeconomic benefits of managed trophy hunting slightly increased approval for the practice, but identity-focused priming items had no comparable effect. Additionally, respondents' trust in the messages varied by source. This research represents a novel approach to understanding and changing public attitudes toward a highly controversial form of hunting through scientifically informed messaging. While our findings suggest several areas of improvement specifically for future trophy hunting communications, they may also be applied to outreach efforts concerning other contentious wildlife management issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change remains a polarizing issue in the United States, with conservatives expressing greater skepticism regarding its risks. We investigate how fear shapes climate attitudes across political orientations. Utilizing data from a 2023 online survey, results support hypotheses that conservatives demonstrate lower climate concern and that fear of natural and environmental disasters increases climate concern. Interaction results show that fear of anthropogenic environmental disasters elicits greater climate concern amongst conservatives. At high levels of ecological fear, the political divisions diminish as all orientations converge on higher levels of acknowledging climate risks and causes. Practically, this relationship highlights messaging opportunities by focusing on relevant environmental threats that aid in influencing conservatives to build collective support across political divides. Theoretically, these findings challenge expectations of dominant paradigms related to threat perception and political orientation, contributing to the ongoing development of new models that more thoroughly represent the relationship between these multifaceted constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractWhile empirical research in the United States has largely debunked the longstanding stereotypical image of immigrants as criminals, Americans have held onto their prejudices against immigrants. Anti-immigrant sentiments and Americans’ support for restrictive and punitive immigration laws and policies have frequently been triggered by political and media rhetoric. Politicians often sensationalize the unfounded claim that immigrants, especially the undocumented, cause higher crime rates. Given the persistent nature of these beliefs and the negative consequences on immigrant communities, researchers have examined factors that predict anti-immigrant sentiments in the U.S. Many of these studies have utilized the General Social Survey (GSS), cross-sectional datasets, broadly examining anti-immigrant attitudes of Americans and their support for restrictive policies and vice versa. These studies highlight political affiliation, race, sex, age, education, socio-economic status and cultural concerns as predictors of these beliefs. However, not many studies utilized cumulative cross-sectional data to grasp the nuanced nature of these beliefs and their consequences over the years. In addition, the GSS variable measuring the immigration and crime nexus was worded differently and contained fewer response categories in the year 2000 compared to other years. This may have implications for data outcomes. Thus, the current paper analyzed cumulative cross-sectional GSS datasets, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2014, and 2022, that had the variable, “Immigrants cause higher crime rates,” as a dependent variable, in association with predictor variables highlighted by previous studies. This article explains the notable differences in those who believed that immigrants cause higher crime rates in 2000 compared to other years. The current analysis enhances previous cross-sectional studies by showing the nuanced nature of the predictors in the backdrop of changing political climate every year. It supports previous studies in emphasizing the importance of respondents’ political affiliation, race and education as predictors. The article also brings attention to possible limitations arising from differences in response categories and other GSS data issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how the effects of perceived immigrant threat, American national identity, and attitudes toward immigration-dominated racial/ethnic groups on perceptions of immigrant contributions differ for documented and undocumented immigrants. We contend that different levels of perceived risk associated with undocumented and documented immigrants activate the effects of immigrant threat and American identity in different ways. We consider the varying effects of general perceptions of immigrant threat, and we also differentiate the effects of American pride (i.e., positive sentiments about being an American) and American exclusion (i.e., negative sentiments associated with criteria needed to be considered an American). We use data from the 2016 to 2017 Voter Study Group surveys, which includes a survey experiment with respondents randomly assigned to documented and undocumented immigrant treatments. We find strong negative effects of immigrant threat perceptions on Americans support for both immigrant groups, with observed effects significantly stronger for undocumented immigrants. Further, while American exclusion has strong negative effects on attitudes for both immigrant groups, American pride depresses support only for undocumented immigrants. We also find that evaluations of Hispanics have effects on perceptions of contributions for documented and undocumented immigrants, though the effect of Asian evaluations is limited to documented immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we challenge the prevailing assumption about the impact of higher education on attitudes toward racial and ethnic minorities by examining whether educational effects are monolithic or manifold instead. Using data from the General Social Survey (1972–2021), we use a variety of measures of education (years, levels, sectors, and majors) to unpack the relationship between higher education and intergroup attitudes, specifically anti-immigration attitudes among native-born Americans and anti-Black attitudes among non-African Americans. Results show that some higher education graduates hold out-group attitudes that are not much different from those without any higher education. Narrowing our focus to respondents only with higher education, we find significant variation in out-group attitudes across educational sectors and academic majors. These results have implications for how we understand previous scholarship on prejudice and higher education, which may have overestimated the impact higher education has, in general, on prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by intergroup contact theory, this survey study investigates how White American adults' (N = 697 , Mage = 44.42, SD = 14.6, age range = 18 –67) social media intergroup expression frequency and valence, direct contact quality, and perceptions of institutional bias were associated with behavioral and affective attitudes toward ethnic Chinese during COVID-19. Structural Equation Modeling analyses indicate that social media intergroup expression valence and direct contact quality play a critical role in improving intergroup attitudes toward ethnic Chinese directly, and indirectly through building empathy and/or reducing anxiety. In addition, analyses demonstrate the negative role of social media intergroup expression frequency, which had: (1) a direct negative effect on behavioral attitudes and (2) an indirect negative effect on both attitudinal measures through increased anxiety and decreased empathy. Lastly, perceptions of institutional bias were negatively associated with affective attitudes through increased intergroup anxiety. Overall, findings reveal the dynamic interplay of the intergroup processes between social media intergroup expression, intergroup contact, and perceptions of institutional bias in shaping intergroup anxiety, empathy, and attitudes during COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do distinct types of racial attitudes influence American support for trade with different partner countries? Using two survey experiments fielded in the US, we find that beliefs about race color public support for foreign trade agreements, but the effect varies depending upon the racial attitude in question. Racially sympathetic Americans prefer pro-Black trade policies, being more supportive of trade with majority-Black countries. Racially antipathetic individuals, by contrast, do not hold pro-White trade preferences that entail higher support for trade with majority-White countries than other Americans—though they may favor anti-Black trade policies that generally disfavor majority-Black trading partners. And racially paternalistic Americans are more supportive of trade with all developing countries, whether majority-White or -Black. These results underscore the importance of disaggregating different racial attitudes when attempting to make sense of variation in American support for foreign trade agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The 2020 American Cancer Society (ACS) guidelines are the most recent national guidelines for cervical cancer screening. These guidelines propose two major changes from current practice: initiating screening at age 25 years and using primary human papillomavirus (HPV) testing. Adoption of guidelines often occurs slowly, and therefore understanding clinician attitudes is important to facilitate practice change. Methods: Interviews with a national sample of clinicians who perform cervical cancer screening in a variety of settings explored attitudes toward the two major changes from the 2020 ACS cervical cancer screening guidelines. Clinicians participated in 30‐ to 60‐min interviews exploring their attitudes toward various aspects of cervical cancer screening. Qualitative analysis was performed. Results: Seventy clinicians participated from across the United States. Few respondents were initiating screening at age 25 years, and none were using primary HPV testing. However, over half would be willing to adopt these practices if supported by scientific evidence and recommended by professional medical organizations. Barriers to adoption included the lack of endorsement by professional societies, lack of laboratory availability and insurance coverage, limited autonomy within large health care systems, and concerns related to missed disease. Conclusions: Few clinicians have adopted screening initiation or primary HPV testing, as recommended by the 2020 ACS guidelines, but over half were open to adopting these changes. Implementation may be facilitated via professional organization endorsement, clinician education, and laboratory, health care system, and insurance support. Plain Language Summary: In 2020, the American Cancer Society (ACS) released updated guidelines for cervical cancer screening. The main changes to current practices were to initiate screening at age 25 years instead of age 21 years and to screen using primary human papillomavirus (HPV) testing rather than cytology alone or in combination with HPV testing.We performed in‐depth interviews with 70 obstetrics and gynecology, family medicine, and internal medicine physicians and advanced practice providers about their attitudes toward these guidelines.Few clinicians are following the 2020 ACS guidelines, but over half were open to changing practice if the changes were supported by evidence and recommended by professional medical organizations. Barriers to adoption included the lack of endorsement by professional medical organizations, logistical issues, and concerns about missed disease. Few clinicians follow the 2020 American Cancer Society cervical cancer screening guidelines, but half would be willing to change practice if they were supported by evidence and endorsed by professional medical organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We assess the hypothesis that socially responsible capitalism (SRC) is fundamentally partisan and primarily supported by people on the left, or whether this perception is another example of "false polarization"—overestimation of disagreement between the left and right. Methods: We conduct two studies: (1) a survey of Americans' opinions on a general definition of SRC and five examples of recent prominent firm actions corresponding to distinct areas of SRC (n = 1000, representative sample) and (2) an incentivized survey on second‐order beliefs about results from the first survey (n = 605, quota‐matched convenience sample). We conduct statistical tests of the accuracy of second‐order beliefs about polarization between Democrats and Republicans in support for SRC and correlates of this accuracy. Results: Large majorities of Democrats and Republicans support examples of corporate behavior from three of the five areas of SRC, but opinions are somewhat divided across the parties on support for SRC as a concept, and highly divided for the SRC examples on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and climate change. Both Democrats and Republicans generally underestimate SRC support from partisans on both sides except for DEI, which both parties overestimate support for. SRC support is especially underestimated by people opposed to SRC and people with no opinion on SRC. Democrats overestimate polarization in support for SRC. Overestimation of polarization in SRC support is correlated with affective polarization. Conclusion: Bipartisan support for SRC is underappreciated, but some aspects of SRC are polarizing or even more polarizing than commonly perceived. Republican opposition to SRC may be partially due to underestimation of copartisan support for SRC. A focus in the news and popular discourse on the more polarizing aspects of SRC may contribute to a general perception that support for SRC is more polarized than it truly is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To advocate for restrictive immigration policies, conservative U.S. politicians have advanced a narrative that Latino immigrants commit violent crimes against White women. This framing of immigrant threat builds on a long history of similar anti-Black discourse and activates racialized ideas about protecting femininity. I demonstrate how the identities of purported victims of immigrant crime connect attitudes about immigration with benevolent sexism—a superficially positive, protective attitude toward particular types of women. An original survey experiment shows that benevolent sexism is activated when victims of immigrant crime are White women. Using nationally representative survey data, I show that the benevolent face of sexism has a notable impact on the immigration attitudes of White Americans, particularly when it comes to the protectionist policy of policing of the U.S.-Mexico border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While government regulators, the press, and academics struggle to determine who should be responsible for content on social media platforms, we know little about what the public believes about these issues. In this study, we investigate what drives Americans' opinions on whether the government, platforms, or individual users should be responsible for social media content. Using data from a nationally representative survey of over 10,000 Americans, we investigate how anti-establishment attitudes relate to who Americans believe should be responsible for content on social media. We also examine the role of beliefs in the government's role in the market, free speech beliefs, and beliefs in individual responsibility in this context. Among other findings, we show how anti-establishment beliefs and beliefs in individual responsibility may drive people to put the onus on individual users to bear the responsibility for online content. Theoretically, our study contributes to the ongoing discussion in sociology and political science that partisanship alone is not sufficient for explaining American public opinion. Practically, this study contributes to the ongoing public discussion around content moderation and related policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We explore whether Americans' attitudes about the role of money spent on political campaigns and separately their attitudes about the influence of corporations impact their external political efficacy (EE) or perception that the government is responsive to them. Methods: We conduct three independent sample surveys (total N = 2789) to measure individuals' attitudes toward the role of money in politics (ARMP), attitudes toward corporations, and EE. We also measure political partisanship to test for moderating effects. Results: ARMP are strongly and positively associated with EE: those who are more favorable of the role money plays in politics view government as more responsive to them. This finding is specific to ARMP and does not extend to corporations, suggesting that public awareness of campaign spending is shaping individuals' views of government responsiveness. We find no evidence that this relationship is moderated by partisanship, despite differing views of money in politics between Democrats and Republicans. Conclusion: Our results are normatively troubling and suggest that as campaign spending continues to rise, individuals will increasingly feel that the government is less responsive to their concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Black American Christian church leaders are trusted community members and can be invaluable leaders and planners, listeners, and counselors for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) sufferers in the opioid overdose crisis disproportionately affecting the Black community. This qualitative study examines the extent to which the knowledge, attitudes, practices, and beliefs of Black American church leaders support medical and harm reduction interventions for people with OUD. Methods: A semi-structured interview guide was used to conduct in-depth interviews of 30 Black Rhode Island church leaders recruited by convenience and snowball sampling. Results: Thematic analysis of the interviews identified four themes: Church leaders are empathetic and knowledgeable, believe that hopelessness and inequity are OUD risk factors, are committed to helping people flourish beyond staying alive, and welcome collaborations between church and state. Conclusion: Black American Christian church leaders are a critical resource in providing innovative and culturally sensitive strategies in the opioid overdose crisis affecting the Black American communities. As such, their views should be carefully considered in OUD policies, collaborations, and interventions in the Black American community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic regimes flourish only when there is broad acceptance of an extensive set of norms and values. In the United States, fundamental democratic norms have recently come under threat from prominent Republican officials. We investigate whether this antidemocratic posture has spread from the elite level to rank-and-file partisans. Exploiting data from a massive repeated cross-sectional and panel survey (n = 45,095 and 5,231 respectively), we find that overwhelming majorities of the public oppose violations of democratic norms, and virtually nobody supports partisan violence. This bipartisan consensus remains unchanged over time despite high levels of affective polarization and exposure to divisive elite rhetoric during the 2022 political campaign. Additionally, we find no evidence that elected officials' practice of election denialism encourages their constituents to express antidemocratic attitudes. Overall, these results suggest that the clear and present threat to American democracy comes from unilateral actions by political elites that stand in contrast to the views of their constituents. In closing, we consider the implications of the stark disconnect between the behavior of Republican elites and the attitudes of Republican voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing attention to police shootings of unarmed citizens has provoked important discussions surrounding use of police force. While an emerging literature explores perceptions of those victimized by police, less is known about White Americans' opinions towards the institution of policing. Drawing from stereotyping and dehumanization literatures, do Whites' attitudes towards police vary based on the identity of a victim? And does the news of any police shooting influence Whites' attitudes about police? Across two survey experiments, participants read a news story describing police killing an innocent victim and report subsequent attitudes towards police. We find that Whites' views of police remain relatively neutral, on average, in response to news of a fatal police shooting. Our findings suggest that protest mobilization adjacent to police brutality may mask an underlying neutrality in opinions about policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal basic income (UBI) has been proposed as a policy response to technological advances and structural inequality. Yet, recent data show that most conservatives in Europe and the US are strongly opposed to the welfare proposal. Can framing UBI as a policy that conforms to their ideological predispositions overcome such opposition? Exploiting the compatibility of UBI with core conservative ideals such as individualism and laissez-faire government, I design an original survey experiment that randomly exposes respondents to one of two frames: (1) an equalizing-opportunity frame which emphasizes that UBI creates a level playing field and promotes self-responsibility, or (2) a limiting-government frame which highlights UBI as a policy that limits government and reduces bureaucracy. I find that American conservatives—identified by using 10 policy statements—remained strongly opposed to UBI even after they were presented with such frames. Analyses of open-ended responses, which show that how conservatives explained their opposition to UBI remained unchanged regardless of framing, reinforce this conclusion. Conservatives' opposition to UBI remained rigid, even after the key components of UBI that fit the conservative ideology were accentuated. These results shed light on the political feasibility of framing UBI, and the rigidity of welfare attitudes among American conservatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary and historical political debates often revolve around principles of federalism, in which governing authority is divided across levels of government. Despite the prominence of these debates, existing scholarship provides relatively limited evidence about the nature and structure of Americans' preferences for decentralization. We develop a new survey-based measure to characterize attitudes toward subnational power and evaluate it with a national sample of more than 2000 American adults. We find that preferences for devolution vary considerably both across and within states, and reflect individuals' ideological orientations and evaluations of government performance. Overall, our battery produces a reliable survey instrument for evaluating preferences for federalism and provides new evidence that attitudes toward institutional arrangements are structured less by short-term political interests than by core preferences for the distribution of state authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how both Russia and the People's Republic of China (PRC) seek to influence the shape of electoral debates in a target country. While previous research has examined presidential election years, this research captures efforts to shape American attitudes when the chief foreign policy maker is not under consideration. It examines evidence of coordination between foreign influencers using data from the 2022 U.S. midterm elections on Twitter using computational methods to support two theoretical conclusions. First, it finds some evidence of either coordination or convergence between Russian and PRC influence objectives. Second, it relates these influence efforts to distinct pressure points in political systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contemporary racial attitudes of white American adults towards black Americans, using data from the General Social Surveys and classifies these attitudes using latent class analysis. The purpose of the analysis is to resolve ongoing debates between (a) those who contend that overt forms of racism have largely been replaced by more socially acceptable forms of racism, and (b) those who contend that overt forms of racism are still so strong in the United States that even the survey form can successfully detect them. Consistent with the second of these two views, a full 55.6 percent of the population adopts a pattern of responses consistent with deeply essentialist accounts of racial inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The twin topics of immigrants and immigration have been known to generate strong debates within the American body politic due to these debates' reverberations in U.S. society. Immigration has remained a contentious policy issue for several decades because of Americans' divergent opinions about opening the nation's borders to immigrants. Using YouGov data, we show that employing the terms illegal immigrant and undocumented immigrant produced different reactions among the survey participants. We also show, via multivariate analyses, that participants who voted for Donald Trump, those who did not vote in the 2016 Presidential election, and conservatives were more likely than liberals and those who voted for Hillary Clinton to endorse Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) twin policies of separating immigrant parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border and arresting illegal immigrants who have overstayed their visas, even if they have not committed a crime. The implications of our findings for policy, group relations, and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recreational marijuana legislation (RML) has been enacted at the state-level but not federally. Given the link between public opinion and RML, we examine 2021 national poll (N = 995) data that assessed views about different types of proposed federal actions concerning cannabis. Less than half of Americans preferred full legalization, 21% approved of medical legalization only, 23% believed in states' rights, and 11% supported the current prohibition. Using multinomial logistic regression modeling, respondents who associated legalized recreational marijuana with adverse/negative effects were less likely to favor full legalization. In contrast, respondents who associated legalized recreational marijuana with beneficial effects were most supportive of full legalization. Uncertainty surrounding cannabis shaped preferences but not as dramatically as having a clear opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine concussion knowledge and concussion attitudes of players, coaches, and support staff in British American Football (BAF). Data from players, coaches and support staff (n = 236) were collected from across all leagues in BAF. An online survey tool was used which included the Rosenbaum Concussion Knowledge and Attitudes Survey (RoCKAS), and questions examining concussion education and perceived risk of participating in football. The mean score on the RoCKAS concussion knowledge was 21.0 ± 2.1 of a possible score of 25 reflecting good knowledge. Of a possible score of 65, the mean concussion attitude score was 55.6 ± 6.1 showing safe attitude. Whilst an overall safe attitude was seen, almost half of participants (45.3%) noted they would continue to play with a concussion. No relationship was found between CAI and prior concussion history. Fifty seven percent of participants agreed the benefits of playing football outweighed the risks. Forty eight percent reported that they had received no concussion-related education in the past 12 months. BAF participants have good concussion knowledge and safe attitudes. However, risky behavior is demonstrated through unsafe likelihood to report and attitude to long-term health risks. Access to the British American Football Association (BAFA) concussion policy and education was poor raising questions over what sources of information stakeholders are drawing their knowledge from. These findings can help form the foundation of educational interventions (e.g. coaching workshops) to challenge current misconceptions and improve likelihood to report concussion in BAF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades, forced removals have been the main feature of U.S. migration policy toward Latin America. In this research, we explore whether this policy has had implications in terms of Latin Americans' public opinion toward their northern neighbor. We argue that deportations breed anti‐Americanism by cutting off the flow of information and money associated with emigration, which has proven to be a source of better dispositions toward the United States. Using public opinion data and municipal data on deportations in El Salvador, we show that these perceptions have worsened over time and that rates of deportation are related to this trend. By using public opinion data on Latin America and deportation rates in the region, we also show that this pattern holds beyond our case study. We call attention to destination migration policies as a source of resentment among domestic audiences, which can be capitalized by new populisms in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The field of genetics is rapidly expanding and people are increasingly utilizing genetic testing and counseling services. However, the current literature on genetic health topics and Filipinos remains limited, as many minority populations are not adequately studied. This study describes Filipino Americans' attitudes and knowledge of genetic disease, genetic testing, and genetic counseling. To address these knowledge gaps and reduce the burden of health disparities, the informational needs of Filipino Americans regarding genetic disease and genetic services must be understood in order to better tailor these services and outreach methods. Methods: Fifteen semi-structured, qualitative interviews were held with individuals who self-identified as Filipino American between November 2022 and January 2023. Interviews were transcribed and coded using an iterative process. Results: Most participants were familiar with genetic disease and believed that factors such as biology, as well as cultural factors such as upbringing and food, contributed to its development. The majority of participants had previously heard of genetic testing; however, most participants either did not know much or were only familiar with ancestry direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC-GT). Most participants had not heard of genetic counseling and those that had heard of genetic counseling before did not understand its purpose. Overall, most participants had a positive attitude toward genetic testing and counseling. Participants identified the benefits of these services including genetic disease prevention, management, and treatment. Participants stressed the importance of educating the Filipino community and shared their ideas for how to implement outreach efforts. Discussion/Conclusion: This study found that Filipino Americans generally had a positive outlook on genetic testing and genetic counseling. We propose participant-generated ideas for outreach and education that may help inform future public health efforts that aim to educate this population about genetic disease, testing and counseling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the effects of different message framing strategies on average Americans' attitude towards interventions in humanitarian crises abroad. Two survey experiments were conducted via Qualtrics between late 2019 and early 2020, where participants were randomly assigned to read a mock news story about a foreign humanitarian crisis written using one of the three framing techniques. Results of both studies indicated that the framing effect on respondents' support for intervention interacted with ones' political ideology and prompted distinctive reactions among different populations. Most intriguingly, the results of Study 2, which employed a non-student sample and a secondary frame, suggested that the specific order of message framings also influences public opinion towards humanitarian intervention. These findings contribute to the growing body of literature on the persuasiveness of message design and framing in the context of military humanitarian interventions (MHI). Accordingly, news organizations and policymakers are encouraged to consider these findings in specific contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"A Laughable Empire: The US Imagines the Pacific World, 1840–1890" by Todd Thompson explores American comedy about Pacific Islanders in nineteenth-century periodicals. Thompson argues that these jokes both served and resisted US expansion in the Pacific, while acknowledging the risk of flattening differences among Pacific Islander cultures. The book analyzes how these jokes relied on stereotypes that conflated Pacific Islanders with Black people and Native Americans, presenting them as either familiar or fundamentally other. Thompson also examines the circulation and variations of these jokes, highlighting their racist and imperialist attitudes, moments of ambivalence, and resistance to US claims of global authority. [Extracted from the article]

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This essay argues that Ah Sin—a character in American poet Bret Harte's satirical poem, "Plain Language from Truthful James"—became a meme used in racialized thinking across the nineteenth-century Anglophone world. Variations of the Ah Sin character appeared in forms ranging from newspapers and the burlesque to Anthony Trollope's novel, The Way We Live Now. Trollope's The Way We Live Now deploys the meme to critique the workings of a media landscape prone to oversimplification and exclusion. By contrast, the novel renarrativizes Ah Sin by invoking the poem's contexts of the American West. However, instead of Harte's Chinese gold miner, Trollope creates an imaginary Chinese emperor, thereby reflecting the complicated geopolitics of British and American attitudes toward Chinese migration and the Qing empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abortion is a divisive issue in American politics. Studies analyzing attitudes toward abortion have found that abortion attitudes are relatively stable over time compared with attitudes on other issues and that religiosity and partisanship are key factors influencing abortion attitudes. Recent research has also found a role for benevolent sexism in abortion attitudes. This article expands on the literature and examines the role of hostile sexism—dislike toward women who are seen as usurping men's authority—in attitudes about abortion in the United States. Using data from the 2012, 2016, and 2020 American National Election Studies, we find that hostile sexism is significantly related to abortion attitudes, even after controlling for theoretically relevant covariates such as partisanship, ideology, religiosity, and sociodemographic variables. As hostile sexism increases, people are more likely to express pro-life attitudes rather than pro-choice attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper aims to investigate the linguistic features used in the Republican or Right-Wing representation of Muslims in some selected Hollywood movies and the effect of these linguistic features on shaping the image of Muslims in the audience's minds. By using Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis CDA model, the research aims to investigate the relationship between text and social practice. It will examine how the discourse used in these movies is shaped by the social order and the attitude of the American society toward Muslims by placing this discourse within its cultural and sociopolitical context and then interpreting the findings in the light of Abdel-Wahhab El-Misiri's and Edward Said's ideas. The data selected for the analysis is taken from a number of Hollywood movies that were produced in the period around the attacks of 9/11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rousseau's influence throughout the American founding has been a subject of disagreement for almost three centuries. In this article we claim that this disagreement reveals some enduring misunderstandings of the concept of 'the people'. Almost a century before Rousseau was born, the American Puritans actually created a people that came to resemble Rousseau's theoretical distinction between the Will of All and the General Will (the people's two bodies), that is, between the people understood as a collection of individuals ruled by the will of the majority, and the people understood as an organic whole ruled by reason for the common good. We show that though coming from different perspectives, the Puritans and Rousseau arrived at surprisingly similar conclusions regarding the need to balance the people's two bodies. Theoretically, one can understand both the ambivalent attitude of the Americans toward Rousseau, and the disputes between the partisans of a republican, conservative American founding, and those who advocated a liberal and revolutionary founding, as well as the repeated attempts to propose some kind of synthesis of the two approaches. Yet practically attempting to strike the proper balance between the people's two bodies was and remains an endeavor that comes with both great opportunities and great dangers for any people, for, whenever this balance is disrupted, the results can be catastrophic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That black and white Americans disagree about the carceral state is well established; why this is the case is much less clear. Drawing on group hierarchy theory and the state's role in perpetuating group subordination/domination, we theorize that differences in socialization and contact during emergent adulthood produce divergent priors for racial groups and gender subgroups within race. These different starting points shape how people integrate new information from recent contact into their belief systems. Using a survey of over 11,000 respondents, we find that, instead of all groups integrating information the same way, recent direct contact contributes most to negative attitudes among groups whose contact with government agents is least negatively valenced. While interactions with the American carceral state divide opinions considerably among white Americans and women, adulthood contact for black Americans, especially black men, appears to be but 'a drop in the ocean' of political life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do children play in media coverage of immigration, and what might this tell us about coverage of (and attitudes about) immigration more broadly? This study examines U.S. newspaper coverage of immigration from 1990 to 2020. Using multiple content analytic approaches, I find that newspaper coverage of immigration that includes mentions of children: (a) tends to be more positive in net sentiment, (b) tends not to focus on topics of politics and violence, and (c) tends to correlate with topics about family, education, religion, and community. Threat is found to be a regular feature of this news coverage; however, threat language does not vary systematically with the language of childhood or race. In all, these findings point to the salience of (positive) language about community in coverage about immigrant children. These findings are discussed as they relate to the impact of childhood representation in news coverage about immigration in the U.S., and how cueing community, such as family, when evaluating immigrants has the potential to produce more pro-immigrant attitudes amongst the American population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across three studies, conducted between Spring 2020 and Spring 2021, we tested whether exposure to an Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) target person wearing a face mask would increase or decrease White Americans' perceived threat from and positivity toward AAPI individuals. Although results varied by study, a single‐paper meta‐analysis revealed that the masked (compared to unmasked) AAPI target resulted in greater positivity toward AAPIs, due to reduced perceptions of both symbolic threat to group values and realistic threat to group health. Positivity toward AAPIs did not reliably differ after exposure to a masked versus unmasked White target. Implications for interventions that encourage COVID‐safe behaviors and combat anti‐AAPI attitudes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American politicians frequently evoke race in their messages to the public; at the same time, politicians often pay a price for racialized rhetoric. We propose that elites continue to use messages about race because they can mitigate the costs of doing so with justifications for their original statements. Integrating literatures on elite rhetorical tactics and framing, we predict that when justifications and indirect racial messages are combined, elites can mobilize the support for racially resentful Whites without alienating others. In a pair of survey experiments conducted in 2019 and 2020, we examine the effectiveness of justifications in swaying Whites' attitudes. We find that two different elite justifications bolster support for their messages. Importantly, we also find these tactics do not incur political costs. This provides a compelling reason that political figures continue to use racial messages in politics despite recent social movements and possible shifts in Americans' attitudes about race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is one major challenge that has brought substantial costs to the United States. To implement mitigation measures and gain public support, it is critical to understand Americans' attitudes toward this issue. Our study investigates how carbon dependency, social capital, and political orientation influence public response to climate change by perceiving its threat, changing behaviors, and supporting policies. We first build an integrative paradigm to explore the theoretical connections. Next, we employ data from different sources to measure these key concepts at individual and state levels and then estimate the relationships empirically. Multilevel regression results show that carbon dependency inhibits public response while social capital enhances such response. Democrats and liberals are motivated to respond and residents of Democratic Party controlled states are also more likely to believe in climate change and perceive the risk than their counterparts. These factors can be leveraged to mobilize public engagement in climate activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Americans, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings are undercover operatives for the Soviet Union. In that capacity, they are responsible for crimes including murder and espionage. Yet they also pose as a law-abiding family, running a small business, raising children, and making friends with their neighbours. By ‘practicing’ American life, Philip becomes more American, forging an identity more receptive to American values and attitudes. This chapter draws on concepts from the literature on legal consciousness to examine the relationship between identity and hegemony. Studies of legal consciousness emphasise that consciousness is not simply legal attitudes or even ideology; rather legal consciousness is reflected in the way that people enact their legal beliefs and values. Those enactments help individuals form identities, but those identities are constrained by the hegemonic ideologies that are prevalent in the culture. Law and legal consciousness are important to both processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Importantly, the authors prove that people's attitudes toward torture are not just based on perceived utility as 21% of self-identified conservatives report support for torture even if it would be ineffective (compared to 10% for liberals). Joseph Young and Erin M. Kearns have produced a remarkably insightful and readable empirical study into Americans' attitudes regarding interrogatory torture in their book I Tortured Logic: Why Some Americans Support the use of Torture in Counterterrorism i . [Extracted from the article]

From 2013 to 2018, the global refugee population increased by about 50 per cent. Although public opinion toward refugees plays a key role in shaping related policies, scholarly research on this topic remains limited. Using original data from a nationally representative conjoint survey experiment conducted in 2019, we examine whether US citizens' attitudes toward refugees are distinct from their attitudes toward other types of immigrants to the US, and how applicant attributes shape American citizens' preferences about admission of foreigners. We find that immigrant and refugee reasons (as defined by law) for migrating to the US affect attitudes, with refugee reasons garnering greater support. The labels "immigrant" and "refugee" on their own have smaller effects, in general, but can be salient in combination with other characteristics. We also find marked effects of newcomers' characteristics, especially country of origin, profession, gender and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the effect of Doom Town, a civil defense experiment conducted at Nevada Test Site in March 1953 and May 1955, on American attitudes toward the atom. Initially conceived by the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) as a means to progress knowledge and understanding of how to survive nuclear attack, the creation and destruction of two "Survival Towns" in the Nevadan desert instead accelerated national anxieties. My article looks at how local and national media negatively framed the two experiments, and how the public responded, with two specific images of Doom Town undermining public confidence in the atom: the ruined city (or homegrown Hiroshima) and the projected death of the American nuclear family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, research on attitudes towards the use of torture on suspected terrorists has become common. However, despite acknowledging the identity-rooted relationship between threat and out-group hostility, the possible relationship between identity attachment and attitudes towards torture has been under-explored. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study, the results of the present study further the understanding of the relationship between identity and support for torture. Two main findings are supported: 1) greater attachment to American Identity increases support for the torture of suspected terrorists, and 2) the perceived threat of terrorism partially mediates the relationship between attachment to the American Identity and attitudes towards torture. Ultimately, the study demonstrates, high attachment to American Identity and the 9/11-generated discursive construction of terrorists as threatening this identity is associated with individuals' attitudes towards torture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contact tracing has emerged as one tool to communicate infection risks with the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses source credibility and the risk perception attitude framework to interpret how Americans responded to contact tracing messages from a technology company, employer, physician, or state government. Survey participants (n = 245) were generally positive towards a contact tracing message regardless of source. Participants with high risk perceptions and low efficacy beliefs responded more strongly to appeals from their company and their physician while the low risk-low efficacy group found the state government appeal more compelling. The results suggest that several sources delivering the same health message could engage people with different risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are there currently venerated works of history-writing that, upon closer inspection, should embarrass us for their entanglements with white supremacy? White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (1968) by Winthrop Jordan is one such text. A weighty historical study of English and Anglo–American "thoughts and feelings" about people of African descent in the colonies and the early republic, Jordan's book has won great professional acclaim within the North Atlantic for more than half a century. Yet, for all of this reverence, White Over Black betrays a deep and fatal problem and deserves reassessment as a disturbingly retrograde contribution to the historiography on racism. This monumental piece of scholarship advanced an essentialist conception of race as part of nature, as arising from natural distinctions between groups of people. Guilty of what Barbara Fields and Karen Fields have called "racecraft," Jordan put the cart of racial difference before the horse of racism. Indeed, he deliberately challenged the assumptions of contemporary anti-racist scholars who emphasized race as an invention, complaining that they had "thrown out the baby of race with the bathwater of racism." Maintaining that racism followed fundamentally from inherent racial difference, Jordan cast white supremacy, tragically, as an unconscious psychological response to the distinct physiology of Blackness. The result was a teleological narrative of racial domination. Though not intended to apologize for racism, White Over Black did nevertheless (ir)rationalize racism as the fatal product of inescapable biological difference. Carefully and critically read, Jordan's book provides an eloquent (pre)text for considering how a primordialist view of race subverts the project of effective anti-racist history-writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One hundred years after its establishment, the Turkish Republic remains an international actor of considerable geopolitical and also analytical consequence. As with all such actors, the exercise of its growing power is shaped by tension between rest and motion, structural parameters and human agency, and domestic and interstate dynamics. Utilizing some key insights of Thucydides and Ibn Khaldun, this essay will consider the interplay of these factors through a case study of the AK Party’s foreign policy. Special attention will be devoted to the increasingly fraught relationship with the United States; a dynamic illuminated, it is suggested, by considering the evolution of American attitudes toward Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim is to analyze and evaluate the attitude of the American administration to the issue of compliance with the principles of democracy and the rule of law in Poland in the context of the war in Ukraine. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The main question is whether the war in Ukraine influenced the approach of President Biden's administration to the issue of the quality of democracy and the rule of law in Poland? The analysis is carried out in the perspective of the concept of quality of democracy. The author inter?viewed American researchers and used the method of analyzing the content of text sources. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The first part cov?ers a theoretical framework for the quality of democracy and the rule of law. The second part presents a synthetic presentation of the main elements of the dispute in Poland around these values. The next two parts cover the approach of the American administration to legal changes in Poland affecting the quality of democracy and the rule of law. RESEARCH RESULTS: The war in Ukraine silenced American criticism of Poland. This is because the US strategic security interests take precedence over other values and interests. However, when the war in Ukraine is over, this problem may return and weigh heavily on Polish-American relations, especially if Demo?crats remain in power. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The political and legal dispute in Poland concerning the quality of democracy and the rule of law contributes to the international discussion on this topic. In the mainstream Western literature, there is a serious criticism of the actions of the Polish authorities, sometimes conducted without taking into account the weaknesses of con?temporary liberal democracy. The illiberal trend in Poland and other countries in the region, especially in Hungary, fuels criticism of these actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I fielded a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of 591 white Americans to test whether exposure to information about the disparate impact of COVID-19 on Black people influenced white Americans' opinion about COVID-19 policies. I found that racially prejudiced white Americans who were exposed to the treatment diminished the importance of wearing a face mask. They also became more supportive of outdoor activities without social distancing guidelines, more likely to perceive shelter-in-place orders as a threat to their individual rights and freedoms, and less likely to perceive African Americans as following social distancing guidelines. Conversely, white Americans who did not endorse an anti-Black stereotype were less likely to perceive shelter-in-place orders as a threat to their individual rights and more likely to perceive African Americans as following social distancing guidelines. These findings highlight that well-intentioned public health campaigns may inadvertently exacerbate existing race-based health disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The two dominant paradigms in the study of white Americans' racial attitudes—symbolic racism and group position theory—while fundamentally differing with regard to theoretical orientations and causal emphases, concur in their rejection of individual-level economic circumstances—typically operationalized through either conventional measures of class or direct racial threats to whites' personal lives—as a meaningful determinant of whites' racial attitudes. This article argues that these existing measures do not sufficiently consider the subjective dimension of individuals' economic well-being. As such, conclusions drawn from the relative lack of association between these measures and racial attitudes are likely overstated. Utilizing a measure of affective economic insecurity—anxiety concerning one's economic circumstances—a strong correlative relationship is shown to exist between this dimension of individual-level economic circumstances and whites' racial attitudes. Specifically, it is shown that affective economic insecurity is related to whites' level of racial resentment, their perception of racialized labor market competition, and their attitudes toward immigration. A causal relationship between affective economic insecurity and perceptions of racialized labor market competition is established through an original survey experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]