Class War in the Voting Booth: Bias Against High-Income Congressional Candidates

Do Americans care how much money congressional candidates earn? We conducted three experiments to examine how candidates' incomes affect voters' perceptions of the candidates' traits and ultimately their vote intention. Subjects evaluated otherwise identical candidates with annual incomes randomly varying between $75,000, $3 million, and a candidate with no income information provided. Results from the three experiments are remarkably similar. Subjects viewed the $3 million earner as significantly more intelligent than the candidate with no income information provided, but this benefit of high income was overshadowed by significant biases against the $3 million candidate. Subjects consistently viewed the $3 million earner as less honest, less caring, and less representative of them than the other candidates. Ultimately, subjects were less likely to say they would vote for the $3 million candidate. These findings demonstrate that the campaign advantages that high-income candidates enjoy are somewhat offset by voters' initial bias against them.     

Do citizens care about government debt? Evidence from survey experiments on budgetary priorities

Ever since the Great Recession, public debt has become politicised. Some research suggests that citizens are fiscally conservative, while other research shows that they punish governments for implementing fiscal consolidation. This begs the question of whether and how much citizens care about debt. We argue that debt is not a priority for citizens because reducing it involves spending and tax trade-offs. Using a split-sample experiment and a conjoint experiment in four European countries, we show that fiscal consolidation at the cost of spending cuts or taxes hikes is less popular than commonly assumed. Revenue-based consolidation is especially unpopular, but expenditure-based consolidation is also contested. Moreover, the public has clear fiscal policy priorities: People do not favour lower debt and taxes, but they support higher progressive taxes to pay for more government spending. The article furthers our understanding of public opinion on fiscal policies and the likely political consequences of austerity.     

Developing a Multicenter Randomized Trial in Criminology: The Case of HIDTA

In criminal justice, as in other fields, an experimental study conducted ata single site does not offer a solid basis upon which to make strong publicpolicy recommendations. To date, criminal justice researchers have reliedupon two general approaches to overcome the limitations of single-siteexperimental research. The first, termed ``meta-analysis, seeks tocombine independent studies to identify consistent effects across criminaljustice settings or contexts. The second, sometimes termed replicationstudies, seeks to replicate investigations in multiple criminaljustice jurisdictions. In this paper we describe a related approachdeveloped in clinical studies in medicine and examine its applicabilityin criminal justice settings. Termed a multicenter clinicaltrial, this method demands the implementation ofa single experimental protocol at multiple sites. We contrast themulticenter approach with other methods and provide a substantiveexample of an ongoing multicenter criminal justice study. We begin byexamining the specific limitations of current approaches and solutionsoffered by multicenter studies to overcome these. We then turn to anapplication of the multicenter clinical trial in a criminal justicesetting. Using the example of the HIDTA (High-Intensity Drug TraffickingAreas) evaluation of drug treatment programs currently being conducted atmultiple sites, we illustrate components of the multicenter approach aswell as potential drawbacks researchers are likely to face in itsapplication in crime and justice studies.     

Surveillance cameras and crime: a review of randomized and natural experiments

Research on the effectiveness of surveillance cameras in reducing crime suffers from potential threats to causal validity. This paper reviews seven studies that address some of these problems using the rigorous research designs of randomized and natural experiments. Included studies that reported changes in total crime found crime reductions ranging from 24 to 28% in public streets and urban subway stations, but no desirable effects in parking facilities or suburban subway stations. Moreover, surveillance cameras may help reduce unruly behaviour in football stadiums and theft in supermarkets/mass merchant stores. These findings indicate that video surveillance can reduce crime in several settings.     

Can You Build a Better Cop?

Research Summary

By drawing from psychology and economics, we present an experimental evaluation of a procedural justice training program designed to “slow down” police officers’ thought processes during citizen encounters. We find that officers who were randomly assigned to participate in training were as engaged in the community as similarly situated officers, but they were less likely to resolve incidents with an arrest or to be involved in incidents where force was used. These changes were most evident among officers who worked in areas with a modest level of risk.

Policy Implications

Police officers who are actively engaged with the public can reduce crime through general deterrence and by arresting criminals. Nevertheless, excessive discretionary arrests and the use of force by officers can reduce public trust in the police. To date, there is scant evidence as to how police departments can successfully train officers to balance enforcement and public trust in the field. Through our study, we demonstrate that a relatively minor supervisory intervention may cause substantive changes in how police and citizens interact with each other.     

Field Experiments on Eyewitness Identification: Towards a Better Understanding of Pitfalls and Prospects

The Illinois pilot program on lineup procedures has helped sharpen the focus on the types of controls that are needed in eyewitness field experiments and the limits that exist for interpreting outcome measures (rates of suspect and filler identifications). A widely-known limitation of field experiments is that, unlike simulated crime experiments, the guilt or innocence of the suspects is not easily known independently of the behavior of the eyewitnesses. Less well appreciated is that the rate of identification of lineup fillers, although clearly errors, can be a misleading measure if the filler identification rate is used to assess which of two or more lineup procedures is the better procedure. Several examples are used to illustrate that there are clearly improper procedures that would yield fewer identifications of fillers than would their proper counterparts. For example, biased lineup structure (e.g., using poorly matched fillers) as well as suggestive lineup procedures (that can result from non-blind administration of lineups) would reduce filler identification errors compared to unbiased and non-suggestive procedures. Hence, under many circumstances filler identification rates can be misleading indicators of preferred methods. Comparisons of lineup procedures in future field experiments will not be easily accepted in the absence of double-blind administration methods in all conditions plus true random assignment to conditions.     

Support for electoral system reform among voters and politicians: Studying information effects through survey experiments

Does information about the consequences of proposals to change the Norwegian parliamentary electoral system influence voters' and politicians' attitudes towards the system? Is the willingness to accept change greater among voters/politicians who “lose” under the present electoral system? These questions are illuminated using empirical data from two identical survey experiments, with responses from both voters and politicians about 1) increased proportionality between parties (more seats for smaller parties) and 2) increased geographical proportionality (stronger representation for the more populous counties). The results show that being informed about the consequences of the proposals has a major effect on voters' and politicians' attitudes. This applies especially to the question of increased proportionality between parties, where feedback was particularly negative from respondents who were told that the proposal might weaken the larger parties’ representation and make it more difficult to establish viable governments. The responses to the question about increased proportionality between parties were also influenced by partisanship; politicians who belonged to or voters who voted for one of the smaller parties favour increased proportionality. We also find that there is limited support for the proposal to distribute parliamentary seats according to the number of inhabitants in the counties, and this support is further reduced when the respondents are informed that the measure will increase representation from the more populous parts of the country.     

Why do evaluation researchers in crime and justice choose non-experimental methods?

Despite the general theoretical support for the value and use of randomized controlled experiments in determining ‘what works’ in criminal justice interventions, they are infrequently used in practice. Reasons often given for their rare use include that experiments present practical difficulties and ethical challenges or tend to over-simplify complex social processes. However, there may be other reasons why experiments are not chosen when studying criminal justice-related programs. This study reports the findings of a survey of criminal justice evaluation researchers as to their methodological choices for research studies they were involved in. The results suggest that traditional objections to experiments may not be as salient as initially believed and that funding agency pressure as well as academic mentorship may have important influences on the use of randomized controlled designs.In August 2005, Dr. Lum’s affiliation will change to George Mason University.     

Learning from the news: Experiments in media,modality, and reporting about star wars

This study explores what ordinary American adults learn from news reported in different communications modalities and media. In the first experiment, the text of news items about Star Wars is held constant but the communications modality varies. In the second experiment, news reports reflect the journalistic style of television, newspaper, and magazine reporting. In the modality experiment, subjects learned equally well from the audiovisual, audio, or print versions of the stories. In the media experiment, subjects in the magazine and television conditions gained substantially more information than those in the newspaper condition; but when subjects were asked to apply information to policy judgments about Star Wars, magazine readers were more dovish than television viewers. For Star Wars news, it appears that the content and characteristic style of a news medium have important effects on news comprehension, particularly for the least informed and least interested members of the public.     

The Myth of Media Globalization: Why Global Media Is Not Truly Globalized,by Kai Hafez

Political discussion is often seen as a potential shortcut to enlightened voting. If uninformed individuals receive useful information from their discussion partners, then they can make quality decisions at the ballot box without incurring the costs of becoming informed. Discussion partners, however, have biases and these biases are reflected in what they say about candidates. If individuals accept messages from sources with different preferences, they could end up supporting candidates who benefit their discussion partners instead of themselves. This article argues that egos will often accept messages from individuals with an incentive to mislead. Instead of evaluating the messenger, individuals evaluate the messages. When the messages are all in accord, individuals support the candidate suggested by the messages even if the messengers are all biased. This article presents the results of a group-based experiment in which ego networks were exogenously determined by the researcher. In the experiment, egos tend to vote for their party's candidate, but they defect with greater frequency when they receive messages from members of a different party. This willingness to listen to the other side has detrimental effects for the quality of their decisions.