Kevin (Vin) Arceneaux

On X, EndWokeness says "democrats refuse to condemn this because they support it" (above video of a tesla dealership on fire. Musk replies "Some people just want to watch the world burn."

On 3/19, M*sk posted "Some people just want to watch the world burn" in response to a video of a Telsa dealership on fire. So I emailed @vinarceneaux.bsky.social about new data UD's CPC has on Need for Chaos & Trust in Musk.
TLDR: Folks who want to watch the world burn trust Musk MORE, not less.🧵

Some people just want to watch the world burn: the prevalence, psychology and politics of the ‘Need for Chaos’ | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences People form political attitudes to serve psychological needs. Recent research shows that some individuals have a strong desire to incite chaos when they perceive themselves to be marginalized by socie...

And for those who want to learn more about need for chaos: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

For those interested, I've written more about Group Relative Deprivation and attitudes toward liberal democracy here: web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/vina...

If I were to speculate, it could be that high inequality coupled with a weak welfare state in the US leads low status individuals who feel screwed over to feel like they have less to lose from burning down the system. I'm not sure, but we will keep digger for answers.

Part of the explanation might be that the GRD question was slightly different. We asked about whether people felt they were losing their deserved place in society, which likely explains the positive correlation for high status individuals, but less so for low status ones.

Intriguingly, the pattern is reversed in Europe. These data come from from France, Germany, and Italy during last year's European elections. Here, GRD is positively correlated with NFC for high status individuals and basically uncorrelated for low status ones.

This pattern might create strange bedfellows in US politics: Those who may worry about losing their high position in league with those who think they don't deserve to be in a low one.

That is, people who think they have low social status are higher in need for chaos if they think their group is being screwed over, while people high in social status are higher in need for chaos if they think that their group gets more than it deserves.

A bit more about the interaction between group relative deprivation and one's perceived social status: In the US data (collected with @rorytruex.bsky.social) shows that GRD is positively correlated with NFC for those with low social status and negatively correlated for those with high status

Why some chaos-seekers just want to watch the world burn A political scientist explains how a confluence of personality traits and perceived status loss can encourage some people to generate chaos as a solution to their woes.

I enjoyed my interview with Sujata Gupta for @scinews.bsky.social about the need for chaos (the desire to burn it all down) and our current political comment.
www.sciencenews.org/article/why-...

These findings confirm an explanation of populism offered by @casmudde.bsky.social that it is an illiberal response to the perceived undemocratic liberalism inherent in There Is No Alternative politics.

To explain this, I look to an old social psychological concept called "relative deprivation." Even after controlling for social status and economic well-being, voters who feel that they are doing worse off compared to others are more likely to be populist AND see immigrants as resource competitors.

Even more puzzling: Those who want this form of "populist" representation like democracy in the abstract, but are also just as willing as those who want authoritarian government to trade off democracy for economic growth. Why?

Moreover, the desire for representatives to listen to ordinary people is *uncorrelated* with the desire to have a strong leader empowered to do illiberal things. Populist voters want a paradox: a strong leader who listens to them.

Analyzing survey data the @cevipof.bsky.social collected around the European elections in France, Italy, and Germany, I find that populist voters want representatives who listen to them (as expected) but they are NOT less supportive of compromise or deliberation!

What do populist voters want from their government? In this research note, I found some interesting answers to this question. The TL;DR is that they want more democracy, not less democracy, but they are willing to achieve in paradoxically illiberal ways (or what seem illiberal to us scholars).

Effect of Moderate vs. Stereotypical Exemplars on Perceptions of Out-Party Ideology. Two Coefficient Plots showing the effect of treatments for Republicans perceptions of Democrats’ ideology and Democrats’ perceptions of Republicans’ ideology. Moderate exemplars moved Republicans’ perceptions in a moderate direction on all issues; this effect was statistically significant for all issues except for taxes. Moderate exemplars moved Democrats’ perceptions in a moderate direction on all issues except taxes; this effect was only statistically significant for perceived position on abortion

Effect of Moderate vs. Stereotypical Exemplars on Affect Towards Out-Party. Two Coefficient Plots showing the effect of treatments for Republicans affect towards Democrats and Democrats’ affect towards Republicans. Moderate exemplars moved Republicans’ affect in a positive direction for all measures of affect; this effect was statistically significant for the overall affect index and the trust index. Moderate exemplars moved Democrats’ perceptions in a positive direction for the overall affect index and the trust index; the effect was statistically significant for the trust index. Moderate exemplars moved Democrats’ affect in a negative direction on the feeling thermometer and social distance index, though neither of these effects were statistically significant

Exposure to counter-stereotypical exemplars of the out-party can improve affect towards the out-party

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#socpsych #psychscisky #polpsy

Job Market - Bocconi University Recruiting, Faculty, Post-doc Grant, Collaboration Contracts

#Polisky folks: Bocconi University is looking for AP in Environmental Politics & Policy 🌏

Offer: Great group of political scientists working at awesome social science university in a fabulous city 🙌

🚨 Deadline: 30th of November

Please share 🔁

Apply 🔗 & ℹ️ : jobmarket.unibocconi.eu?type=&dep=SPS

What's more, these results are not moderated by participant's disposition empathy or racial prejudice. As with all null results, perhaps a different photo or different news story would have had effects. But, at a minimum we don't find robust evidence for the thesis that close-in photos humanize.

We measured participants' empathic responses and support for government policies to aid the victims after each article. We basically find no differences across the conditions.

Participants read 2 news stories: one about refugees in a foreign country and one about a flood in the US that displaced people from their homes. We varied the framing of the photos and whether the displaced persons had white or black skin. The control group read the same story w/ no photo.

We tested this hypothesis with a large-sample survey experiment (N=2,550). In addition to testing the framing of the photos, we also studied whether the ingroup or outgroup status of the displaced persons mattered (measured via skin tone) + whether foreign/domestic crises mattered.

Close-in framed photos portray displaced persons as individual human beings, while wide-framed photos portray them as a mass of faceless individuals. Previous research suggests that close-in framed photos increase empathy and support for public assistance to displaced persons.

New Preprint! with @bnbakker.bsky.social and Johanna Dunaway. Following previous research, we test the hypothesis that close-in framed photojournalistic portrayals of displaced persons humanize and increase support for helping them. Spoiler alert: We find null results. osf.io/preprints/ps...