Current research projects

Meta-analysis of NEP, CNS, and EID: Comparing the usage of major scales to predict pro-environmental behavior

Abstract

The New Ecological Paradigm (Dunlap et al 2000), Connectedness to Nature Scale (Mayer and Frantz 2004), and Environmental Identity (Clayton 2003) measures have all been widely shown to predict pro-environmental behavior. Recent work shows the CNS to be a stronger predictor than the NEP and a different environmental identity measure to be correlated with 13 public and private behaviors (Sparks et al 2021), however there has not been any meta-analytic comparison of these scales.

Our pre-analysis plan for this meta-analysis is pre-registered at https://osf.io/hdex8/ and follows the PRISMA-P protocol for meta-analysis by Moher et al (2015). The pre-analysis plan lays out several key questions we hope to answer with this meta-analysis: 1) How has the use of each scale changed over time? 2) Does effect size vary based on type of pro-environmental behavior? 3) Which measure shows stronger correlation with behavior across cultures? 4) How has each measure’s efficacy changed over time? 5) Are the measures sample-dependent?

The current paper presents preliminary analyses as data collection is ongoing. We identified a total of 232 papers that use the NEP, 17 that use the CNS, and 8 that use the EID. We also show that NEP’s usage peaked in 2012, and over the past three years all scales have been used similarly with under five uses each.

An early draft of this paper was presented at MPSA 2022.

The Biden Campaign and the Youth Vote: Evidence that Social Media and Progressive Climate Policy Attracted Younger Voters

Abstract

A September 9, 2020 article in the Washington Post reported that Biden was struggling to excite younger voters. According to a Pew poll in October of 2020, 68% of likely Biden voters rated climate change as “very important.” A March 2021 article in Wired describes the climate activism of TikTok users. Evidently, younger generations utilize social media platforms and groups much more frequently than other generations. Moreover, they are also, generally, much more progressive on issues related to climate change and environmental justice. Thus, it is for these reasons that Biden’s presidential campaign required the success of attracting younger, climate-oriented voters. Lastly, it is the purpose of this research to investigate what effects can be found for the campaign trying to mobilize young climate voters through social media engagement. To test these claims, we first turn to the ANES 2020 data and find mixed evidence for the effects of social media on support for Biden. Then to try to better determine causal effects of social media and climate campaigning we collected an online sample through prolific. The embedded experiment did not show any effect for participants viewing a pro-Biden and climate video, and only mixed support for reading a transcript of the video. Regression analysis reveals that Biden’s support is significantly impacted by the respondent’s views on climate change, even while accounting for partisanship and ideology. Moreover, age and climate views show an interactive effect. However, there do not seem to be strong effects of social media usage in being key to persuading young voters.

An early draft of this paper was presented at MPSA 2022 and is currently in preparation for submission.

Show and tell Advocacy

This project examines how organizations at the local, state, and federal level use the lobbying tactic of inviting policymakers to see the work they are doing. How and and when is this tactic effective? In what context does this work? Pre-print available at https://osf.io/cqjd5/

Field Research in North Carolina

We are currently seeking partners/collaborators for field research projects in North Carolina!

Students are also encouraged to develop their own ideas for research.

More Details Coming soon!