Matthew Dardet (APRW)
Date and Time
Location
Speaker & Title
Matthew Dardet, “Risk and Ideology in America"
Abstract
Much work in political psychology has suggested that conservatives are more risk-averse than liberals, an asymmetry thought to explain ideological differences in political preferences. Yet this claim rests on divergent measures of ideology and risk aversion and rarely uses politically specific measures. I develop a domain-specific measure of political risk aversion and field four original surveys comparing it with general risk measures and with question-wording and framing experiments. Across measures, political risk aversion is weakly related to ideology, but it is associated with Trump support among moderates. I then use a large language model to measure risk-oriented political expression on Twitter from 2013 to 2023, linked to registered-party and TargetSmart ideology measures. Conservatives and liberals overlap substantially in expressed risk aversion. These results challenge the claim that conservatives are generally more risk-averse and raise questions for psychological-asymmetry theories of ideology. They also clarify how conservatives may support unconventional candidates and policies that disrupt existing political arrangements.
The American Politics Research Workshop (Gov 3004) meets all academic year, Tuesdays, 12:00–2:00 PM, in CGIS K354. This workshop presents an opportunity for graduate students and Harvard faculty to present and receive feedback on their current research. The workshop highlights key theoretical and empirical findings from Harvard affiliates on topics related to American politics.
All interested Harvard affiliates are invited to attend. Lunch will be provided.