Many 2022 candidates do not acknowledge results of 2020 election. This is a huge problem.

How can we persuade people not to support undemocratic candidates in the 2022 midterms?

@jgvoelkel & I offer insights from the Strengthening Democracy Challenge.

washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/… Many Republican voters believe the 2020 election was stolen. For them, voting for election-denying Republican candidates helps their favored party AND helps to defend democratic principles.
This is a misinformation problem.
See, e.g.:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

🚨🚨New paper “Incivility is Rising Among American Politicians on Twitter” out now in SPPS! 🚨🚨

Is political discourse on Twitter growing more toxic? Is the platform responsible? If so, what can be done about it? 🧵👇

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11… ⚡️For a quick summary of our results, check out this excellent video produced by the brilliant folks @StanfordHAI (& the thread below!)⚡️

🚨New WP: How can we reduce partisan animosity & anti-democratic attitudes in US?🚨

We share results of the Strengthening Democracy Challenge: N=32k megastudy testing 25 depolarization interventions

Shows effective treatments for many neg outcomes!
🧵👇strengtheningdemocracychallenge.org/paper In line with claims that American democracy is in crisis, we found concerning baseline levels of potentially problematic attitudes, e.g.:

➤Partisan animosity
➤Support for undemocratic practices
➤Support for undemocratic candidates
➤Biased evaluation of politicized facts

🚨Results are in for the Strengthening Democracy Challenge. Winners will be announced this week!🚨

ITT we announce the 25 submissions we selected to test. We think these submissions are awesome & hope you do too.

But first, how we got here…👇🧵 BACKSTORY: last summer we invited people to submit ideas for how to reduce Americans’ anti-democratic attitudes, support for partisan violence, and/or partisan animosity.

https://twitter.com/robbwiller/status/1417548995434405890?lang=en

🚨Call for Submissions🚨 “The Strengthening Democracy Challenge,” a large-scale project testing interventions to reduce (a) anti-democratic attitudes, (b) support for partisan violence, and/or (c) partisan animosity, is open for submissions NOW 1/

strengtheningdemocracychallenge.org American democracy faces major problems. Americans are willing to compromise on democratic principles for partisan goals. Some people are willing to resort to violence to help their side win. Extreme dislike for rival partisans has grown significantly in recent decades. 2/

Republicans are the largest vaccine hesitant group in the US and their hesitancy is not declining. What can we do about it?

In this new piece in the @LAtimes, I & @jayvanbavel discuss strategies and some of the relevant behavioral science in this space

latimes.com/opinion/story/… We identify three broad approaches - general public health messages, promotion by trusted politicians, and promotion by trusted nonpolitical influencers – identifying behavioral science relevant to each.

🚨New WP🚨 “Elite Party Cues Increase Vaccination Intentions among Republicans”

How to convince Republicans-biggest holdout group-to get vaccinated? We find pro-vax messaging from Trump+Rep elites works, whereas Biden+Dems message reduces enthusiasm

psyarxiv.com/f9jq5 High vaccination rate is key for herd immunity. But vaccine intentions are deeply polarized. ~40% of Republicans report they won’t vaccinate, essentially the same % as in Nov. A flat line for 5 months! (while other groups - e.g. racial minorities - have shifted substantially)