Using Stories in Experimental Political Science
Marika Landau-Wells, Professor
Political Science
Applications for Fall 2024 are closed for this project.
People are exposed to stories of all kinds in their daily lives, including appealing but false stories such as conspiracy theories. One way to understand the causal influence of stories on beliefs and behaviors is to use them as experimental treatments. The outcomes of these experiments can vary widely depending upon the way in which the stories are designed and the theories that researchers rely on to predict how stories will work. This project examines the design and deployment of stories in experiments to better understand what can be learned from them. The undergraduate portion of the project focuses on collecting and analyzing the stories used as experimental stimuli over the past decade in the political science literature.
Role: There are three primary tasks for undergraduates in this project (sequential), attached to three learning outcomes:
1) Collection of experimental stimuli from the existing literature. The goal here is for students to see the variety of experimental designs associated with experimental political science (and social science more broadly), which can inform their own future research interests
2) Data management and processing of text. The goal here is for students to practice handling data across multiple platforms, including database/spreadsheet tools and R.
3) Data analysis and visualization. The goal here is to learn basic text analysis (frequency tools) and basic statistical analysis (comparing distributions and trends), and associated visualization, all in R.
Qualifications: Some familiarity with:
1) Experiments in any setting (psychology, political science, biology, physics, etc.)
2) Basic R (ability to import data and manipulate dataframes)
3) Basic spreadsheet skills in Sheets or Excel
Hours: to be negotiated
Related website: http://https://www.marikalandau-wells.com/other-projects
Social Sciences