Trent Ollerenshaw

Trent Ollerenshaw

PhD Candidate, Political Science

Posts by Collection

portfolio

publications

How different are cultural and economic ideology?

Published in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 2020

Abstract: While a single left-right dimension is often used for elites, many scholars have found it useful to distinguish mass political ideology along two dimensions: an ‘economic’ dimension concerning issues of redistribution, regulation, and social insurance, and a ‘cultural’ (or ‘social’) dimension concerning issues of national boundaries and traditional morality. While economic and cultural ideology do not reduce to a single left-right dimension, they are often moderately — and sometimes strongly — correlated. These correlations vary in magnitude and direction across individuals and countries. The association of these dimensions is due, in part, to shared antecedents in psychological needs for security and certainty. However, these needs explain more variance in cultural than economic ideology, and their relationship with the latter varies across individuals and countries. Traits related to empathy, compassion, and agreeableness are an additional source of variation in mass ideology and are especially important to orientations toward inequality and thus to economic ideology.

Recommended citation: Johnston, Christopher D, and Trent Ollerenshaw. 2020. “How different are cultural and economic ideology?” Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 34: 94–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.01.008

The Conditional Relationship of Psychological Needs to Ideology: A Large-Scale Replication

Published in Public Opinion Quarterly, 2022

Abstract: We offer novel tests of hypotheses regarding the conditional relationship of psychological needs to political ideology. Using five personality measures and a large national sample, our findings affirm that political engagement plays an important moderating role in the relationship between needs for certainty and security and political identification, values, and policy preferences. We find that needs for certainty and security are strongly associated with right-wing political identification and cultural values and policy preferences, particularly among politically engaged citizens. In the economic domain, however, we find that needs for certainty and security are typically associated with left-wing values and policy preferences among politically unengaged citizens. It is only among politically engaged citizens that such needs are associated with right-wing economic values and policy preferences. Our findings confirm the importance of heterogeneity across both ideological domain and political engagement for how psychological needs translate into political ideology in the American mass public.

Recommended citation: Ollerenshaw, Trent, and Christopher D. Johnston. 2022. “The Conditional Relationship of Psychological Needs to Ideology: A Large-Scale Replication.” Public Opinion Quarterly 86(2): 369–80. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfac004

The Polls—Trends: The Polarization of White Racial Attitudes and Support for Racial Equality in The U.S.

Published in Public Opinion Quarterly, 2022

Abstract: Public opinion research has long demonstrated that white Americans are generally resistant to racially egalitarian policies. Using decades of national public opinion data, we re-examine opinion on race policy in the wake of considerable polarization and shifts in racial attitudes across white partisans. We find that white Democrats have in recent years shown both increasingly liberal racial attitudes and a marked increase in support for policies promoting racial equality that at times rivals the levels of support expressed by Black Americans. We also find, however, that these trends among white Democrats are tempered by heightened levels of racial resentment and continued opposition to racially egalitarian policies among white Republicans. Today, partisans appear to be far more polarized on matters of race and racism than at any point in the last three decades.

Recommended citation: Jardina, Ashley E., and Trent Ollerenshaw. 2022. “The Polls—Trends: The Polarization of White Racial Attitudes and Support for Racial Equality in The U.S.” Public Opinion Quarterly 86(S1): 576–87. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfac021

The Conditional Effects of Authoritarianism on COVID-19 Pandemic Health Behaviors and Policy Preferences

Published in Political Behavior, 2022

Abstract: A large literature contends that conservatives differ from liberals in their dispositional sensitivity to threat and needs for social order and security. Thus, a puzzle emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic when American conservatives, despite their purported threat sensitivity, responded to the pandemic in ways that evinced little concern toward the risks posed by COVID-19. Why did so many Americans adopt health behaviors and policy preferences at odds with their dispositional orientations toward threat and needs for security during the COVID-19 pandemic? In this paper, I analyze three national surveys to evaluate how psychological dispositions affected Americans’ responses to COVID-19. I find that authoritarianism, a common measure of dispositional threat sensitivity and needs for security, conditionally affected Americans’ responses to the pandemic. Directly, authoritarianism was associated with greater concern over COVID-19 and, in turn, increased willingness to engage in protective health behaviors, support restrictive public health measures, and support economic interventions amidst the pandemic-induced downturn. Indirectly, however, authoritarianism promoted identification with and cue-taking from right-wing elites who frequently downplayed the severity of COVID-19; attention to such rhetoric reduced politically engaged authoritarians’ concern over COVID-19 and, in turn, their willingness to adopt protective health behaviors and support public health restrictions or economic interventionism. Attention to political discourse thus appears to have countervailed Americans’ dispositional orientations toward threat and security during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recommended citation: Ollerenshaw, Trent. 2022. “The Conditional Effects of Authoritarianism on COVID-19 Pandemic Health Behaviors and Policy Preferences.” Political Behavior https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09828-9

The Polls—Trends: The Asymmetric Polarization of Immigration Opinion in the United States

Published in Public Opinion Quarterly, 2023

(Forthcoming) Abstract: In this paper, we analyze trends in Americans’ immigration attitudes and policy preferences nationally and across partisan and racial/ethnic groups. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Democrats and Republicans shared similarly negative attitudes toward immigrants and high levels of support for restrictionist immigration policies. Beginning in the 2010s and continuing through the early 2020s, however, Democrats’ aggregate immigration opinions liberalized considerably. Trends towards more liberal immigration preferences are especially pronounced for white Democrats post-2016, though they are also seen among Hispanic and Black Democrats. Opinion regarding immigration among Republicans, however, remained mostly stable over this period, growing more conservative on some dimensions (e.g., border security) but more liberal on others (e.g., amnesty). Immigration opinion in the US has liberalized during the twenty-first century; however, this one-sided liberalization has left Democrats and Republicans more divided on immigration than at any point since national surveys began consistently measuring immigration opinion in the late-20th century.

Recommended citation: Ollerenshaw, Trent and Ashley E. Jardina. Forthcoming. “The Polls—Trends: The Asymmetric Polarization of Immigration Opinion in the United States” Public Opinion Quarterly.

Authoritarianism and support for Trump and Clinton in the 2016 primaries

Published in Research & Politics, 2023

Abstract: Research in the wake of the contentious 2016 presidential primaries contends both Democrats and Republicans were internally divided along psychological lines. Specifically, MacWilliams (2016) finds authoritarian personality was strongly related to Trump support among Republican primary voters, and Wronski et al. (2018) finds authoritarianism was strongly related to Clinton support among Democratic primary voters. In this paper, I reassess the relationships between authoritarianism and 2016 primary candidate preferences for both Republicans and Democrats. I analyze two new large, probability-based surveys and generate random effects estimates using these surveys and two national surveys from Wronski et al. (2018). Overall, I find authoritarianism was moderately associated with support for Clinton over Sanders among Democratic primary voters, but weakly associated with support for Trump among Republican primary voters. My findings indicate authoritarianism may have played a more limited role in shaping Americans’ candidate preferences in the 2016 presidential primary elections than past studies have suggested.

Recommended citation: Ollerenshaw, Trent. 2023. "Authoritarianism and support for Trump and Clinton in the 2016 primaries." Research & Politics https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231188258

Affective polarization and the destabilization of core political values

Published in Political Science Research and Methods, 2023

Abstract: Analyses of US panel surveys from 1992 to 1996 have found extremity in political values was associated with increased affective polarization, but that affective polarization was not associated with changes in value extremity during this period (Enders and Lupton, 2021). This note reevaluates the relationships between political value extremity and affective polarization using a 2016–2020 panel survey. Replicating Enders and Lupton’s analytical procedures as closely as possible with this more recent sample, I find value extremity is sometimes associated with increased affective polarization. In contrast to Enders and Lupton (2021), however, affective polarization is strongly associated with increased value extremity between 2016 and 2020. These findings suggest that the relationships between political values and affective polarization may have changed since the 1990s, and that values are now influenced by Americans’ evaluations of salient political objects, such as parties, presidential candidates, and ideological groups.

Recommended citation: Ollerenshaw, Trent. 2023. “Affective polarization and the destabilization of core political values.” Political Science Research and Methods doi:10.1017/psrm.2023.34

talks

teaching

Teaching experience 1

Undergraduate course, University 1, Department, 2014

This is a description of a teaching experience. You can use markdown like any other post.

Teaching experience 2

Workshop, University 1, Department, 2015

This is a description of a teaching experience. You can use markdown like any other post.