Political sophistication is a concept that encompasses political reasoning, the coherence of people's issue attitudes, and their knowledge of political processes. To what extent is political sophistication affected by genes and environments? Do these distinct but related measures of sophistication share a common genetic structure? We analyze survey data collected from participants in the Minnes...

Most research in public opinion and political sophistication relies on the assumption that Americans organize their political belief system according to the liberal and conservative categories. Yet not all of them do. We hypothesize that citizens’ sociodemographic profiles make them disposed to espouse different understandings of the political debate, and document systematic heterogeneity in Am...

Recent studies have shown that variation in political attitudes and participation can be attributed to both genes and the environment. This finding begs the question of why genes matter to participation, and by which pathways. Two hypotheses suggest that feelings of civic duty and sense of political efficacy intermediate the relationship between genes and political participation and, thus, that...

Thisarticle provides a foundation for understanding the role of implicit biases in political behavior, particularly implicit racial attitudes and voting behavior. Although racial attitudes have rarely played a major direct role in American presidential politics until 2008, numerous local, state, and federal elections are held every year in the United States that involve minority candidates. As ...

Since the pioneering work of Eaves and Eysenck (1974) appeared in Nature some 40 years ago, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and behavioral geneticists have investigated the effects of nature and nurture on the formation of social attitudes. It has consistently been found that manifestations of social attitudes (i.e., preferences, values, and beliefs pertaining to things like ...

Authoritarianism has resurfaced as a research topic in political psychology, as it appears relevant to explain current political trends. Authoritarian attitudes have been consistently linked to feelings of disgust, an emotion that is thought to have evolved to protect the organism from contamination. We hypothesized that body odour disgust sensitivity (BODS) might be associated with authoritari...

This note attempts to present the state of theoretical and empirical research on the politics of redistribution and to draw conclusions about future research priorities. I contrast public choice models with models emphasizing the role of altruistic political attitudes and learning as well as with models stressing the role of party behavior. I also contrast methods of empirical testing based upo...