Peer-reviewed Publications

Hall, Matthew E.K., Leigh, B. Tyler, & Solomon, Brittany C. “The Overlooked Threat of Democratic Neutrality.” (R & R at Nature Human Behavior). Summary: Scholars continue to debate the degree to which Americans support democracy. We show that a substantial portion (up to 30%) of Americans express neutrality towards core democratic norms. Using a candidate-choice conjoint, we find that democratically neutral Americans fail to hold anti-democratic candidates accountable for violating democratic norms. In this way, the sizable minority of Americans who express neutrality towards democracy behave like the small portion of Americans who explicitly support anti-democratic norms. Prior research therefore overestimates the extent to which the American public acts as a check on anti-democratic actions from politicians.

Research in Progress

Leigh, B. Tyler. “Deviant Ideas on Social Media Undermine Public Tolerance for Political Expression” Summary: Using two survey experiments, I show that Americans believe deviant political ideas are able to influence other Americans’ thoughts and actions via social media. In response, Americans are less tolerant of political expression, both on social media and in general.

Leigh, B. Tyler, Hall, Matthew E.K. “Democratic Cynicism: A Latent Dimension of Public Support for Democracy.” Summary: Hundreds of measures of public support for democracy exist. We conduct a systematic literature review and identify 119 unique survey items. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses identify three latent dimensions underlying public support for democracy. One factor–cynicism towards majoritarian institutions, processes, and norms–has never been identified by prior work. We identify increases in democratic cynicism over the preceding decades and show that democratic cynicism predicts anti-democratic attitudes and behaviors.

Leigh, B. Tyler & Mutz, Diana C. “The Reliability of Survey-based Measures of Social Media Use.” Summary: Survey-based self-report measures of social media use are widely criticized compared to passive observation of social media use. We challenge this viewpoint by demonstrating high psychometric reliability and stability of self-reported social media use measures in a three-wave, longitudinal panel. These results indicate that for some research questions, especially those related to estimating population-level effects of social media use with longitudinal data, self-reported social media use measures can be a useful and reliable research tool.

Leigh, B. Tyler & Mutz, Diana C. “Social Media Use and Political Polarization: Results from a Multi-year Longitudinal Panel.” Summary: Numerous studies posit one or another mechanism through which social media may contribute to political polarization, often arriving at conflicting findings. We use five waves of longitudinal data from a probability sample of Americans to identify the population-level net effect of social media use on political polarization in America. We find that television consumption is a stronger predictor of population-level political polarization than social media use. On the whole, we find little evidence that social media drive political polarization in America.