2015 MPSA proposal
Here is the title and abstract to my 2015 MPSA proposal:
A Troublesome Belief? Social Inequality and Belief in Human Biological Differences
In A Troublesome Inheritance, Nicholas Wade speculated that biological differences might help explain inequality of outcomes between human groups. Reviewers suggested that Wade's speculations might encourage xenophobia, so, to understand the possible attitudinal consequences of such a belief, I develop predictions based on the expectation that belief in a biological explanation for group-level social inequalities reduces the perceived need for policies to reduce these inequalities. General Social Survey data supported predictions that this belief is correlated with lower support for policies to reduce sexual inequalities, support for greater social distance between racial groups, more support for traditional sex roles, and less support for immigration, but did not indicate a correlation with aggregate support for policies to reduce racial inequalities. I further developed and tested predictions regarding the possibility that persons who perceive biological differences to have resulted from unguided processes such as Darwinian evolution adopt more progressive attitudes toward social inequalities than persons who perceive biological differences to have resulted from guided processes such as intelligent design.
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UPDATE (Nov 5, 2014)
The "Troublesome Belief" proposal was accepted for the MPSA public opinion panel, "Using public opinion to gauge democracy and the good life."
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UPDATE (Mar 10, 2015)
Draft of the manuscript for the MPSA presentation is here. Data are here. Code is here.
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UPDATE (Mar 23, 2015)
Updated draft of the manuscript for the MPSA presentation is here. Data are here. Code is here. Thanks to Emil Ole William Kirkegaard for helpful comments.
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UPDATE (Feb 13, 2016)
Updated draft of the manuscript is here.