June 26, 2017
Professor Jessica Trounstine and graduate student Kau Vue's paper "A Different Kind of Disadvantage: Candidate Race, Electoral Institutions, and Voter Choice" has been recognized as the Best Paper in Urban and Local Politics presented at the American Political Science Association's 2016 meeting. Congratulations to both of them on winning this prestigious award!
The paper, joint with Professors Shana Gadarian and Melody Crowder-Meyer, argues that cognitive complexity helps to explain when and why racial cues and heuristics are often used by voters. In a series of experiments, they show that when voters' cognitive load is higher, candidates of color are less likely to be chosen. But when voters have both substantive information about candidates, and their cognitive load is lower, they are less likely to rely on simple cues like racial stereotypes.
