This research intends to discover the effects of packaging rigidity and political identity on consumer behavior. Four experiments are conducted and reported. The results show that although products in more flexible packages may be perceived as more innovative and environmentally friendly, they may nevertheless be less preferred because of reduced ease of handling. Moreover, I show that political identity moderates these results, such that politically liberal, more so than politically conservative, consumers are those who respond more negatively to flexible packaging. I investigate whether specific individual traits, openness to experience (one of the big five personality traits) and/or sensory sensitivity, help to explain the political identity moderator. Finally, I test whether the findings can be applied via marketplace targeting on the basis of political affiliation using voting data as a geographic proxy measure. / Business Administration/Marketing

Climate change is a source of anxiety and stress. To be resilient to the changes that are occurring, individuals must cope with that stress. Because there are many ways that people might manage stress we examined variation in coping strategy use among Americans who reported some concern about climate change to understand generally how people cope with such stress, and whether it can be predicted from individual difference factors, namely degree of climate change concern and political ideology. We examined these variables specifically because in the study of responses to climate change, conservatives and liberals often report divergent beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. To investigate these questions, we conducted two studies, recruiting American adults via MTurk (Study 1 N = 425, Study 2 N = 247). Participants completed online surveys with measures of how concerned they were about climate change, what they were stressed about in relation to climate change, how they cope with such stress, using the Brief COPE inventory (Carver, 1997), and political ideology. A variety of stressful experiences were reported, ranging from observations about changing weather to concerns about political inaction. We find that certain coping strategies (e.g., acceptance and active coping) are highly reported, whereas some strategies are less used (e.g., substance use). Overall, use of almost all coping strategies was found to be related to levels of concern about climate change – greater concern predicted greater use of most strategies. However, political ideology moderated the relationships between concern and use of certain coping strategies – conservatives who are more concerned were using more avoidant strategies to cope (i.e., disengagement), whereas the relationship was positive, but weaker for liberals. We did not observe such an interaction for problem-focused or social-focused coping strategies. The implications of these findings around coping responses to climate change in relation to the need for resilience are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a relationship exists between the theorized identity styles and political positions, views, and opinions. Also investigated were the effects of authority on political views, specifically within the normative identity style. Students at a large southeastern metropolitan university (N = 440) took an anonymous online survey in exchange for course credit. Those with a normative identity style, who look to authority figures for answers, were found to have much higher levels of conservatism and held more conservative positions than did those with an informational style, who seek out their own sources for answers. Those with a diffuse-avoidant style, who avoid making identity related decisions, fell between the normative and informational styles on most of these measures. For those with a normative identity style, political views on welfare deservingness were better predicted by news media choice and parental political ideology than by personal political ideology. For those with an informational identity style, most political views were better predicted by personal political ideology than by news media choice, parental political ideology, or parental news media choice. A lack of usage of traditional media in favor of social media may explain some of the results. Further implications are discussed.

The American Dream has been the inspiration of many political speeches, political writings, and works of literature throughout American history. Most recently, it has inspired political groups like the Center for the New American Dream and academic groups like the Xavier University Center for the Study of the American Dream. As of late, the notion of the American Dream has begun to crop up more often than not in main stream political discourse, especially surrounding the topic of immigration with the aptly named Dream Act. Why has the American Dream drawn this new attention and inquiry? Why and how is it important to American Political thought? What does it mean? Why does it endure? As a complex issue of American culture, this thesis will use disparate methods of analysis to form answers to these questions. The American Dream is often referred to as our national myth. It is comprised of the many ideals and narratives which undergird American politics and culture. Through examination of literary works of fiction and of political texts, this research will examine the meaning and the history of the American Dream. Then, using secondary survey data, this research will examine the implications and state of the American Dream. Finally, to answer the question of why the American Dream endures, this research will employ elements of psychoanalytic and Marxist theory to argue that the Dream works as a cycle of American political thought.

The following dissertation contains two distinct empirical essays which contribute to the overall field of Financial Economics. Chapter 1 titles as “Corporate Lobbying, CEO Political Ideology and Firm Performance”. We investigate the influence of CEO political orientation on corporate lobbying efforts. Specifically, we study whether CEO political ideology, in terms of manager-level campaign donations, determines the choice and amount of firm lobbying involvement and the impact of lobbying on firm value. We find a generous engagement in lobbying efforts by firms with Republican leaning-managers, which lobby a larger number of bills and have higher lobbying expenditures. However, the cost of lobbying offsets the benefit for firms with Republican CEOs. We report higher agency costs of free cash flow, lower Tobin’s Q, and smaller increases in buy and hold abnormal returns following lobbying activities for firms with Republican managers, compared to Democratic and Apolitical rivals. Overall, our results suggest that the effects of lobbying on firm performance vary across firms with different managerial political orientations. Chapter 2 titled as “Corporate Lobbying and Labor Relations: Evidence from Employee” Litigations. We utilize employee litigations and other work-related complaints to examine if lobbying firms are favored in judicial process. We gather 27,794 employee lawsuits (after initial court hearing) between 2000 and 2014 and test the relationship between employee allegations and firms’ lobbying strategies. We find that employee litigations increase the number of labor-related bills in our sample. We document that the increase in employee lawsuits may drive firms into lobbying to change policy proposals. We also find robust evidence that the case outcome is different for lobbying firms compared to non-lobbying rivals, which may protect the shareholder wealth in the long run. Our results present that lobbying activities may make a significant difference in employee allegations. Our findings highlight the benefit of building political capital to obtain a biased outcome in favor of politically-connected firms.

Feelings of disgust may have effects on one’s moral judgment; specifically that experience of disgust has linked to increased severity of moral judgments. Additionally, one’s political beliefs may also affect one’s moral judgment, such as conservatives tend to make harsher judgment toward moral situations and behaviors. A 2 x 2 x 2 factorial quasi-experiment has been proposed to study 420 participants, legal adults from both conservative and liberal neighborhoods, randomly assigned to one of two conditions, disgust-eliciting versus neutral. Participants will view either four disgust-eliciting photographs or four neutral photographs, and then complete survey questions on disgust rating, moral judgment, disgust sensitivity, and political self-identification. It is hypothesized that, participants who identify as liberals, will feel less disgusted by the photos than conservative participants, and have more lenient moral judgment, whereas participants who identify as conservatives, will feel more disgusted by the photos than liberals, and have much harsher moral judgment.

There is an ongoing debate among psychologists regarding the psychological factors underlying moral judgments. Rationalists argue that informational assumptions (i.e. ideological beliefs about how the world works) play a causal role in shaping moral judgments whereas intuitionists argue that informational assumptions are post hoc justifications for judgments made automatically by innate intuitions. In order to compare these two perspectives, the author conducted two studies in which informational assumptions related to ingroups and outgroups varied across conditions. In Study 1, political conservatives and liberals completed the moral relevance questionnaire while imagining they were in the US, Iran, or no specific country. Keeping in line with the predictions of the intuitionist perspective, the results showed that the judgments of conservatives and liberals did not significantly differ across conditions. Study 2 used a more in depth manipulation in which participants read a vignette about a government (US, Iran, or the fictional country of Kasbara) violating the rights of a minority group. As in Study 1, the results support the intuitionist perspective--the judgments of conservatives and liberals did not significantly differ across conditions. These findings play a small part in clarifying the role of informational assumptions in moral judgments.

Four studies investigated the effects of attitude extremity and political ideology on the degree and direction of changes in issue attitudes following the presentation of mixed evidence. Based upon previous work, it was predicted that those holding relatively more extreme attitudes would resist changing those views when presented with a mixture of supporting and opposing statements and would potentially adopt more extreme evaluative positions – a phenomenon known as attitude polarization (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). Evaluative entrenchment or intensification was also expected among more politically conservative participants, based upon prior work describing cognitive rigidity and resistance to change as more characteristic of the political right than left (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). An interaction of attitude extremity and political ideology was also hypothesized, such that liberal individuals with moderate attitudes were expected to demonstrate the least propensity to polarize. Participants’ attitudes regarding abortion rights (Study 1), gun control (Study 2), tax increases (Study 3), and environmental preservation (Study 4) were assessed before and after reading statements that both opposed and supported the issue. Political ideology was also assessed, along with several individual difference factors. Across all four studies, attitude extremity significantly predicted evaluative change, although the pattern of that effect varied. Political ideology did not emerge consistently as a predictor of attitude change; however, significant interactive effects of extremity and ideology were found. In addition, several individual difference factors (i.e., gender, need for cognition, issue importance) were found to moderate the effects of the primary predictors on attitude change, and some divergent result patterns were found when comparing data from a college and non-college sample in Study 4. Taken together, these studies provide evidence that attitude extremity and political ideology influence the degree and direction of evaluative change following the presentation of mixed evidence. In addition, they identify other factors at work in effecting change versus resistance, thereby highlighting the multi-faceted and complex nature of persuasion in a political context.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma reflexão de teoria política normativa a respeito da tolerância no plano mundial adotando uma perspectiva tributária do individualismo ético e dos contratualismos rawlsiano e kantiano. Sua argumentação defende uma interpretação individualista e universalista da tolerância enquanto virtude política institucional. Justificar-se-á a idéia de que a tolerância requer uma lista ampla de direitos humanos e que é um critério normativo de legitimidade política frente às comunidades internas e global / This dissertation presents a reflection of Political Theory about toleration in world plan adopting a perspective of ethical individualism and Rawlsian and Kantian contractualism. Its argumentation defends an individualist and universalist interpretation of toleration while institutional and political virtue. The idea will be justified as toleration requires an extensive list of human rights and that it is a moral criterion of politics legitimacy in front of internal and global communities

This research aims to explain teacher policy developments in England since the nineteenth century, using a historical approach. To this end, this research has demarcated the scope of teacher policy, in consideration of the main career phases of regular teachers, into three policy areas – initial teacher training, curriculum and teaching, and employment and professional development – and has divided the whole period of 1800-2008, in consideration of major political changes and the management of the research, into four periods of governments: early era governments (1800-1943), post-war era governments (1944-1979), Thatcherite governments (1979-1997), and New Labour governments (1997-2008). Teacher policy in each period has been explained in accordance with an analytical framework employing concepts of historical-institution legacies (HILs), interlinking-institution legacies (IILs), government strategies, political ideologies and socio-economic situations, devised largely on the basis of the perspectives of historical institutionalism and the statecentred approach. Teacher policy in the early era governments has been explained in terms of HILs developed to address the long-lived effects of early institutions on subsequent policies over time. The changing pattern of teacher policy during the period of government change in the last three periods has been explained in terms of IILs. This research suggests certain teacher policies in the early era governments have had a strong effect on subsequent policies, consistently or intermittently, in the form of revival. For example, apprenticeship instituted as an early form of school-based teacher training has reflected its legacy in subsequent policies such as SCITT and employment-based training. This research has found that, as IILs, striking changes in certain policies have already started before government change. Furthermore, this research argues that the three groups of governments have employed their own strategies under different political ideologies and socio-economic situations, and that most teacher policies have been made in line with their strategies.