This thesis consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, I examine the effect of electoral outcomes on the tendency to overreport turnout among nonvoters, drawing on data from the Cooperative Election Study (CES) for presidential election years spanning from 2008 to 2020. Using standard regression analysis and propensity score matching, I examine whether nonvoters, especially those residing in swing states, are more likely to claim to have voted without corresponding records when the party they support loses the election. The results indeed indicate a higher likelihood of overreporting among nonvoters in swing states, especially when the party they support loses the election. In the second chapter, Maria Abascal, Delia Baldassarri and I explore how individuals generalize from a trustworthy versus untrustworthy interaction with strangers onto subsequent interactions. Specifically, we investigate if the generalization pattern varies depending on whether the partners in the interactions are coethnic or non-coethnic. We field a repeated trust game with White adults based in the US in which respondents are randomly assigned to experimental conditions that vary by (i) the race/ethnicity of the partners in the two rounds, (ii) the trustworthiness of the first-round interaction, and (iii) whether the partner in the second round is assigned by the experimenter or chosen by the participant. We find that the nature of the interaction does indeed affect subsequent behavior when it involves an outgroup member. Specifically, White respondents who have a negative experience with Latino partners in the first round are less likely to choose to play with another Latino player in the subsequent round. In contrast, the nature of interactions among White respondents paired with other White partners does not predict their behavior in the second round. Moreover, the nature of first-round interactions does not affect contribution amounts in subsequent rounds when partners are assigned by the experimenter. In the third chapter, I examine how concerns for the reputation of the group one belongs to influences prosocial behavior. Specifically, I explore whether members of minority groups exhibit greater sensitivity to the potential impact of their actions on group reputation when interacting with individuals from an outgroup, than would members of majority groups. I field a give-or-take dictator’s game with White and Asian adults based in the US and find that among a subgroup of respondents who are less experienced in online surveys and not suspicious of the existence of real partners (versus bots), minority (Asian) respondents are indeed more generous when assigned to the reputation condition than to the anonymity condition. However, a similar difference in behavior is not observed among majority (White) respondents. In other words, the results suggest that members of the minority are more conscientious of the reputational impact than are majority group members when interacting with a member of an outgroup.

Voter turnout in the United States began to decline at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, and since then, turnout has not returned to the high percentages that were commonplace in the 1860s and 1870s. Numerous scholars point to the late 1800s and early 1900s as the era when significant changes in voting, turnout, and political party competition took place. Many of these same scholars contend that the consequences of these changes, such as continuing low voter turnout, can be seen today. Yet, scholars have made very few efforts to connect what happened in the past to what is happening today. In this thesis I attempt to examine the root causes of declining voter turnout in the United States at the turn of the 20th century. The significance of this examination rests with the thought that if we can understand why voter turnout began to fall we may then have a clearer sense of why low voter turnout persists today. Specifically, this study tests two competing theoretical models, one by V.O. Key and Walter Dean Burnham and the other by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, that claim to explain how and why turnout began to fall in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Both models use the same variables -- voting statutes, political party competition, and voter turnout -- to explain this fall, but the models place these variables in different time sequences.. This thesis tests the models by examining dynamics found in a single city -- Richmond, Virginia. Richmond affords an opportunity to inspect dynamics of voter turnout at the turn of the 20th century in a geographic area of the country that neither model used as a basis for its theoretical propositions. / Master of Arts