Samara Klar – American Politics Speaker Series

Red, Blue and Grey Abstract pattern

Online Meeting

Samara Klar, University of Arizona

“Partisan-Motivated Evaluations of Sexual Misconduct and the Mitigating Role of the #MeToo Movement”

Abstract:
When individuals evaluate political events, even something as serious as a sexual misconduct allegation, they can be motivated to defend their party – but other considerations can reduce these partisan biases. We bridge work from political psychology with studies on social movements to theorize and demonstrate how the #MeToo movement can help partisans to even-handedly evaluate sexual misconduct in politics. We conduct a two-wave survey experiment on a large nationally representative panel of Americans and, first, find that partisanship biases Americans’ evaluations of sexual misconduct, especially among those who are most affectively polarized. We then show that support for the #MeToo movement is associated with less biased and more even-handed evaluations of sexual misconduct in politics. This study helps to reveal the impact of the #MeToo Movement and it contributes to our broader understanding of how movements can moderate partisan motivated reasoning among the mass public.

The  American Politics Speaker Series (APSS)  invites speakers from outside Harvard to present research in American politics. Sponsored by the Center for American Political Studies, the Harvard Department of Government, and Harvard Kennedy School, the series is co-organized by Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Jon Rogowski, and Ben Schneer.