My research interests are anchored in political participation and civic engagement, utilizing theories from political science, psychology, and mass communication to gain greater understanding of the ways in which individuals become, stay, choose not to, or are prevented from being involved in the political realm, anchored on concepts of learned helplessness. My dissertation focused on the role of contextual factors, such as political polarization and income inequality on disaffection generally, and learned helplessness specifically, and the way context impacts conventional and unconventional political participation.
Additionally, my research agenda includes exploration into the use of alternative methodologies for the study of electoral behavior and political attitudes, such as implicit candidate evaluations and trait associations, as well as, better-informed models explaining political participation and voter turnout. Further, I am working with coauthors to examine ideological motivated reasoning connected to conspiracy endorsement and the consequences of political misinformation. |
Christina Farhart CV | |
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PublicationsEnders, Adam M., Christina E. Farhart, Joanne M. Miller, Joseph E. Uscinski, Kyle L. Saunders, and Hugo Drochon. 2022. “Are Republicans and Conservatives More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories?” Political Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09812-3.
Federico, Christopher M., Christina Farhart, Joseph Vitriol, and Agnieszka Golec de Zavala. 2022. “Collective Narcissism and Perceptions of the (Il)legitimacy of the 2020 US Election.” The Forum. 20(1): 37-62. https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2022-2046. Rosenthal, Aaron and Farhart, Christina E. 2022. “Timing Matters: How Adolescent Government Experiences Shape Political Lives.” Political Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09806-1. De Angelis, Andrea, Christina E. Farhart, Eric Merkley and Dominik A. Stecuła. 2022. “Editorial: Political Misinformation in the Digital Age during a Pandemic: Partisanship, Propaganda, and Democratic Decision-making.” Frontiers in Political Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2022.897095. Farhart, Christina E., and Phillip G. Chen. 2022. “Racialized Pandemic: The Effect of Racial Attitudes on COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Beliefs.” Frontiers in Political Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2022.648061. Farhart, Christina E., Ella Douglas-Durham, Kristin Lunz Trujillo, and Joseph A. Vitriol. 2021. “Vax attacks: How conspiracy theory belief undermines vaccine support.” Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science. 188(1):135-169. PMCID: PMC8713072. Farhart, Christina E. 2021. “Conspiracy Theory Belief and Conspiratorial Thinking.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Political Psychology, eds. Danny Osborne and Chris Sibley. Cambridge University Press. Ch. 33. Farhart, Christina E., Joanne M. Miller, and Kyle L. Saunders. 2021. “Conspiracy Stress or Relief? Learned Helplessness and Conspiratorial Thinking.” In The Politics of Truth in Polarized America, eds. Elizabeth Suhay and David Barker. Oxford University Press. Ch. 10. Lyons, Benjamin A., Farhart, Christina E., Michael P. Hall, John Kotcher, Matthew Levendusky, Joanne M. Miller, Brendan Nyhan, Kaitlin T. Rami, Jason Reifler, Kyle L. Saunders, Rasmus Skytte, and Xiaoquan Zhao. 2021. “Self-Affirmation and Identity-Driven Political Behavior: An Oversold Solution?” Journal of Experimental Political Science. 1-16. doi:10.1017/XPS.2020.46. Cassese, Erin, Christina E. Farhart, and Joanne M. Miller. 2020. “Gender Differences in COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Beliefs.” Politics & Gender. 16(4), 1009-1018. doi:10.1017/S1743923X20000409. Chen, Phillip G., and Christina E. Farhart. 2020. “Gender, Benevolent Sexism, and Public Health Compliance.” Politics & Gender. 16(4), 1036-1043. doi:10.1017/S1743923X20000495. Motta, Matt, Dominik Stecula, and Christina E. Farhart. 2020. “How Right-Leaning Media Coverage of COVID-19 Facilitated the Spread of Misinformation in the Early Stages of the Pandemic in the U.S.” Canadian Journal of Political Science as part of the Cambridge Coronavirus Collection. doi: 10.1017/S0008423920000396 Vitriol, Joseph A., Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, and Christina E. Farhart. 2018. “Implicit candidate traits in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: Replicating a dual-process model of candidate evaluations.” Electoral Studies, 54: 261-268. Ksiazkiewicz, Aleksander, Joseph A. Vitriol, and Christina E. Farhart. (2018). “Implicit candidate trait perceptions in political campaigns.” Political Psychology, 39: 177-195. Sheagley, Geoffrey, Phillip G. Chen, and Christina E. Farhart. (2017). “Racial Resentment,Hurricane Sandy, and the Spillover of Racial Attitudes into Evaluations of Government Organizations.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 17: 105-131. Miller, Joanne M., Kyle L. Saunders, and Christina E. Farhart. (2016). “Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust.” American Journal of Political Science, 60(4): 824-244. Chen, Philip G., Jacob Appleby, Eugene Borgida Timothy H. Callaghan, Pierce Ekstrom, Christina E. Farhart, Elizabeth Housholder, Hannah Kim, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, Howard Lavine, Matthew D. Luttig, Ruchika Mohanty, Aaron Rosenthal, Geoff Sheagley, Brianna A. Smith, Joseph A. Vitriol, and Allison Williams. (2014). “The Minnesota Multi-Investigator 2012 Presidential Election Panel Study,” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 14: 78-104. |
Media CoverageMedia Appearances
NPR, Connections with Evan Dawson, February 23, 2021 (with Dr. Joanne Miller): https://www.wxxinews.org/post/coming-connections-tuesday-february-23 Huffington Post video series, August 13, 2018 (with Dr. Joanne Miller): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1iD1ypnsWo Related Articles/Blogs The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 14, 2018 Newsletter: https://www.chronicle.com/article/One-Way-to-Help-Students/245096?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=beaa6514b68241c0bd05d3492ea6af27&elq=74a2d543fe5049df95f813f19ab0339d&elqaid=21408&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10232 AJPS Blog: http://ajps.org/2015/12/03/conspiracy-endorsement-as-motivated-reasoning-the-moderating-roles-of-political-knowledge-and-trust/ Bloomberg Early Returns: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-08/conspiracy-theories-and-generation-gap New Scientist: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23231020-500-changing-minds-how-to-trump-delusion-and-restore-the-power-of-facts/ London School of Economics American Politics and Policy Blog: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/69326/ The Upshot (The New York Times): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/upshot/why-more-democrats-are-now-embracing-conspiracy-theories.html?_r=0 Media Coverage The New York Times, February 3, 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/opinion/qanon-conspiracy-theories.html The New Republic, February 5, 2021: https://newrepublic.com/article/161266/qanon-classism-marjorie-taylor-greene Vogue, January 31, 2021: https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/conspiracy-theorist-boyfriend?amp&__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR2MsihhwS2CH0cBiSGo7zzDKIxyu3pfjXQjxJTqMSD9CxxSS0jH13kVmoM The Daily Beast, August 1, 2020: https://www.thedailybeast.com/study-men-more-likely-than-women-to-back-covid-conspiracies?ref=scroll&fbclid=IwAR2zt0Odft2CmhnM7XJ923GSYeLeyJIJX5KfUD1DQ30Td05epR-vd8qGu8g PsyPost, July 31, 2020: https://www.psypost.org/2020/07/consuming-content-from-foxnews-com-is-associated-with-decreased-knowledge-of-science-and-society-57499 Science Codex, July 27, 2020: https://www.sciencecodex.com/men-are-more-likely-women-endorse-covid-19-conspiracy-theories-652686 Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/08/why-smart-people-believe-all-the-crazy-things-trump-says/ Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/conspiracy-theorists-politics_565e0c14e4b072e9d1c3b2e9?a8zlrf6r Vox: http://www.vox.com/2015/12/10/9886222/conspiracy-theories-right-wing Salon: http://www.salon.com/2016/03/19/conspiracy_theories_are_for_losers_science_explains_why_conservatives_see_sneaky_cabals_in_every_defeat/ |
Drawing BoardRosenthal, Aaron, Matt Motta, and Farhart, Christina E. (2021, July 5). “Beyond Tuskegee, To Middlesboro: How Perspectives of Policing Shape Vaccine Attitudes for Black Americans.” Preprint; https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/wjq4a. Under Review at Public Opinion Quarterly.
Vitriol, Joseph, Joseph Sandor, Robert Vidigal, and Christina E. Farhart. (R&R for Applied Cognitive Psychology Special Issue on Conspiracy Theories). “On the Role of Cognitive & Political Sophistication in Psychology of Conspiracy Theory Beliefs.” Chen, Philip, Christina E. Farhart, Erin Cassese, and Joanne M. Miller. (Invited Submission for book from Workshop on “Campaigning, Working, and Representing: Gender and Politics in a Global Pandemic” hosted by Melanee Thomas, Erica Rayment, and Susan Franceschet). “‘America’s Governor’ and ‘America’s Doctor’: Gender, Trust, and COVID-19 Expertise.” Miller, Joanne M., Christina E. Farhart, and Kyle L. Saunders. (In preparation). “The Relationship between Losing an Election and Conspiracy Theory Endorsement.” Farhart, Christina E., Erin Fitz, Joanne M. Miller, and Kyle L. Saunders. (In preparation). “Why Do People Share Conspiracy Theories?” Vitriol, Joseph A., and Christina E. Farhart. (In preparation). “Black and Blue: Support for Democratic Norms and Disaffection Shape Affect Towards Blue or Black Lives Matter.” Farhart, Christina E. (in preparation) “Helping or Helpless: Political Consequences of Learned Helplessness in the U.S.” Cassese, Erin, Phillip G. Chen, Christina E. Farhart, and Joanne M. Miller. (in preparation). “Coping and Conspiracy: How Gender and Partisanship Shape Responses to Pandemic-Induced Loss of Control.” Farhart, Christina E., Joseph A. Vitriol, and Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz. (in preparation). “Who Do You Really Like? Implicit Candidate-Trait Associations in U.S. Democratic Primaries.” Sheagley, Geoffrey D. and Christina Farhart. (in preparation) “Assessing the Impact of Rural Consciousness on Political Behavior.” Vitriol, Joseph A., Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, and Christina E. Farhart. (in preparation). “On the consequences of implicit and explicit attitudinal incongruence in political contexts.” Chen, Philip, and Christina E. Farhart. (in preparation) “Racial Animus vs Racial Identity: On the differing roles of racial resentment and white identity.” Ekstrom, Pierce, and Christina E. Farhart. (in preparation) “Who doesn’t love a good fight? Elite polarization energizes strong partisans and alienates independents.” Farhart, Christina E., Joanne M. Miller, Kyle L. Saunders, and Marissa Theys. (invited book chapter). “It Was the Best of Plots, It Was the Worst of Plots: Why Do People Believe Conspiracy Theories? A Tale of Two Motives.” Miller, Joanne, Kyle Saunders, and Christina E. Farhart. (in preparation). “The Impact of Asking Conspiracy Theory Questions on Data Quality.” Christina E. Farhart. (in preparation). “Who Said Voting Wasn’t Racialized? Framing Effects, Racial Cues, and Support for Contemporary Voting Restrictions” Ekstrom, Pierce, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, Christina E. Farhart, and Rafael Aguilera. (in preparation). “Cold-Hearted Republicans and Soft-Headed Democrats: Affective and Political Consequences of Negative Partisan Stereotypes” Bagozzi, Benjamin E. and Christina E. Farhart. (in preparation). “Double Peaked Preferences.” |