John J. Cho

Published Works

1. Gloating Villain: Two Field Experiments of the Effect of Anger on Turnout" (with Al Fang, Greg A. Huber, and Alan S. Gerber). Revise and Resubmit at British Journal of Political Science.
   Abstract

   
   

   In two field experiments conducted in Mississippi and Florida, we present novel evidence about how emotions can be harnessed to increase voter turnout. When we inform respondents that a partisan villain would be happy if they did not vote (e.g., a Gloating Villain treatment), we find that anger is activated in comparison to other emotions and turnout increases by 1.7 percentage points. In a subsequent field experiment, we benchmark this treatment to a standard GOTV message, the social pressure treatment. Using survey experiments that replicate our field experimental treatments, we show that our treatment links the act of voting to anticipated anger. In doing so, we contribute the first in-the-field evidence of how we can induce emotions, which are commonly understood to be fleeting states, to shape temporally distant political behaviors such as voting.



2. "Fact-Value Disagreements about Threats to Electoral Integrity: Beliefs about Importance and Prevalence of Fraudulent, Uncounted, and Foregone Votes in the 2020 Election." (with Gregory A. Huber, Scott E. Bokemper, Alan S. Gerber, William Brady, Killian McLoughlin, Molly J. Crockett). Revise and Resubmit at Political Behavior.
   Abstract

   
   

   In three survey experiments conducted before, during, and after the 2020 Election, we investigated subject beliefs about the frequency of different threats to election integrity and their emotional reactions to these problems. In these studies, we assessed beliefs about and reactions to counting fraudulent votes (fraudulent), failing to count legitimately cast ballots (uncounted), and causing those who were eligible to vote to forgo doing so (foregone). On average, Republicans believe the first two types of errors are both more frequent and more troublesome than do Democrats, with the opposite pattern for forgone votes. Over time, these partisan gaps in beliefs grow only for frequency of fraudulently counted ballots, while Republicans becoming relatively more concerned about the seriousness of all types of errors. These results hold in a vignette describing the same errors with multiple features (Study 2) and when respondents had to choose ex ante between election rules (Study 3). Overall, these three studies contribute to a better understanding of voter beliefs about and reactions to potential threats to election security.



3. "The Importance of Breaking Even: How Local and Aggregate Returns Make Politically Feasible Policies." (with Alan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, and Patrick D. Tucker). 2024. British Journal of Political Science 54(3): 730-747.
   Abstract

   
   

   Policies that promote the common good may be politically infeasible if legislators representing ‘losing’ constituencies are punished for failing to promote their district's welfare. We investigate how varying the local and aggregate returns to a policy affects voter support for their incumbent. In our first study, we find that an incumbent who favours a welfare-enhancing policy enjoys a discontinuous jump in support when their district moves from losing to at least breaking even, while the additional incremental political returns for the district doing better than breaking even are modest. This feature of voter response, which we replicate, has significant implications for legislative politics generally and, in particular, how to construct politically feasible social welfare-enhancing policies. In a second study, we investigate the robustness of this finding in a competitive environment in which a challenger can call attention to a legislator's absolute and relative performance in delivering resources to their district.



4. "Do Elite Appeals to Negative Partisanship Stimulate Citizen Engagement?" (with Mia Costa and Dartmouth undergraduate students). 2022. The Forum 20(1): 135–153.
   Abstract

   
   

   Scholars have extensively studied whether campaign attack advertisements—messages that attack individual candidates—mobilize or demobilize voters with mixed results. We argue that group-oriented partisan affect in campaigns—messages about the parties in general—is just as important given increasing trends of affective polarization. We use two survey experiments, one right before the 2020 presidential election and the other before the subsequent Georgia Senate runoff election, to examine the effects of partisan rhetoric on several measures of civic engagement. In the presidential election, neither positive partisan, negative partisan, nor personal apartisan appeals had a statistically significant effect on voters’ enthusiasm, likelihood to volunteer, or likelihood to seek out more information about engaging in the election. In the second study, negative partisan appeals led registered voters in Georgia to report much higher levels of enthusiasm about their preferred candidate, but this result was driven by Republicans only. The findings contribute new insights about electoral context and asymmetric affective polarization to the literature documenting the mobilizing effects of negativity in campaigns.

Under Review

1. "Descriptive Representation or Partisan Representation? Examining Trade-Offs among Asian Americans." (with Mia Costa and Yusaku Horiuchi).
   Abstract

   
   

   Do voters want representatives who share their race, ethnicity, or partisanship? We examine this question with a focus on Asian Americans who face trade-offs between descriptive (i.e., Asian American or “pan-ethnic”) and partisan representation, as well as trade-offs involving “co-ethnic” (e.g., Korean for Korean) and “cross-ethnic” (e.g., Indian for Korean) descriptive representation. We find that when Asian Americans are asked about collective representation in Congress, they prioritize increased co- ethnic and pan-ethnic legislators over co-partisan legislators. However, in a competitive electoral setting, they often trade off race/ethnicity for partisanship. Further analysis shows that Asian Americans are sometimes willing to cross party lines to vote for a co-ethnic candidate but never for a cross- or pan-ethnic candidate. These findings shed light on the importance of considering heterogeneous preferences along ethnicities within the same racial "in-groups," such as Asian Americans, a heavily understudied and heterogeneous group in American politics.

2. "Reward or Shoot the Messenger? Experiments on How People Treat the Messenger After Receiving Good or Bad News" (with Alessandro Del Ponte, Alan S. Gerber, and Greg A. Huber).
   Abstract

   
   

   Do people reward or shoot the messenger for the news that they deliver? In two preregistered experiments (N = 5,200), participants performed an incentivized task. A second individual—the messenger—informed them of the good or bad outcome. After the task, participants were matched with a partner—either the messenger or someone else. We measured participants’ prosociality toward the partner using economic games and attitudinal measures. In Study 1, participants were more (less) prosocial and had better (worse) attitudes toward messengers who delivered good (bad) news compared to a non-messenger. In Study 2, we informed respondents that messengers had no stakes in the news (unrelated fate) or earned money when participants succeeded (shared fate) or failed (opposite fate). We find that clarifying the intentions of the messenger successfully ameliorated the shoot the messenger effect, but the reward the messenger effect was more persistent across most treatment conditions.

Works in Progress

1. "The Challenge of Estimating Percentages: Reassessing the Origins and Meaning of Apparent Partisan Stereotypes." (with Lilla Orr and Gregory Huber).
   
2. "Who Stands Next to Whom? Voting Lines and Political Polarization." (with Michael Herron and Daniel Smith).
   
3. "Evaluating Asian American Candidates: The Effect of Ethnicity on Stereotypes" (with Yusaku Horiuchi and Mia Costa).
   

About this website: This website uses the "minimal theme" by Steve Smith. The design for this website is heavily inspired by and uses code from Shiro Kuriwaki and Jeremiah Cha.