Research

This page provides an overview of my research interests, current projects, and publications.

Publications

Dancey, Logan, John Henderson, and Geoffrey Sheagley. "The Personal Vote in a Polarized Era." Forthcoming at American Journal of Political Science.

Carlos, Roberto, Geoffrey Sheagley, and Karlee Taylor. "Tolerance for the Free Speech of Outgroup Partisans." Forthcoming at PS: Political Science and Politics.

Sheagley, Geoffrey, Logan Dancey, and John Henderson. 2022. "A Good Partisan? Ideology, Loyalty, and Public Evalutions of Members of Congress." Legislative Studies Quarterly. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12399

Bankert, Alexa, Ryan Powers, and Geoffrey Sheagley. 2022. "Trade Politics at the Checkout Lane - Ethnocentrism and Consumer Preferences." Political Science Research and Methods. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2022.40

Henderson, John, Geoffrey Sheagley, Stephen Goggin, Logan Dancey, and Alexander Theodoridis. 2022. "Primary Divisions: How Voters Evaluate Policy and Group Differences in Intra-Party Contests." Journal of Politics. https://doi.org/10.1086/718208

Clifford, Scott, Geoffrey Sheagley, and Spencer Piston. 2021. "Increasing Precision without Altering Treatment Effects: Repeated Measures Designs in Survey Experiments." American Political Science Review. 115(3): 1048-1065.

Sheagley, Geoffrey and Adriano Udani. 2021. "Multiple Meanings? The Link Between Partisanship and Definitions of Voter Fraud." Electoral Studies. 69"

Sheagley, Geoffrey. 2019. "The Effect of Cross-cutting Partisan Debates on Political Decision-Making." Party Politics. 25(3): 401-411.

Dancey, Logan and Geoffrey Sheagley. 2018. "Partisanship and Perceptions of Party-Line Voting in Congress." Political Research Quarterly. 71(1): 32-45

Sheagley, Geoffrey, Philip G. Chen, and Christina 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(1): 105-131.

Dancey, Logan and Geoffrey Sheagley. 2016. "Inferences Made Easy: Partisan Voting in Congress, Voter Awareness, and Senator Approval." American Politics Research. 44 (5), 844-874.

Chen et al. 2014. "The Minnesota Multi-Investigator 2012 Presidential Election Panel Study." Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. 14(1): 78-104.

Dancey, Logan and Geoffrey Sheagley. 2013. "Heuristics Behaving Badly: Party Cues and Voter Knowledge." American Journal of Political Science. 57(2): 312-325.

Ongoing Research & Working Papers

No Need for a Panel Study: Measuring Moderators Doesn't Alter Treatment Effects

As survey experiments have become more common in political science, so too have efforts to identify who is most responsive to a treatment. These moderation experiments frequently rely on observed, rather than manipulated moderators, such as partisan identity or racial attitudes. These designs have led to an ongoing debate about where to measure moderators – immediately prior to the treatment, after the treatment, or in a prior wave of a panel survey. Each design choice has its downsides and detractors. Measuring a moderator after the treatment opens the possibility of posttreatment bias. Measuring it prior to the experiment may create priming effects. And panel studies are costly and sometimes infeasible. We contribute to this debate by systematically studying whether measuring moderators prior to an experiment affects the results. Across four different experiments involving four of the most commonly used moderators, we find no evidence of priming effects. In an additional experiment, we find no evidence that the distance between a moderator and an experiment within a survey affects the results. Our findings thus help resolve the debate, suggesting that the pretreatment measurement of a moderator often poses little threat to the inferences drawn from an experiment.


Partisan Poll Watchers and Americans' Beliefs about Electoral Integrity

This is an ongoing project focused on how partisan poll watchers shape Americans' perceptions of fairness and electoral integrity. To date, we have collected data from three conjoint experiments administered on large national samples to examine this question. Our design randomizes a variety of features of polling locations, including the types of poll watchers, voter registration requirements, and voter identification requirements.