Browsing by Subject "Expectations"
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Item Open Access Faith in the Future and Social Conflict: Economic Growth as a Mechanism for Political Stabilization(2014-04-16) Bloedel, AlexanderThis paper studies the mechanisms that link sociopolitical conflict and (expectations about) economic prosperity. Motivated by a large body of empirical and historical work on the correlation between economic development and democratization, I develop a game-theoretic model of economic growth with political economy constraints. In an economy where low income agents are credit constrained, rapid and robust economic growth leads to increasing inequality early on, but provides the means to mitigate civil conflict when inequality becomes sufficiently large. The rate and persistence of growth similarly determines the stability of extant political institutions and the ability to transition from dictatorship to democracy.Item Open Access Long-run relationships, economic shocks and political disagreement - The political economy of populism and polarization(2021) Guirola, LuisWhy do agents react to economic shocks privileging their identities and distrust of elites over their economic interests? This dissertation argues that this paradox can be explained by the logic of democratic representation. In a democracy, citizens delegate their economic interests to elites and institutions and forge a \emph{long-run relationship} with them. It shows that three factors -trust, identity and economic aspirations- regulate this relationship, and the fact that conflicts are processed within it can explain two puzzles: a) why economic disagreements arise while economic conditions remain unchanged and b) why economic shocks result in polarization or populism.
Firstly, it looks at the link between living standards and anti-establishment politics after financial crises. It pools 250 opinion and spending surveys and shows that unfulfilled economic aspirations undermine the trust in elites and institutions. Citizens protect their economic interests making their trust contingent on their economic aspirations. Financial crises undermine their well-being, and the ensuing decline in trust can interact with pre-existing political identities, and polarize politics along lines apparently unrelated to economic deprivations.
Secondly, it examines the link between affective polarization and economic expectations looking at 27 European countries since 1993. It identifies partisan bias looking at how citizens react to cabinet shifts. It shows that citizens with identical fundamentals but different identities update their subjective expectations in opposite directions. It argues that partisan bias is driven by affective polarization: the polarization of elites increases the hostility towards opponents, and citizens express it through their subjective expectations. However, bias does not push citizens to act against their economic self-interest. I reject alternative explanations about the source of bias including (a) lack of information (b) disagreements over the expected effects of government policy or its competence.
These findings suggest that democracy can transform the experience of citizens of economic antagonisms into conflicts with elites or about identity. However, trust and identities do not diminish the impact of economic factors, it only makes it more complex.
Item Open Access The influence of a cognitive behavioural approach on changing patient expectations for conservative care in shoulder pain treatment: a protocol for a pragmatic randomized controlled trial.(BMC musculoskeletal disorders, 2021-08-24) Myers, Heather; Keefe, Francis; George, Steven Z; Kennedy, June; Lake, Ashley Davis; Martinez, Corina; Cook, ChadBackground
Despite similar outcomes for surgery and conservative care, the number of surgeries to treat rotator cuff related shoulder pain has increased. Interventions designed to enhance treatment expectations for conservative care have been shown to improve patient expectations, but no studies have yet explored whether such interventions influence patient decisions to pursue surgery. The purpose of this randomized clinical trial is to examine the effect of an intervention designed to improve expectations of conservative care on the decision to have surgery.Methods
We will test the effectiveness of the Patient Engagement, Education, and Restructuring of Cognitions (PEERC) intervention which is intended to change expectations regarding conservative care. The PEERC intervention will be evaluated in a randomized, pragmatic "add-on" trial, to better understand the effect the intervention has on outcomes. Ninety-four (94) participants with rotator cuff related shoulder pain referred for physical therapy will be randomized to receive either impairment-based care or impairment-based care plus PEERC. Both groups will receive impairment-based conservative treatment created by compiling the evidence associated with established, effective interventions. Participants assigned to the impairment-based care plus PEERC condition will also receive the PEERC intervention. This intervention, informed by principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, involves three components: (1) strategies to enhance engagement, (2) education and (3) cognitive restructuring and behavioral activation. Outcomes will be assessed at multiple points between enrolment and six months after discharge. The primary outcome is patient reported decision to have surgery and the secondary outcomes are pain, function, expectations and satisfaction with conservative care.Discussion
Rotator cuff related shoulder pain is highly prevalent, and because conservative and surgical treatments have similar outcomes, an intervention that changes expectations about conservative care could alter patient reports of their decision to have surgery and ultimately could lead to lower healthcare costs and decreased risk of surgical complications.Trial registration
This study is registered as NCT03353272 at ClincialTrials.gov.Item Open Access The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime(2023) Bram, CurtisResearchers have dedicated substantial effort to investigating important non-material motivations for people to get involved in politics, such as duty, emotions, and identities. Less attention, however, has been paid to the expectations people develop for what governments and politicians will deliver. This dissertation is about what people think elections will do for them, where those expectations come from, and their political consequences.
The first substantive chapter explores the policy changes people expect from elections, and how those expectations influence the decision to vote. There I study voters' beliefs about what candidates would actually do if given political power. I first find that public respondents likely underestimate the impediments that the separation of power poses to policy change. Just before the 2020 election, these general population respondents expected much more legislation than political scientists completing an identical survey. Second, among the general public, there was a 16 percentage point difference between voters and non-voters in expectations for policy change resulting from the election. Most importantly, these high expectations predicted validated voter turnout better than education, identifying as a Democrat or as a Republican (as well as partisan strength and ideology), having voted in 2016, and political interest. These results support explanations for the decision to turnout which center on the benefits, whether individual or social, that people believe their preferred candidate will deliver.
Next, Chapter 3 argues that a psychological bias called focalism contributes to an overestimation of the differences between political candidates, which in turn increases participation and polarization. Focalism causes people to confuse the allocation of attention to things with the importance of those things. Because attention to politics typically centers on conflict, the result is an exaggeration of differences across the partisan divide. I test this intuition using an experimental design that provides all respondents with all of the information they need to estimate how much Joe Biden and Donald Trump objectively disagreed on policy positions just before the 2020 election. I find that shifting attention – towards either those positions the candidates agreed or disagreed with each other on – influences beliefs about the differences between candidates. The effect exceeds that of identifying as a Democrat or as a Republican. Beyond those perceptions, focalism increases turnout intentions, perceptions of election importance, negative feelings towards the out-candidate, and affective polarization.
Finally, Chapter 4 attempts to moderate people's expectations using a series of real-world experiments. That final essay asks: would learning about coverage biases as people learn about the news soften people's beliefs about how different Democrats and Republicans are? To test this question, I use two experiments, one of which recruited participants to consume news covering the full population of partisan and non-partisan sources and the second of which randomized coverage among a sample predisposed to change their minds. I find that giving people the tools to understand media bias does give people the opportunity to choose to consume centrist news. Exploring app-use data, I show that people who explicitly choose to engage with stories favored by these moderate sources stories while avoiding stories favored by partisan sources feel less polarized.