Political Polarization
Cornelson, Kirsten (2022). "Politics at the dinner table: Thanksgiving, exposure to conflicting opinions, and political polarization." Submitted. (pdf)
Abstract: Can socializing with people who disagree with you reduce political polarization? I answer this question using a shock that induces us to socialize and discuss politics with a more ideologically diverse set of people: Thanksgiving. I use both Canada/U.S. comparisons (exploiting the fact that Thanksgiving occurs at different times in the two countries), as well as a series of Canadian electoral reforms affecting the timing of elections, to show that people converge towards the political viewpoints of their families after Thanksgiving and that this reduces polarization. These results suggest that increasing political diversity within our social circles can reduce polarization.
Cornelson, Kirsten and Boriana Miloucheva (2021). "Political polarization, social fragmentation, and cooperation during a pandemic." Accepted, Health Economics. (pdf)
In this paper, we examine the relationship between political polarization and individuals' willingness to contribute to the public good by engaging in preventative behaviors against COVID-19. Using a sample of individuals from close-election states, we first show that individuals engage in fewer
preventative behaviors when the governor of their state is from the opposite party. We also show that this effect is concentrated among moderate individuals who live in polarized states, and that it is strongest when the state has been relatively forceful in combating COVID-19. We estimate that the
opposite-party effect increased COVID-19 cases by around 1%.
Race and Gender
Cornelson, Kirsten (2022). "Do segregated neighborhoods cause segregated interactions? Evidence from Flickr." Submitted. (pdf)
Abstract: Many sociologists have argued that segregation harms minorities because of the influence of neighborhoods on social networks. We currently have little understanding, however, of whether reducing segregation would in fact create more inter-racial contact. In this paper, I first show
theoretically that desegregation policy can have an ambiguous effect on cross-racial interactions, due to a reduction in the strength of residential sorting. People have few other-race neighbors, but those neighbors are unusually well-matched to them; this creates inter-racial interactions that may be destroyed if people are induced to live in more diverse, but less well-matched, neighborhoods. Next, I examine what effect desegregation is likely to have in practice. I estimate parameters from my model using a new dataset that measures inter-racial interactions through geocoded Flickr photographs. I then simulate the effect of completely desegregating cities. In all versions of my simulation, inter-racial interactions fall as a result of desegregation.
Baker, Michael and Kirsten Cornelson (2018.) "Gender based occupational segregation and sex differences in sensory, motor and spatial aptitudes." Demography 55 (5): 1749-75. (Link)
Abstract: Research on sex differences in humans documents gender differences in sensory, motor, and spatial aptitudes. These aptitudes, as captured by Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) codes, predict the occupational choices of men and women in the directions indicated by this research. We simulate that eliminating selection on these skills reduces the Duncan index of gender-based occupational segregation by 20 % to 23 % in 1970 and 2012, respectively. Eliminating selection on DOT variables capturing other accounts of this segregation has a smaller impact.
Baker, Michael and Kirsten Cornelson (2019) "Title IX and the Spatial Content of Female Employment--Out of the Lab and into the Labor Market''. Labour Economics, 58: 128-144. (Link)
Abstract: Sports participation is a sex typed extracurricular activity cited as a source of the male advantage in some spatial skills. We exploit the large increase in females’ high school sports participation due to Title IX, which prohibited discrimination in federally assisted educational programs, to test this hypothesis. We relate Title IX induced increases in females’ sport participation to a test of three dimensional spatial rotation and the spatial content of their occupational employment as captured by Dictionary of Occupational Titles codes. We find little evidence that this increase in sports participation had an impact on either of these measures.
Health
Cornelson, Kirsten and Boriana Miloucheva (2022). "Does Diversity Increase Trust in Science?: Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Through Representation."
Abstract: While the scientific community largely supports the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, willingness to receive them among the general public has lagged. One possible explanation for this disconnect is that the general public distrusts the objectivity of scientists, particularly given beliefs are typically split along ideological lines. In this paper, we present experimental findings that relate the effectiveness of scientific communication on the COVID-19 vaccine to the identity and diversity of scientists conveying the message. By randomly varying the demographic and political/religious orientation of scientists conveying a positive message about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine, we measure changes in the willingness of participants to receive a vaccine. Our results suggest that we can reduce vaccine hesitancy with relatively simple informational interventions. In particular, statements from scientists who differed from each other demographically (and, to a lesser extent on signals of political orientation) increased participants' willingness to receive the vaccine. We hypothesize that individuals interpret agreement among scientists with different backgrounds as reflecting a more informative signal of consensus within the scientific community.
Boucher, Jean-Christophe, Kirsten Cornelson, Jamie L. Benham, Madison M. Fullerton, Theresa Tang, Cora Constantinescu, Mehdi Mourali, Robert J. Oxoby, Deborah A. Marshall, Hadi Hemmati, Abbas Badami, Jia Hu, Raynall Lang (2021). "Analyzing social media to explore the attitudes and behaviors following the announcement of successful COVID-19 vaccine trials: infodemiology study." JMIR: Infodemiology 1(1).
Abstract: The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has brought vaccine hesitancy to the forefront in managing this pandemic. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is fundamentally different from that of other vaccines due to the new technologies being used, rapid development, and widespread global distribution. Attitudes on vaccines are largely driven by online information, particularly information on social media. The first step toward influencing attitudes about immunization is understanding the current patterns of communication that characterize the immunization debate on social media platforms. We aimed to evaluate societal attitudes, communication trends, and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake through social media content analysis to inform communication strategies promoting vaccine acceptance. Social network analysis (SNA) and unsupervised machine learning were used to characterize COVID-19 vaccine content on Twitter globally. Tweets published in English and French were collected through the Twitter application programming interface between November 19 and 26, 2020, just following the announcement of initial COVID-19 vaccine trials. SNA was used to identify social media clusters expressing mistrustful opinions on COVID-19 vaccination. Based on the SNA results, an unsupervised machine learning approach to natural language processing using a sentence-level algorithm transfer function to detect semantic textual similarity was performed in order to identify the main themes of vaccine hesitancy. The tweets (n=636,516) identified that the main themes driving the vaccine hesitancy conversation were concerns of safety, efficacy, and freedom, and mistrust in institutions (either the government or multinational corporations). A main theme was the safety and efficacy of mRNA technology and side effects. The conversation around efficacy was that vaccines were unlikely to completely rid the population of COVID-19, polymerase chain reaction testing is flawed, and there is no indication of long-term T-cell immunity for COVID-19. Nearly one-third (45,628/146,191, 31.2%) of the conversations on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy clusters expressed concerns for freedom or mistrust of institutions (either the government or multinational corporations) and nearly a quarter (34,756/146,191, 23.8%) expressed criticism toward the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Mourali, Mehdi, Jamie L. Benham, Raynall Lang, Madison M. Fullerton, Jean-Christophe Boucher, Kirsten Cornelson, Robert J. Oxoby, Cora Constantinescu, Theresa Tang, Deborah A. Marshall, and Jia Hu (2021). "Improving adherence to COVID-19 behaviors: test of persuasive messages". Under review, PLOS One.
Abstract: Adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for COVID-19, including physical distancing, masking, staying home while sick, and avoiding crowded indoor spaces remain critical for limiting the spread of COVID-19. This study tests the effectiveness of using various persuasive appeals (deontological moral frame, empathy, identifiable victim, goal proximity, and reciprocity) at improving intentions to adhere to prevention behaviors. A randomized online experiment using a national sample of Canadian adults was conducted between March 3-6, 2021. Participants indicated their intentions to follow public health guidelines, saw one of six flyers featuring a persuasive appeal or no appeal, then rated their intentions a second time. Known correlates of attitudes toward public health measures were also measured. Intentions to adhere to public health measures increased in all appeal conditions. The message featuring an empathy appeal resulted in a greater increase in intentions than the control (no appeal) message. Moreover, the effectiveness of persuasive appeals was moderated by baseline intentions. Deontological, empathy, identifiable victim, and reciprocity appeals improved intentions more than the control message but only for people with lower baseline intentions to adhere to NPIs. Public health marketing campaigns aiming to increase adherence to COVID-19 protective behaviors could achieve modest gains by employing a range of persuasive appeals. To maximize impact, however, it is important that these campaigns be targeted to the right individuals.
Marriage and family
Cornelson, Kirsten and Aloysius Siow (2016.) "A quantitative review of Marriage Markets: How Inequality is Remaking the American Family ." Journal of Economic Literature, 54 (1): pp 1-16. (Link)
Abstract: June Carbone and Naomi Cahn argue that growing earnings inequality and the increased educational attainment of women, relative to men, have led to declining marriage rates for less-educated women and an increase in positive assortative matching since the 1970s. These trends have negatively affected the welfare of children, as they increase the proportion of poor, single-female-headed households. Using data on marriage markets defined by state, race and time, and the Choo-Siow marriage matching function, this review provides a quantitative assessment of these claims. We show that changes in earnings inequality had a qualitatively consistent but modest quantitative impact on marriage rates and positive assortative matching. Neither changes in the wage distributions nor educational attainments can explain the large decline in marriage rates over this period.
Retired working papers
Cornelson, Kirsten (2019). "Media role models and black educational attainment: evidence from The Cosby Show." (pdf)
Cornelson, Kirsten (2014.) "Immigration, institutions and the labor market." (pdf)
Cornelson, Kirsten (2022). "Politics at the dinner table: Thanksgiving, exposure to conflicting opinions, and political polarization." Submitted. (pdf)
Abstract: Can socializing with people who disagree with you reduce political polarization? I answer this question using a shock that induces us to socialize and discuss politics with a more ideologically diverse set of people: Thanksgiving. I use both Canada/U.S. comparisons (exploiting the fact that Thanksgiving occurs at different times in the two countries), as well as a series of Canadian electoral reforms affecting the timing of elections, to show that people converge towards the political viewpoints of their families after Thanksgiving and that this reduces polarization. These results suggest that increasing political diversity within our social circles can reduce polarization.
Cornelson, Kirsten and Boriana Miloucheva (2021). "Political polarization, social fragmentation, and cooperation during a pandemic." Accepted, Health Economics. (pdf)
In this paper, we examine the relationship between political polarization and individuals' willingness to contribute to the public good by engaging in preventative behaviors against COVID-19. Using a sample of individuals from close-election states, we first show that individuals engage in fewer
preventative behaviors when the governor of their state is from the opposite party. We also show that this effect is concentrated among moderate individuals who live in polarized states, and that it is strongest when the state has been relatively forceful in combating COVID-19. We estimate that the
opposite-party effect increased COVID-19 cases by around 1%.
Race and Gender
Cornelson, Kirsten (2022). "Do segregated neighborhoods cause segregated interactions? Evidence from Flickr." Submitted. (pdf)
Abstract: Many sociologists have argued that segregation harms minorities because of the influence of neighborhoods on social networks. We currently have little understanding, however, of whether reducing segregation would in fact create more inter-racial contact. In this paper, I first show
theoretically that desegregation policy can have an ambiguous effect on cross-racial interactions, due to a reduction in the strength of residential sorting. People have few other-race neighbors, but those neighbors are unusually well-matched to them; this creates inter-racial interactions that may be destroyed if people are induced to live in more diverse, but less well-matched, neighborhoods. Next, I examine what effect desegregation is likely to have in practice. I estimate parameters from my model using a new dataset that measures inter-racial interactions through geocoded Flickr photographs. I then simulate the effect of completely desegregating cities. In all versions of my simulation, inter-racial interactions fall as a result of desegregation.
Baker, Michael and Kirsten Cornelson (2018.) "Gender based occupational segregation and sex differences in sensory, motor and spatial aptitudes." Demography 55 (5): 1749-75. (Link)
Abstract: Research on sex differences in humans documents gender differences in sensory, motor, and spatial aptitudes. These aptitudes, as captured by Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) codes, predict the occupational choices of men and women in the directions indicated by this research. We simulate that eliminating selection on these skills reduces the Duncan index of gender-based occupational segregation by 20 % to 23 % in 1970 and 2012, respectively. Eliminating selection on DOT variables capturing other accounts of this segregation has a smaller impact.
Baker, Michael and Kirsten Cornelson (2019) "Title IX and the Spatial Content of Female Employment--Out of the Lab and into the Labor Market''. Labour Economics, 58: 128-144. (Link)
Abstract: Sports participation is a sex typed extracurricular activity cited as a source of the male advantage in some spatial skills. We exploit the large increase in females’ high school sports participation due to Title IX, which prohibited discrimination in federally assisted educational programs, to test this hypothesis. We relate Title IX induced increases in females’ sport participation to a test of three dimensional spatial rotation and the spatial content of their occupational employment as captured by Dictionary of Occupational Titles codes. We find little evidence that this increase in sports participation had an impact on either of these measures.
Health
Cornelson, Kirsten and Boriana Miloucheva (2022). "Does Diversity Increase Trust in Science?: Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Through Representation."
Abstract: While the scientific community largely supports the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, willingness to receive them among the general public has lagged. One possible explanation for this disconnect is that the general public distrusts the objectivity of scientists, particularly given beliefs are typically split along ideological lines. In this paper, we present experimental findings that relate the effectiveness of scientific communication on the COVID-19 vaccine to the identity and diversity of scientists conveying the message. By randomly varying the demographic and political/religious orientation of scientists conveying a positive message about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine, we measure changes in the willingness of participants to receive a vaccine. Our results suggest that we can reduce vaccine hesitancy with relatively simple informational interventions. In particular, statements from scientists who differed from each other demographically (and, to a lesser extent on signals of political orientation) increased participants' willingness to receive the vaccine. We hypothesize that individuals interpret agreement among scientists with different backgrounds as reflecting a more informative signal of consensus within the scientific community.
Boucher, Jean-Christophe, Kirsten Cornelson, Jamie L. Benham, Madison M. Fullerton, Theresa Tang, Cora Constantinescu, Mehdi Mourali, Robert J. Oxoby, Deborah A. Marshall, Hadi Hemmati, Abbas Badami, Jia Hu, Raynall Lang (2021). "Analyzing social media to explore the attitudes and behaviors following the announcement of successful COVID-19 vaccine trials: infodemiology study." JMIR: Infodemiology 1(1).
Abstract: The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has brought vaccine hesitancy to the forefront in managing this pandemic. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is fundamentally different from that of other vaccines due to the new technologies being used, rapid development, and widespread global distribution. Attitudes on vaccines are largely driven by online information, particularly information on social media. The first step toward influencing attitudes about immunization is understanding the current patterns of communication that characterize the immunization debate on social media platforms. We aimed to evaluate societal attitudes, communication trends, and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake through social media content analysis to inform communication strategies promoting vaccine acceptance. Social network analysis (SNA) and unsupervised machine learning were used to characterize COVID-19 vaccine content on Twitter globally. Tweets published in English and French were collected through the Twitter application programming interface between November 19 and 26, 2020, just following the announcement of initial COVID-19 vaccine trials. SNA was used to identify social media clusters expressing mistrustful opinions on COVID-19 vaccination. Based on the SNA results, an unsupervised machine learning approach to natural language processing using a sentence-level algorithm transfer function to detect semantic textual similarity was performed in order to identify the main themes of vaccine hesitancy. The tweets (n=636,516) identified that the main themes driving the vaccine hesitancy conversation were concerns of safety, efficacy, and freedom, and mistrust in institutions (either the government or multinational corporations). A main theme was the safety and efficacy of mRNA technology and side effects. The conversation around efficacy was that vaccines were unlikely to completely rid the population of COVID-19, polymerase chain reaction testing is flawed, and there is no indication of long-term T-cell immunity for COVID-19. Nearly one-third (45,628/146,191, 31.2%) of the conversations on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy clusters expressed concerns for freedom or mistrust of institutions (either the government or multinational corporations) and nearly a quarter (34,756/146,191, 23.8%) expressed criticism toward the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Mourali, Mehdi, Jamie L. Benham, Raynall Lang, Madison M. Fullerton, Jean-Christophe Boucher, Kirsten Cornelson, Robert J. Oxoby, Cora Constantinescu, Theresa Tang, Deborah A. Marshall, and Jia Hu (2021). "Improving adherence to COVID-19 behaviors: test of persuasive messages". Under review, PLOS One.
Abstract: Adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for COVID-19, including physical distancing, masking, staying home while sick, and avoiding crowded indoor spaces remain critical for limiting the spread of COVID-19. This study tests the effectiveness of using various persuasive appeals (deontological moral frame, empathy, identifiable victim, goal proximity, and reciprocity) at improving intentions to adhere to prevention behaviors. A randomized online experiment using a national sample of Canadian adults was conducted between March 3-6, 2021. Participants indicated their intentions to follow public health guidelines, saw one of six flyers featuring a persuasive appeal or no appeal, then rated their intentions a second time. Known correlates of attitudes toward public health measures were also measured. Intentions to adhere to public health measures increased in all appeal conditions. The message featuring an empathy appeal resulted in a greater increase in intentions than the control (no appeal) message. Moreover, the effectiveness of persuasive appeals was moderated by baseline intentions. Deontological, empathy, identifiable victim, and reciprocity appeals improved intentions more than the control message but only for people with lower baseline intentions to adhere to NPIs. Public health marketing campaigns aiming to increase adherence to COVID-19 protective behaviors could achieve modest gains by employing a range of persuasive appeals. To maximize impact, however, it is important that these campaigns be targeted to the right individuals.
Marriage and family
Cornelson, Kirsten and Aloysius Siow (2016.) "A quantitative review of Marriage Markets: How Inequality is Remaking the American Family ." Journal of Economic Literature, 54 (1): pp 1-16. (Link)
Abstract: June Carbone and Naomi Cahn argue that growing earnings inequality and the increased educational attainment of women, relative to men, have led to declining marriage rates for less-educated women and an increase in positive assortative matching since the 1970s. These trends have negatively affected the welfare of children, as they increase the proportion of poor, single-female-headed households. Using data on marriage markets defined by state, race and time, and the Choo-Siow marriage matching function, this review provides a quantitative assessment of these claims. We show that changes in earnings inequality had a qualitatively consistent but modest quantitative impact on marriage rates and positive assortative matching. Neither changes in the wage distributions nor educational attainments can explain the large decline in marriage rates over this period.
Retired working papers
Cornelson, Kirsten (2019). "Media role models and black educational attainment: evidence from The Cosby Show." (pdf)
Cornelson, Kirsten (2014.) "Immigration, institutions and the labor market." (pdf)