rules and procedures, primary-election dynamics, and
considers how public opinion is shaped by the knowledge
campaign financing. Unseen processes contribute further
that people do not gain — in some cases because it’s withheld
to this polarization. Alternative versions of legislation
for political reasons. The academic term for this is agnotology,
that might have represented a political compromise never
which he defines as the opposite of epistemology. He explains
emerge because party leaders set the legislative agenda,
it as “the study of how we come to not know things: questions
prioritizing from among thousands of bills introduced
of undone science, lines of investigations that don’t get the
and making decisions based on partisan interests.
attention or funding or approval they deserve.”
“Not all conflict in Congress is manufactured, but there
For example, during the second Bush administration
are ways in which the parties can exacerbate or manipulate
members of Congress tried to defund certain studies by the
conflict that the public knows very little about,” says
National Institutes of Health, hoping to squelch sexuality-
Harbridge. “These are unseen counterfactuals.”
related topics that they deemed unpalatable. “These were projects that had public health significance, but as far as
The Politics of Football and Weather Druckman, associate director of Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research, explores unseen influences on public opinion that might seem to have little to do with politics. Yet his research suggests that these influences exert a significant, if not always lasting, impact — one that can extend into the realm of public policy. Druckman has studied what he calls the “local warming effect” on people whose communities have experienced warmer-than-normal temperatures. He’s found that people often base global-warming survey responses on whatever information comes most quickly to mind — such as that day’s temperature. When people feel the day is warm, they think global warming is more real. But when researchers remind respondents that temperatures naturally vary, the local warming effect diminishes. Local sporting events also influence people’s thinking, says Druckman. Results of recent college football games affect opinions, including perceptions about a particular university and the US president’s performance. As with the local warming effect, these political changes may only last a week, although opinions about schools can endure. “People wouldn’t think about a football game as being in the political domain, and daily temperature change isn’t typically how people talk about climate change,” says Druckman. “In both cases, though, these things can have a substantial impact on opinion.”
members of Congress were concerned, it was better not to know about them,” says Epstein. “That’s a troublesome development, one that I thought was important to trace.” Similarly, adds Epstein, when human papilloma virus vaccines were proposed as a public health intervention, some conservative voices feared this would promote promiscuity, despite the vaccine’s potential to prevent cervical cancer. Other issues were even more taboo; medications for treating HPV, such as Gardasil, also are effective in treating anal cancer, which homosexual men and HIV-positive people are more likely to contract. “It wasn’t a conversation that people wanted to get into, and probably wasn’t a conversation that vaccine manufacturers wanted to talk about,” says Epstein. “Merck feared that promoting Gardasil to boys would raise the specter of sexuality, especially gay sex. Part of what Merck wanted to do was desexualize Gardasil. These are issues of unseen or ‘undiscussable’ illnesses.” Research by Carey and Viswanathan may reveal that marketers need not shy away from such topics today. Harbridge may find that people of opposing viewpoints can bridge their differences for public health purposes. Social scientists such as Druckman might uncover other positive, if counterintuitive, influences on thinking and behavior. But in the political realm, at least, Harbridge isn’t optimistic. Unlike previous periods of deep division, which typically polarized around one or two primary issues, the current chasms in US politics are as wide as they are deep. “So
'Questions of Undone Science'
many issues,” she says, “have sorted themselves into
While Druckman examines how beliefs are shaped by
the same old liberal-conservative consortium.”
seemingly random events, sociologist Steven Epstein
— Ed Finkel
Research | Spring + Summer 2016
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