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D. Adam Nicholson. “Poverty, Prevalences, and Penalties in Publications in U.S. States, 1993-2016.” The Sociological Quarterly. (Conditionally Accepted)
Ethno-racial differences in poverty are substantial and persistent in the US. To explain these differences, scholars have relied largely on behavioral explanations, which argue that poverty is the result of high prevalences of problematic behaviors or “risks.” Given substantial differences in the prevalence of risks, scholars intuit that ethno-racial differences in poverty are explained by disproportionately high prevalences of risks in Black and Latino populations. However, these approaches rely heavily on untested assumptions regarding the relationship between risks and poverty rates. Using the 1993-2016 Current Population Survey and the Urban Institute’s TRIM3 model to derive high-quality estimates of income and poverty, I confirm persistent and substantial ethno-racial differences in poverty. Next, I employ a prevalences and penalties framework to compare risks in Black, Latino, and white-lead households. This framework is then leveraged to estimate counterfactual models to predict Black and Latino poverty rates given alternative prevalences of risks. The findings demonstrate that if the prevalence of risks for Black and Latino Americans was equal that of whites, poverty rates would remain over twice as high for Black and Latino individuals compared to whites. Furthermore, even when risks are eliminated for Black and Latino Americans, poverty remains substantially higher compared to whites. These findings undermine behavioral approaches to understanding poverty and point to the need for scholars to pursue alternatives, including structural and political explanations.
Stephen Benard, Long Doan, D. Adam Nicholson, Emily Meanwell, Eric L. Wright, Peter Lista. “To Forgive is Divine? Morality and the Status Value of Intergroup Revenge and Forgiveness” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. (Forthcoming)
Intergroup conflict is a costly and persistent aspect of social life, and one that often carries great moral significance for those who participate in it. Ostensibly moral behaviors can provide a path to social status in groups, as when self-sacrificing ingroup members gain respect and prestige relative to their peers. This article bridges these two ideas to examine the perceived morality and status-worthiness of intergroup revenge and forgiveness, and the moral accounts used to justify them. Using an original survey experiment conducted on a national probability sample in the United States, we examine everyday intergroup conflicts across national, sports, and political identities. We find forgiveness is perceived as more moral, and in turn more status-worthy, than revenge. Justifications for moral judgments typically drew on accounts of harm/care, reciprocity, and avoiding chaos/disorder. This contributes to research on conflict, group dynamics, status, and morality.
D. Adam Nicholson, Lauren Valentino (equal co-authorship), "Message Received? The Role of Emotion, Race, and Politics in Social Movement Perceptions and Support" Mobilization 26 (1): 41–64.
Scholars have long studied how social movements frame and deliver their messages, yet less is known about how these “signals” are received by the public. In this study, we examine how a social movement participant’s characteristics interact with a bystander’s to influence movement support. In addition, we examine how perceived likelihood of violence mediates these outcomes. We propose five competing models based on previous theories of emotion, race, and political views in social movement support. To adjudicate between these frameworks, we conduct an experiment using a 2x2 factorial design in which participants read a news story about a protest accompanied by an image of a neutral/angry, white/Black protestor, measuring three types of social movement support, and examine results and model fit. Results provide support for a politicized-race model: a Black protestor is more motivating for liberals’ social movement support, while a white protestor is more motivating for conservatives. Both liberals and conservatives are more likely to associate the protest with violence after seeing a Black protestor compared to a white one. Racialized perceptions of violence explain part of conservatives’ hesitancy to support the movement when seeing a Black protestor and inhibits part of the otherwise-positive effect of seeing a Black protestor for liberals.
Clem Brooks, Adam Nicholson, "How Much Do Liberal and Conservative Identifiers Differ in the United States?" Sociological Inquiry 90 (3), 527-551.
Recent scholarship has reported that identification as a liberal or conservative shapes lifestyle orientations and behaviors. Liberal/conservative differences with respect to such arenas as family and religion go beyond ideological identification research's traditional focus on policy attitudes and political processes. But are differences on non-political issues as large as those relating to political ones? This question has yet to be addressed, and it is critical to putting in firmer perspective the degree to which liberal and conservative identifiers differ in the United States. We take up investigation through analysis of 106 items from the General Social Survey 2006 panel. We compare ideological identification's influence with respect to political versus non-political orientations and behaviors. Application of Morgan and Winship's model of causal inference builds from past studies’ cross-sectional analysis. Results extend ideological identification scholarship, while cautioning against wide-ranging claims advanced by several public commentators.
Andrew Halpern-Manners, John Robert Warren, James M Raymo, D. Adam Nicholson "The Impact of Work and Family Life Histories on Economic Well-Being at Older Ages" Social Forces 93(4).
Motivated by theoretical and empirical research in life course sociology, we examine relationships between trajectories of work and family roles across the life course and four measures of economic well-being in later adulthood. Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) and multiple trajectory-generating methods, we first identify latent trajectories of work and family roles between late adolescence and age 65. We then model economic well-being at age 65 as a function of these trajectories and contemporaneously measured indicators of older adults' work, family, and health statuses. Our central finding is that trajectories of work and family experiences across the life course have direct effects on later-life economic well-being, as well as indirect effects that operate through more proximate measures of work, family, and other characteristics. We argue that these findings have important implications for how social scientists conceptualize and model the relationship between later-life economic outcomes and people's work and family experiences across the life course.
Copyright © D. Adam Nicholson