Hui Bai 2022

How do political values and identity relate to support for ​political candidates?
Past studies on how political value (i.e., ideology) and identity (i.e., party identity) predict support for candidates often fail to consider both the perspectives of citizens and candidates, introducing omitted variable problems. To address them, this paper introduces the multiple matching perspective, which considers how citizens’ ideology and political identity are matched (i.e., moderated) by a candidate’s ideology and party affiliation. Four studies using this approach reveal: 1. The effect of ideology match is large, robust, and consistent. 2. candidates’ ideology plays more role than candidates’ party identity except during the final stage of a presidential race. 3. Citizens’ party identity can guide them to support a candidate based on the candidate’s ideology (Republicans will support conservatives), but it is less so for the reverse of it (conservatives do not always support Republicans). Therefore, this approach helps theory-building in political psychology by uncovering novel effects of ideology and partisanship.
Hui Bai 2022

​Why is the growth of the Muslim population causing
​diverging responses from both Republicans and Democrats?
The Muslim population is rapidly growing worldwide. Five experiments show that Republicans and Democrats respond to this demographic change with divergent reactions in three domains: perception of threats, celebratory reactions, and emotional responses. In terms of threat perceptions, Republicans tend to perceive Muslim population growth as a threat to Christians and the U.S. society in terms of American culture, legal norms, and peace. Furthermore, Republicans are less likely to have celebratory reactions to Muslim population growth (a theoretically novel reaction). They experience less hope and pride, along with more anxiety and anger. The divergent responses from partisans are partially explained by their ideological orientation and media exposure, but they are not explained by any racial mechanisms or the partisans’ religious identity. Together, these studies reveal that political leaning can be an antecedent to reactions to the demographic change in many complex ways beyond the dominant group’s concern for their status.
Hui Bai 2021

Does racism and sexism really undermine Black and female politicians?
Using large samples that are nationally diverse or nationally representative (total N = 44,836), my research presents evidence that citizens’ prejudice does not usually benefit or undermine politicians who are from a particular demographic group, as many past studies assumed; instead, citizens’ prejudice is associated with support for conservative politicians and opposition to liberal politicians, regardless of politicians’ demographic background. For example, in two studies, I show that racism and sexism negatively predict support for liberal politicians, such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, and positively predict support for conservative politicians, such as Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina, regardless of their race and gender. I experimentally confirmed this overall pattern in a study where participants evaluate a hypothetical politician. Using data collected between 1972 and 2016, I show that, historically, the predictive effect of racism and sexism on support for politicians in general is moderated by politicians’ perceived ideology. Together, these studies suggest that the way prejudice is related to support for a politician is primarily moderated (determined) by the politician’s political ideology, not the politician’s demographic background. This line of research highlights the often-overlooked role of politicians’ ideology, clarifying theories that explain how citizens’ prejudice is translated into their political preferences.
Hui Bai 2021

When it comes to White identity politics, does a politician's race
​ matter more than their ideology? ​
White Americans’ racial identity can predict their sociopolitical attitudes and behaviors, demonstrating an emergent trend of White identity politics. However, when it comes to predicting support for political candidates, it remains an unclarified question whether the effects of White identity politics are determined more by candidates’ ideology or race. This article disentangles and compares the role of candidates’ ideology and race. Four studies using White American samples consistently support the ideology hypothesis, which suggests that White identity predicts support for conservative politicians and opposition to liberal politicians because of their ideology. The evidence is limited for the racial hypothesis, which suggests that White identity predicts support for White politicians but opposition to Black politicians because of their race. Thus, this article complements theories of White identity politics and clarifies implications for who might benefit from its growing influence.
Hui Bai 2021

What predicts change in a citizens' vote preference over time?
While many studies have investigated what predicts citizens’ vote preferences, less is known about what predicts change in citizens’ vote preferences over time. This paper focuses on the role of judgments about national economy in the recent past (i.e., “sociotropic economic retrospections”). Two longitudinal studies show that sociotropic economic retrospections (along with partisanship, ideology, and whether incumbent is running for re-election) at a given time point predict within-person changes in vote choice over time. Furthermore, cross-lagged panel analyses found that sociotropic economic retrospections and political preferences may have reciprocal effects on each other. Together, these results illustrate the temporal dimension of economic voting by suggesting that sociotropic economic retrospections not only predict votes at single points in time, but also individual-level shifts in vote preference over time. As such, the association between sociotropic economic retrospections and vote preference is more dynamic than past literature suggests.
Hui Bai 2021

Thou shalt not kill, unless it is not a human.
Past research on moral dilemmas has thoroughly investigated the roles of personality and situational variables, but the role of targets in moral dilemmas has been relatively neglected. This article presents findings from four experiments that manipulated the perceived dehumanization of targets in moral dilemmas. Findings from Studies 1, 2, and 4 suggest that dehumanized targets may render the decision easier, and with less emotion. Findings from Studies 1 and 3, though not Studies 2 and 4, showed that dehumanization of targets in dilemmas may lead participants to make less deontological judgments. Findings from Study 3, but not Study 4, suggest that the effects of dehumanization manipulation on decision choices are potentially due to reduced deontological, but not utilitarian judgments. Though the patterns are somewhat inconsistent across the studies, overall, results suggest that targets’ dehumanization can play a role in how people make their decisions in moral dilemmas.
Hui Bai 2020

​What type of people are far-right
​extremists?
​

What type of people are more likely to be far-right extremists? To answer this question, I did five studies. I found that White Americans who think their racial background is very important to their self-concept tend to have higher levels of (self reported) far-right extremism. I also found that the effect is particularly strong for people who believe that society should be more hierarchical (i.e., people who have higher levels of "social dominance orientation".

How do White Americans react to
​the population decline of  Whites?
​

With my colleague, I conducted two studies looking at whether perceived numerical decline in the White population translate into a perceived existential threat to Whites, leading in turn to defensive reactions. In the first study, we used correlational data to show that a collective existential threat explains the relationship between perceptions of White population decline and defensive political reactions (i.e., racial biases and conservatism) among Whites. In the second study, we replicate the results of Study 1 experimentally. We manipulated the perceptions of White population decline and growth. Our results suggest that Whites’ perceptions of the ingroup’s numerical decline have a unique effect on their racial and political attitudes via heightened feelings of collective existential threat.
Hui Bai 2012

Do our names affect our preferences and behavior?
​
The name letter effect refers to unconscious priming based on one’s name that may influence behavior. Previous research found correlations between the initial of one’s last name and preferences and behavior. Study 1 investigated the correlation between students’ last name initials and when they took an exam in a two-day period. Study 2 sought to replicate the finding that students whose names start with A or B earn higher grades than students whose names start with C or D (Nelson & Simmons, 2007). Study 1 showed no correlation between students’ last name initial and choice of exam time. Study 2 replicated the finding that the initial of the last name is related to GPA. However, these findings should be interpreted cautiously due to methodological concerns and inconsistent results. Together, these findings suggest that the name initial is at best a very limited unconscious prime, if any.
Hui Bai first-authored manuscripts under review or revision

Can you look like what you believe?

Our beliefs about society are not the basis of our race and sex nor do they determine our racial and sexual phenotypes. The current research, however, shows that this is how we are perceived by others. Ten experiments introduce a belief-driven model that shows mind perceptions can determine identity perceptions, which in turn determine phenotype perceptions. People are more likely to identify a person as Black, and in turn, perceive them as having a darker skin if the person has liberal than conservative beliefs. Consistent with the model, the first step of the process is explained by perceivers’ stereotypes, and the second step reflects a biased visual perception, not a biased memory recall. The theory is generalizable to perceptions of sexual identity and phenotype and replicable in three cultural contexts. Implications for the post-racial society’s racial relations and racism are discussed.

How are  Asian and Black people stigmatized differently?
​

Prevailing approach in dehumanization research investigates animalistic dehumanization (i.e., derogating someone by comparing them with animals) as the only type of blatant dehumanization and assumes that Asian people do not experience very much dehumanization. We contend otherwise. Using American samples, we show that animalistic dehumanization and mechanical dehumanization, the two primary forms of dehumanizations, are experienced by Asian and Black people differently in a symmetry: though Black people experience more animalistic dehumanization, Asian people experience more mechanical dehumanization. We demonstrate the symmetry from the victims’ perspective as well as perpetrators’ perspective using measures that range from somewhat blatant to very blatant. We also demonstrate that the symmetry has implications for people’s evaluation of Asian and Black people and biases in leadership selection. Together, this new account on racial dehumanization contributes to the literature of dehumanization, and its implications for studying intergroup relations are discussed.

Can fake news we know is fake still impact us?
​

Helping citizens recognize fake news as fake has been a popular approach for curtailing the effect of misinformation. However, this paper points to its limitation by revealing that misinformation that we already know is false can still change our beliefs and attitudes. In five experiments, participants who were thoroughly instructed that they were going to read a made-up article still ended up believing the content and changed their political preferences or behavioral intentions. The effects are resistant to corrective efforts and persistent across time. People exposed to misinformation they knew to be false still believe the content despite being instructed to be deliberative and to try to not be affected or provided with the real information. The effects were observable two days later and again nine days later after the initial exposure. These findings have profound implications for misinformation research, media practices, polarization and democracy, and common research practices, such as deception and debriefing after deception.

Is symbolic or status threats more important?​

Past theories claim that we do not think favorably of an out-group that challenges our in-group’s social status. However, this effect may be confounded by the out-group’s symbolic threat, as groups that pose a status threat to us are also usually perceived to endorse different values from us. Six experiments (N=3,346) clarify that how we feel about others is in fact determined more by perceptions of the symbolic threat than the status threat, the latter of which does not have any effect when the former is accounted for. White Americans’ evaluation of hypothetical immigrants (Studies 1 and 2), Americans’ evaluation of a hypothetical country (Study 3), and partisans’ evaluation of a hypothetical third party (Study 4) are determined by whether they pose a symbolic threat, not a status threat. Furthermore, the pattern generalizes to evaluations of individuals: feelings toward an individual are determined by whether they are perceived to share the in-group’s beliefs, not whether they are actually from the in-group (Studies 5 and 6). Together, these studies clarify our understanding of the intergroup threat and demonstrate the primacy of symbolic threat over status threat in intergroup attitudes.

How is implicit prejudice related to political preferences?
​

Recent studies show that explicit prejudice is related to explicit support for conservative and opposition for liberal politicians, regardless of their demographics such as race and gender. However, it remains unclear how prejudice is associated with evaluation of candidates on the implicit domain. Furthermore, prior theories assume that these associations exist because of the politicians’ preferences for inequality and status quo, but these assumptions have never been empirically tested. Four pre-registered experiments clarify that politicians’ ideology, not race or gender, determines the association between prejudice and explicit evaluation of politicians, regardless of whether prejudice is measured explicitly or implicitly. These preferences are primarily driven by citizens’ preferences for politicians who support inequality, and to a lesser extent, preferences for those who support the status quo. Together, these findings clarify the political consequences of racism and sexism and further our understanding of the psychological function of prejudice.

Who bought all the toilet paper during the COVID-19 pandemic?​
​

The current COVID-19 pandemic has changed many people’s lives. Some people have responded to the rising of the pandemic by engaging in panic buying behaviors, a phenomenon that has not been well-understood in the past. People who believe in these conspiracies may experience a heightened sense of powerlessness and vulnerability. As a result, they may be particularly susceptible to palliatively and compensatorily engage in the panic buying behaviors (i.e., stockpiling). Supporting this idea, two studies using data from the U.K. (cross-sectional) and the U.S. (longitudinal) show that people who endorse COVID-19 conspiracy theories are more likely to engage in stockpiling behaviors in the past as well as in the future.

How do one’s race and gender jointly contribute to their experience of stigmatization?
​

Though racism and sexism are the two most common discrimination studied by researchers, it remains unclear how one’s race and gender jointly contribute to their experience of stigmatization. Five studies (total N=13,274) test and compare three approaches to this question: the additive approach (race ⇒ racial stigmatization; gender ⇒ gender stigmatization), the projective approach (race ⇒ gender stigmatization; gender ⇒ racial stigmatization), and the multiplicative approach (race×gender ⇒ gender/race/overall stigmatization). Overall, our findings consistently find evidence that supports the additive approach and disconfirms the multiplicative approach. For the projective approach, we found some support for it and discover an asymmetry (race ⇒ gender stigmatization; gender ⇏ racial stigmatization) that we consistently confirmed across the studies. Together, these studies clarify the theories of double jeopardy and contribute to our understanding of stigmatization experiences as a function of race and gender.