Vittorio Merola
Political scientist at Durham University | Political behaviour, public opinion, political economy, political psychology - anything that helps me understand why people view the world the way they do
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaThis is a belated post about our paper in @poqjournal.bsky.social. We analyzed 100 survey experiments fielded by TESS (tessexperiments.org), using only information from the proposals to identify intended hypotheses. Here are some of the things we learned:
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaOne of the most lopsided results you'll ever see in a poll, from our weekend Washington Post poll www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...
- In all seriousness, what is the probability that the US invades Greenland by the end of 2028? At this point, maybe 50/50? It would be extremely easy for the US to pull off, and there is zero chance that Denmark and its European allies would respond militarily.
- Well, make no mistake, we're fully back to 19th century imperialism. Fake news meets might-makes-right. I have a strong feeling that the worst is still yet to come too. This is so depressing.
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- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaOver the moon 😍. My paper "Renewing Democracy: How Exposure to Electoral Turnovers Reinforces Citizens’ Democratic Support" is accepted in World Politics. LINK: osf.io/preprints/os.... First paper fully conceived since my second child was born 4 years ago. For those who know, big milestone. 🧵 1/
- Reposted by Vittorio Merola1/ Does growing up poor always lead to political apathy? Very happy to share my first paper published (open access) in @electoralstudies.bsky.social, where I show that parents' influence mitigates the poverty gap in participation, while economic mobility does not. 🔗 shorturl.at/p5Bac
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaA thread about being wrong: 5 years ago, we wrote a paper about how how newly enfranchised 16-year-olds vote in Austria. But we were wrong. This year, @elisabethgraf.bsky.social, @schnizzl.bsky.social, Sylvia Kritzinger and I are setting the record straight: authors.elsevier.com/c/1juT5xRaZk...
- Reposted by Vittorio Merola🎙️In this episode, @omarhgallego.bsky.social discusses public opinion and perceptions of migration, the recent migration policies of UK parties, and the politics behind them. open.spotify.com/episode/4NwR...
- Reposted by Vittorio Merolanew paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaOur study on public immigration misperceptions is out! Prior research overstated their prevalence due to flawed measurement. Our new approach separates real misperceptions from uninformed guessing — showing they’re less common than widely assumed and ideologically motivated. doi.org/10.1017/psrm...
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaEver wondered why some countries get recognition while others struggle to be seen? My book 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴 is finally out in the world! 📘 academic.oup.com/book/61560
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- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaJust published in @bjpols.bsky.social: @sergipardos.bsky.social and I show that inter-regional moves in pursuit of employment security reduce individual worries about immigration—a mobility pattern that, in the aggregate, reinforces spatial polarization in anti-immigration sentiment. cup.org/3XiB6yD
- NEW - Regional Labor Markets, Residential Mobility, and Anti-Immigration Sentiment - cup.org/3XiB6yD - @denis-cohen.bsky.social & @sergipardos.bsky.social #OpenAccess
- Reposted by Vittorio Merola"While high-quality content is posted more and receives more total engagement across platforms...a given author attracts higher levels of engagement when they post lower-quality content" "pattern we find seems to be driven more by an underperformance of particularly popular high-quality outlets"
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- Wish I was still living in Brooklyn, so I could have voted yesterday. Would have been the first time in my entire life that I was actually excited and hopeful about casting a vote. So proud of New York City right now.
- Reposted by Vittorio Merola🆕 Latest article out @electoralstudies.bsky.social! Left parties' higher salience on cultural issues associated w/ higher support from working-class voters. Social democrats much more sensitive to different strategies, should pursue more left/salient economics www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaMonty Python understood p-hacking
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaRomani ethnic identification attenuates with educational attainment www.nber.org/system/files...
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaCurrently in FirstView: In “Balancing Precision and Retention in Experimental Design,” @gustavodiaz.org and Erin Rossiter study how experimental design choices can increase precision when estimating treatment effects. Specifically, they examine block-randomized and pre-post designs.
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaI'm starting to explore {simDAG}, a nifty #rstats package that has a nice API for specifying DAGs and then simulating data from them: robindenz1.github.io/simDAG/
- Reposted by Vittorio Merola@electoralstudies.bsky.social If you’re interested in academic studies of political polarisation we have loads of great papers at Electoral Studies. Check out this one by Joseph Phillips www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaThis is a highly interesting, timely and great initiative - a new diamond OA journal for #replication research! It is interdisciplinary, but #PolSci is specifically invited. Hence, if you or someone you know has an interesting replication paper, do not hesitate to submit!
- ReplicationResearch.org is now open for submissions! Submit replications and reproductions from many different fields, as well as conceptual contributions. With diamond OA, open and citable peer review reports, and reproducibility checks, we push the boundaries of open and fair publishing.
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- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaA Brief History of Men are Becoming Less Manly 🧵
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- Reposted by Vittorio Merola#OpenAccess - Believing What Politicians Communicate: Ideological Presentation of Self and Voters’ Perceptions of Politician Ideology - cup.org/4gTSToM - @hjghassell.bsky.social, @michaelheseltine.bsky.social & @reuning.bsky.social #FirstView
- Reposted by Vittorio Merola📢 Call for Papers! We’re inviting submissions for the @politicalnetworks.bsky.social Online Colloquium (2025–26) (w/ @mtp.bsky.social) 🔹 Monthly, 1-hr sessions 🔹 Read-ahead format (no presentations) 🔹 Open to scholars in poli sci & related fields 🔹 Deadline: 17 Oct 2025 Learn more & submit here 👇
- That is what happens when sick people who get off on abusing others can act without impunity
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaStill confused about EPSA vs. EPSS? Which conference should you go to? Here is a link to clarify things: epssnet.org/uncategorize... TL;DR: "EPSA" community will be in Belfast. Same community, new organisation, bigger mission; slightly new name; and a very different foundation @epssnet.bsky.social
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaGlad to see this out at @ajpseditor.bsky.social! I show that the immigration-crime issue, when salient, can shift leftist cosmopolitans to the Right. This is due to leftist voters being more conservative on crime than leftist parties. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaJust out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social 🚨 Together with @dschraff.bsky.social, I ask: Is the urban–rural divide in Europe affectively polarised? 👉 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... 1/7 🧵
- Not only is their brain sample in no way representative, but the entire correlational analysis effectively rests on a sample size of 17! The Spirit Level came out 16 years ago - I thought we were past these kind of "findings" by now?!
- Reposted by Vittorio Merola🚨 New paper in @thejop.bsky.social Why do politicians often misperceive what citizens' policy positions are? @simonotjes.bsky.social and I study ~10,000 estimates of public opinion by politicians in Denmark & the Netherlands to uncover the sources of these (mis)perceptions Thread 🧵1/10
- I'm sorry, but how is this different from what we did after 9/11? The people tortured at black sites, held indefinitely w/o trial at Gitmo, or killed by drones were also targeted w/o public evidence by top officials. OK, it's more brazen and the "enemy" is expanded, but it's still all subjective
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- Reposted by Vittorio Merola🚨🚨🚨 Survey Researchers! WE HAVE A HUGE PROBLEM!🚨🚨🚨 I have access to the Comet browser by Perplexity. I asked it to pretend to be a human, take the survey, and give me feedback. IT DID!
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- Seems like we should start demanding that people pre-register any projects based on LLM samples of "respondents", like with any other data (observational or experimental)
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaWhoa—my book is up for pre-order! 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭 & 𝐌𝐋 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐧 #Rstats 𝐚𝐧𝐝 #PyData The book presents an ultra-simple and powerful workflow to make sense of ± any model you fit The web version will stay free forever and my proceeds go to charity. tinyurl.com/4fk56fc8
- Reposted by Vittorio Merola🚨New pre-print🚨 "Do citizens’ views of democracy and its actors vary with how they feel?”, @lilymasonphd.bsky.social and I ask in a new paper. Why would they? While citizens widely endorse democracy in principle, temporary factors often shape their views. Also, work on “irrelevant events" 1/8🧵
- Fascinating read!
- As much as I dislike Trump, I just can't accept this incorrect claim. Trump didn't create extrajudicial killings. The vast majority of US presidents carried out unlawful acts like this in one way or another. I hate to break it to you, but there is nothing new to see here, folks.
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- I'd say there are 2 unscientific ways that "irrational" as a concept is used: Descriptive: irrational is a definitional tautology (everything has a reason to it), making it useless Normative: irrational is deviations from a desired benchmark, making it elitist & judgmental Please stop using it!
- Is it rational to expect to win elections? @mbarnfield.bsky.social argues so-called "wishful thinking" about election outcomes is part of how voters make rational sense of their role in democracies. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/g5aHeG0 @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social @uoypolitics.bsky.social @sagepub.com
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaThe pretty draft is now online. Link to paper (free): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.... Our replication package starts from the raw data and we put real work into making it readable & setting it up so people could poke at it, so please do explore it: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaMissed it in august! But this (with @sumitra.bsky.social) also is out at @bjpols.bsky.social We map how religious beliefs and identities affect the endorsement of falsehoods, and use an experiment in India to test. More to do on the contextual drivers of misinfo, but this is a start. Check it :)
- NEW - The Religious Roots of Belief in Misinformation: Experimental Evidence from India - cup.org/472gDEr - @simonchauchard.bsky.social & @sumitra.bsky.social #OpenAccess
- Perhaps an example of where the AI revolution will be positive? It's hard to see grant-writing consultants surviving with LLMs around. Plus, since grants will soon all use the same language, maybe funders will pay more attention to the science itself and not all the other nonsense?
- This is exemplary!
- "Sweeteners can harm cognitive health equivalent to 1.6 years of ageing, study finds" Or does it? Let's take a look at this "study"... www.theguardian.com/food/2025/se...
- Very cool paper. However, we don't know what the actual "treatment" was, without a clean manipulation check. Was it (1) policy positions in the speech, (2) how media portrayed the speech, or (3) what one's social network said about the speech? The last two might be independent of policy positions.
- Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...
- I would add the caveat: it's ONLY ok to discriminate because of a viewpoint if we think the views signal a lower qualification So for a research job/grant, the views must make the candidate a worse prospective researcher, not just a less desirable colleague/human. It's too subjective otherwise
- It's an interesting article, but it reinforces the impression that nobles are virtuous and deserving through its examples. We mustn't forget that for every "deserving" person ennobled there was often more than one crony, whose virtue was nothing more than loyalty. Noble titles do not signal merit.
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaHere's the video Trump just posted to Truth Social, with the claim that 11 people aboard the boat were killed. There is zero evidence of self-defense here. Looks like a massacre of civilians at sea. Even if they had drugs aboard, that's not a capital offense.
- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaAre you doing research on impression formation, face perception, personality judgment, or related topics? Then you might be interested in joining our collaborative study! Follow the link for more information: tilburgss.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... #socialpsyc #PsychSciSky
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- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaSome people find politics interesting. Others do not. In a new paper, I show that appealing to MEANING increases political interest. In 6 experiments, connecting what people find meaningful in their lives to politics increases political interest. Link: osf.io/preprints/so...
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- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaMy experiment on election outcomes, partisan identity & affective polarization is now out in @electoralstudies.bsky.social. Puzzle: From a group ID lens, outcomes could shift both perceived out-party threat & in-group status → ambivalent predictions for affective polarization.
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- Reposted by Vittorio MerolaLarge Language Models Do Not Simulate Human Psychology arxiv.org/pdf/2508.06950
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