Widespread, bipartisan aversion exists to neighbors owning AR-15s or storing guns insecurely.

Over 45,000 gun deaths occur annually in the United States, a country with more than 100 million gun owners and more than 350 million guns. Nevertheless, passing legislation to reduce gun violence is difficult because the issue is intensely polarized. Polls asking about general gun policies (e.g., AR-15 restrictions) demonstrate that, at least in the abstract, Americans disagree vehemently about whether civilians should be able to keep and bear arms. It is possible, however, that a hidden consensus exists in America, which has thus far escaped attention-specifically, that when the focus is on their immediate environments and daily lives, even traditionally pro-gun groups may exhibit aversion to certain types of gun ownership and storage practices. To test this, we conducted two preregistered survey experiments with a large national sample. The first was a conjoint analysis where respondents chose between neighbors (n = 33,596 choices) who randomly varied on seven attributes, including gun ownership (none, pistol, AR-15). No group of respondents, not even traditionally pro-gun groups (e.g., Republicans), exhibited a significant preference for living near gun owners, and every group was averse to AR-15-owning neighbors. The second experiment, per debates about safe-storage laws, was a picture-based factorial vignette that randomized a neighbor's gun storage practices (n = 2,098). Every group of respondents was averse to interacting with a neighbor who stored guns outside of a locked safe. Our findings demonstrate that there is widespread agreement that certain types of gun ownership and storage practices are undesirable for communities.

Ransomware and the Robin Hood effect?: Experimental evidence on Americans' willingness to support cyber-extortion.

Objectives: Ransomware attacks have become a critical security threat worldwide. However, existing research on ransomware has largely ignored public opinion. This initial study identifies patterns in the American public's support for the use of ransomware, specifically when it is framed to provide benefits to others (i.e., in-group members). Drawing on the Robin Hood decision-making literature and Moral Foundations Theory, we offer theoretical predictions regarding ransomware support. Methods: In a survey of 1013 Americans, we embedded a split-ballot experiment in which respondents were randomly assigned to indicate their level of support or opposition to one of two sets of six ransomware scenarios. We manipulated the nationality, authority level, and political affiliation of the actors. Results: We find that people are more supportive of ransomware use when the actors are from their own in-group, and the outcomes benefit their in-group members. Also, the more strongly participants endorsed the moral foundations of authority and harm/care, the more supportive they were of the use of ransomware that may benefit others from their in-group. Conclusions: These findings suggest political actors may be able to generate public support for morally questionable actions by emphasizing in-group benefits and the Robin Hood nature of an attack (e.g., outcome-based morality).

Why Men (Don't) Buy Sex: Purity Moralization and Perceived Harm as Constraints on Prostitution Offending.

This study explores the moralization of purity and perceptions of harm as constraints on sex buying among men. Purchasing sex has long been considered an offense against public morality. While personal morality provides a powerful constraint on offending, and people may vary in the extent to which they experience moral intuitions about bodily and spiritual purity, research has so far neglected the role of purity moralization in understanding sex buying behavior. We hypothesize specifically that moral intuitions about purity constrain sex buying by leading people to perceive it as inherently wrong and by eliciting perceptions that sex buying is harmful to prostitutes. We test these hypotheses in a nationally representative survey of U.S. men (N = 2,525). Results indicate that purity moralization is associated with reduced sex buying, and that this relationship is mediated fully by perceptions of sex buying as harming prostitutes.

What does the public want police to do during pandemics? A national experiment.

Research Summary: We administered a survey experiment to a national sample of 1068 U.S. adults in April 2020 to determine the factors that shape support for various policing tactics in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondents were sharply divided in their views about pandemic policing tactics and were least supportive of policies that might limit public access to officers or reduce crime deterrence. Information about the health risks to officers, but not to inmates, significantly increased support for "precautionary" policing, but not for "social distance" policing. The information effect was modest, but may be larger if the information came from official sources and/or was communicated on multiple occasions. Other factors that are associated with attitudes toward pandemic policing include perceptions of procedural justice, altruistic fear, racial resentment, and authoritarianism. Policy Implications: When considered together with other evidence, one clear takeaway from our study is that the public values police patrols and wants officers on call, even during pandemics. Another is that people who believe the police are procedurally just are more willing to trust officers in times of crisis and to empower them to enforce new laws, such as social distancing ordinances. Our results thus support continued procedural justice training for officers. A third takeaway is that agencies must proactively communicate with the public about the risks their officers face when responding to public health crises or natural disasters, in addition to how they propose to mitigate those risks. They must also be amenable to adjusting in response to community feedback.

Race, Bullying, and Public Perceptions of School and University Safety.

Bullying and school crime are important social problems that are receiving increased attention by scholars and policy makers. However, several critical questions remain unaddressed. First, does the public perceive bullying as a serious problem and judge schools-primary, secondary, and postsecondary-as safe or unsafe? Second, does the public use a "bullying lens" to judge school safety-that is, do citizens understand bullying as a serious threat to students' well-being? Third, are there racial differences in these perceptions? Prior research identifies racial differences in the prevalence of bullying, as well as in students' views of school safety and citizens' fear of crime. Similar racial gaps may characterize public perceptions of bullying and school safety. This study begins to illuminate answers to these questions by analyzing data from a representative sample of Virginians. Multivariate regression analyses produce several notable findings. First, we find that members of the public believe bullying in schools is an increasingly serious problem, and their perceptions of bullying influence their judgments of whether schools and colleges/universities are safe. Second, Black members of the public are more likely than persons from other racial and ethnic backgrounds to perceive that bullying is increasing and is a serious problem in schools, and, in turn, to judge that schools and universities are less safe. Our results indicate that members of the public see bullying as a principal threat to student safety. They suggest there is a strong reservoir of public support for antibullying initiatives and, more broadly, efforts to increase student safety.

Sexual Assault in the Ivory Tower: Public Opinion on University Accountability and Mandatory Reporting.

Highly publicized college sex crimes have recently captured public and policy attention. In response, greater discussion has turned to institutional accountability and controversial reforms such as mandatory reporting (MR). No study to date has measured public perceptions of campus sex assault procedures, however. This omission is notable because public opinion can directly and indirectly shape crime policy and because the topic has become increasingly politicized. Drawing on a 2015 poll of Virginia residents, this study evaluates views about campus sexual assault policy. Results indicate that two thirds of the public feel universities can effectively respond to sex crime and a large majority favors MR. Some differences in public opinion are evident. Research and policy implications are discussed.

Questionable, Objectionable or Criminal? Public Opinion on Data Fraud and Selective Reporting in Science.

Data fraud and selective reporting both present serious threats to the credibility of science. However, there remains considerable disagreement among scientists about how best to sanction data fraud, and about the ethicality of selective reporting. The public is arguably the largest stakeholder in the reproducibility of science; research is primarily paid for with public funds, and flawed science threatens the public's welfare. Members of the public are able to make meaningful judgments about the morality of different behaviors using moral intuitions. Legal scholars emphasize that to maintain legitimacy, social control policies must be developed with some consideration given to the public's moral intuitions. Although there is a large literature on popular attitudes toward science, there is no existing evidence about public opinion on data fraud or selective reporting. We conducted two studies-a survey experiment with a nationwide convenience sample (N = 821), and a follow-up survey with a representative sample of US adults (N = 964)-to explore community members' judgments about the morality of data fraud and selective reporting in science. The findings show that community members make a moral distinction between data fraud and selective reporting, but overwhelmingly judge both behaviors to be immoral and deserving of punishment. Community members believe that scientists who commit data fraud or selective reporting should be fired and banned from receiving funding. For data fraud, most Americans support criminal penalties. Results from an ordered logistic regression analysis reveal few demographic and no significant partisan differences in punitiveness toward data fraud.

The Good, the Bad, and the Incomprehensible: Typifications of Victims and Offenders as Antecedents of Beliefs About Sex Crime.

Public opinion has played a critical role in the development of sex crime laws. However, little scholarly work has focused directly on the origins of negative attitudes toward sex offenders. We address this research gap by developing and testing a theoretical account of such views. Drawing on recent national survey data, we examine the extent to which typifications about sexual victims and offenders--believing sex crime typically affects children and female victims and is committed by strangers--explain beliefs about the reformability of sex offenders, harm inflicted on victims, and the causes of offending. Results indicate that judging children to be typical targets of sex crimes is a key determinant of public views. We discuss the implications of our findings.

Dispositional sources of sanction perceptions: Emotionality, cognitive style, intolerance of ambiguity, and self-efficacy.

This study contributes to efforts to identify the sources of arrest risk perceptions and ambiguity (or lack of confidence) in such perceptions. Drawing on dual-process theories of reasoning, we argue that arrest risk perceptions often represent intuitive judgments that are influenced by cognitive heuristics and dispositional attributes. Multivariate regression models are estimated with data from 3 national surveys to test 6 hypotheses about the relationships between specific dispositional attributes and perceived arrest risk and ambiguity. We find evidence that dispositional positive affect and intolerance of ambiguity are both positively related to perceived arrest risk, and are also both negatively related to ambiguity. We also find evidence that cognitive reflection and general self-efficacy are, respectively, positively and negatively associated with ambiguity. Mixed evidence emerges about whether cognitive reflection is related to risk perceptions, and about whether either dispositional negative affect or thoughtfully reflective decision making correlate with ambiguity. Taken together, the results provide partial support for each of our hypotheses, and suggest that dispositional attributes are important sources of perceptions of arrest risk as well as of ambiguity in such perceptions.

Anti-minority attitudes and Tea Party Movement membership.

In 2009, shortly after the election of the United States' first black President, a new protest movement emerged. When some supporters of this new Tea Party Movement (TPM) expressed their ire with race-laden messages various commentators suggested that racism may be a major motive for TPM activism. Accordingly, this study draws on national survey data to examine the extent to which racial attitudes and conservative ideology are associated with self-declared membership in the TPM while controlling for contextual factors that have proven influential in other rightist movement research. Key findings reveal that aside from conservative political ideology, racial resentment is indeed among the strongest predictors of TPM membership. Supplemental analyses explore the extent to which conservatives differ from TPM members. The results show that very conservative individuals and TPM members evince similar attitudes. The findings are discussed in terms of contemporary race relations and the implications for future social movement research.

The racial foundations of whites' support for child saving.

Scholars emphasize that attitudes toward rehabilitation and views about punitive polices are distinct phenomena with seemingly unique etiologies. However, few existing studies examine the sources of public views about juvenile rehabilitation, or "child saving," and none engage a measure of racial attitudes. At the same time, recent theoretical work implicates racial concerns as a central foundation of public opinion about youth justice. This paper thus provides the first assessment of whether whites' perceptions of the racial makeup of delinquents and animosities toward blacks are associated with their views about juvenile rehabilitation. Findings show that whites who more strongly associate delinquency with blacks and those who are racially resentful both tend to be less supportive-in absolute and relative terms-of rehabilitation. The results also suggest that contextual threat moderates the effect of racial typification of delinquency, but not that of racial resentment, on whites' views about rehabilitation.