Political Psychology

Dona-Gene Barton’s research and teaching interests involve American political behavior. Drawing heavily on relevant psychological perspectives while keeping the real world of politics in sight, her work focuses on better understanding how and how well citizens use political information to inform their judgments. Her current projects aim to enable improved assessment of the temporal dynamics of opinion formation by exploring the interrelationships among information, campaigns and time. Her research is the first of its kind to use a panel experimental design to better understand the lifespan of information effects as citizens navigate the political world. She frequently conducts interviews about ongoing campaigns, elections and political scandals from the perspective of how they affect public opinion. (Updated March 2025)

Kevin Smith studies the biology and psychology of individual-level differences in political attitudes and behavior. In other words, he is interested in why some people are passionate about politics while others couldn’t care less, where conservatives and liberals get their political beliefs from, why those beliefs are so resistant to change, and how those beliefs drive choices and actions. He also retains a strong interest in public policy and state politics, which were his primary research interests during the first part of his academic career. (Updated March 2025)