Abstract Objective This study investigates the degree to which social connections and social context shape attitudes and behaviors surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Methods In April and August 2020, we surveyed Americans about their social context and asked a range of questions related to the coronavirus and social distancing. Results Social crowding, social networks, and social context are related to support for social distancing policies and compliance with those policies. Conclusion The coronavirus pandemic created hardships;hardships made more difficult by the inability to physically interact with extended family and friends and the inability to find space away from immediate family. This research suggests that understanding compliance with public policies requires attention to interpersonal connections.

Abstract Citizens are continuously inundated with political information. How do citizens process that information for use in decision-making? Political psychologists have generally thought of information processing as proceeding through a series of stages: (1) exposure and attention; (2) comprehension; (3) encoding, interpretation, and elaboration; (4) organization and storage in memory; and (5) retrieval. This processing of information relies heavily on two key structures: working memory and long-term memory. Working memory actively processes incoming information whereas long-term memory is the storage structure of the brain. The most widely accepted organizational scheme for long-term memory is the associative network model. In this model, information stored in long-term memory is organized as a series of connected nodes. Each node in the network represents a concept with links connecting the various concepts. The links between nodes represent beliefs about the connection between concepts. These links facilitate retrieval of information through a process known as spreading activation. Spreading activation moves information from long-term memory to working memory. When cued nodes are retrieved from memory, they activate linked nodes thereby weakly activating further nodes and so forth. Repeatedly activated nodes are the most likely to be retrieved from long-term memory for use in political decision-making. The concept of an associative network model of memory has informed a variety of research avenues, but several areas of inquiry remain underdeveloped. Specifically, many researchers rely on an associative network model of memory without questioning the assumptions and implications of the model. Doing so might further inform our understanding of information processing in the political arena. Further, voters are continuously flooded with political and non-political information; thus, exploring the role that the larger information environment can play in information processing is likely to be a fruitful path for future inquiry. Finally, little attention has been devoted to the various ways a digital information environment alters the way citizens process political information. In particular, the instantaneous and social nature of digital information may short-circuit information processing.

Politics should be included in the academic and community discussion of spatial disparity. Poverty, healthcare, and access to transportation are frequent metrics when comparing geographic social advantage, but politics is almost always absent. Is it possible that political participation has an effect on the socioeconomic status or wellbeing of a community? Using voter turnout data from the Kansas City Election Board in all 37 elections in Kansas City, Missouri since 2000 and Census data, we can determine there is a statistically significant relationship between geography and voter turnout. Geographic variation in voter turnout can be reliably predicted using socioeconomic status – income, poverty, race, and disability. Furthermore, using Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services zip-code level mortality data, we can calculate life expectancy. We can then tentatively make the claim that voter turnout has a statistically significant lagged relationship with life expectancy. This can imply that voting results in long-term health benefits for a community. SOCIOGEOGRAPHIC TURNOUT DISPARITIES 3

In a Fox News Poll from October 23 to 25, Herman Cain’s 24% led all candidates for the GOP nomination.1,2 On October 30, 2011, Politico reported that two women accused Cain of sexual harassment and misconduct.3 Two additional women came forward to accuse Cain of sexual harassment.4 In late November, a fi fth woman alleged that she had a 13-year aff air with Cain.5 Although Cain denied the allegations and the aff air, he suspended his campaign on December 3 as a result of these “character assassinations.”6 This rapid deterioration of Cain’s presidential trajectory illustrates that the public seems to care about the scandalous behavior of candidates. Although several studies identify a negative eff ect of scandal on the public’s attitudes, individual-level predispositions often moderate this reaction. Specifi cally, motivated reasoning encourages biased processing of scandalous information such that a candidate’s fellow partisans are least aff ected by the scandal. However, primary campaigns pose a unique challenge for the motivated reasoning perspective as partisanship should not bias processing of scandalous information. Instead, we argue that one’s choice of media plays a role in how Republicans responded to the allegations about Cain. Given the range of choices voters face, the decision of which news source to rely on is illustrative of who the person is politically. We use a two-wave survey of likely Republican Iowa caucus attendees to explore how support for Cain conforms to the expectations of a motivated reasoning perspective. The results suggest that the accusations against Cain did not aff ect respondents equally. Respondents who obtained their information from cable news sources reacted diff erently than respondents who obtained their information from network news or from other sources.

ObjectiveThis study explores the immediate and long‐term effects of scandal on candidate evaluation. Because scandals involve politicians behaving in ways inconsistent with prevailing moral standards, an immediate negative reaction to such information is largely unavoidable. However, the present study examines whether there are any long‐term effects of scandal.MethodsResults from a longitudinal experiment are presented. The nature of the design facilitated the exploration of the immediate and lasting effects of exposure to scandal and the consistency of these effects across individuals.ResultsExposure to scandalous information about a candidate had an immediate negative effect on evaluation, but the magnitude of this negative effect declined over time, especially among the candidate's supporters.ConclusionThis research suggests that understanding the effects of scandal requires distinguishing between immediate and long‐term effects.

During the past two presidential election cycles, allegations of misconduct produced wildly varied political ramifications. Some allegations derailed political campaigns, whereas others barely rippled on the public's radar. Robert Entman's Scandal and Silence helps explain these phenomena. This book departs from previous research on scandal by examining why the media ignore some instances of misconduct, but pay extensive attention to others. Although this phenomenon may appear random, Entman convincingly argues that what appears to be erratic journalism is actually quite logical. In detailing the theoretical argument, Entman applies a cascading network activation model to understand why some scandals resonate throughout the political system and others quickly disappear from public consciousness. In the model, the interaction between political elites, the news media, and the public shapes news frames. A scandal frame involves: (1) classifying the misconduct as a significant threat to government or society, (2) attributing blame to a specific individual, (3) condemnation by political actors, and (4) calls for remedial action.