Julie VanDusky-Allen

Julie VanDusky-Allen is at Boise State University and received her PhD in Political Science from Binghamton University in 2011. Her research focuses on institutional choice and development, political parties, the legislative process, and Latin American politics.

Gaining Credibility and Earning Trust

by

Are people more likely to trust people who are "like" them? A recent article published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology suggests that this is the case. The article suggests that people are less likely to trust people with heavy accents. In the study, Shiri Lev-Ari and Boaz Keysar set up an experiment where they had 55 English speaking Americans judge the truthfulness of several trivia … Read more

Senators’ Digital IQ Ranking

by

A recently released study by L2ThinkTank.com suggests that Senate Republicans have a higher Digital IQ than Senate Democrats. However, after taking a closer look at the data, it appears that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to using the Internet to reach voters. Breaking down the index… does it truly … Read more

How to Deter a Coin Thief?

by

My colleagues and I have recently discovered that there is a thief in Binghamton who travels around  poorly lit neighborhoods at night, breaks into cars, and steals coins. What is puzzling about this situation is that this individual does not try to steal more expensive things, such as the cars themselves or expensive car parts like GPS units. … Read more

Jefferson’s First Draft: Subjects versus Citizens

by

Scientists at the Library of Congress have recently discovered that in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson referred to the residents of the colonies as subjects and not as citizens. However, based on the evidence, it appears that Jefferson almost immediately decided against using the word and wanted to hide any … Read more

“A leopard don’t change its stripes… You mean spots… I means Snaps!”

by

If you are looking for a good political science movie to show an undergraduate class, I highly recommend the movie Oscar (1991). I really like this movie because it can be used to teach a variety of concepts, such as path dependency, institutional change, beliefs and how they affect behavior, and bargaining. It is also incredibly well done and extremely funny; from my experience undergraduates really enjoy it.

Following the jump, I give a brief synopsis of the movie and explain how certain parts of the movie can be used to demonstrate certain concepts in political science. So if you have not seen the movie, there will be spoilers if you follow the jump! (If you would like to see it first, it can be rented through Netflix. There are also clips of it online, although they are of low quality).

More after the jump…

Read more

The Development of Geocentric versus Heliocentric Models of the Solar System: The Predictive versus Explanatory Powers of Models

by

        The predictive power of a model does not always mean that it is accurately represents the true nature of what it is trying to explain. The geocentric model of the solar system is an example of such a case. Geocentric models dominated astrology and astronomy for almost 2000 years before scientists realized that these models, despite their predictive power, did not correctly describe the nature of the stars, the planets, and their movement. And even when the proper model, the heliocentric model, was discovered, it was not fully accepted until it produced better predictions. This case calls into question whether predictive capability alone should allow a certain model to dominate the discourse of a certain research program. It also suggests that scientists in general should be more open to non-conventional models in their discipline, even if these models do not immediately provide better predictions than the conventional models.

More after the jump…


Read more

“The Fun Theory”

by

The makers of Volkswagen have developed a fairly interesting "theory" about human behavior: if you make something fun, you can change people's behavior for the better. They call this The Fun Theory and have dedicated a website to demonstrating how it works.  In the first video of the website, they demonstrate how pedestrians leaving a train station can be … Read more

Studying Social Sciences and Religiosity

by

A new study by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan suggests that individuals who studied social sciences in college were the least religious compared to their classmates six years after graduation. This conclusion is not surprising. Social scientists study the development of man made institutions and organizations. This probably makes religious organizations … Read more

Reagan meets Putin- Post your Captions

by

Who would have thought? When Reagan visited the Soviet Union in 1988, he would end up meeting the future President of Russia, Putin, and the world would have a picture to remember the occasion! Unfortunately we do not know what they were saying or thinking at the time. But we can pretend we do. What do you … Read more