UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #552

Submission information
Submission Number: 552
Submission ID: 9031
Submission UUID: 55f1a523-1cd4-4537-ad0c-61aacfb49f5b

Created: Tue, 08/22/2023 - 06:29 PM
Completed: Tue, 08/22/2023 - 07:35 PM
Changed: Fri, 09/22/2023 - 12:37 PM

Remote IP address: 69.254.162.255
Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No

Research Mentor Information

Marli Dunietz
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mdunietz@fsu.edu
Graduate Student
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Social Sciences and Public Policy
Political science
Marli Wang Dunietz tall.jpg

Additional Research Mentor(s)

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Valeria Burdea
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Overall Project Details

Behavioral economics of political discussion
behavioral economics, political discussion, language, communication, text analysis
No
2
Open to all majors, but economics, political science, policy, communication, linguistics, or computer science students may be particularly interested
On FSU Main Campus
No, the project is remote
Partially Remote
5-8
Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
When citizens discuss their views on public policy with one another, they may not always be forthcoming about what they really think. Their willingness to speak up sincerely can depend on whether they believe others will agree, and how they believe others will react (that is, will they be rewarded, punished, or neither?) At the same time, citizens tuning into the public conversation may try to "correct" for these distortions (e.g., do the speakers believe exactly what they said or are they just trying to say the right thing? Does someone who didn't participate have no opinion, or are they hiding an unpopular opinion?) Mistakes can happen on both sides, leading to falsely believing that people are much more divided than they truly are, or that people agree much more than they truly do.

This project applies the tools of behavioral and experimental economics to investigate how social norms and social incentives influence what opinions people share, how other people interpret what they hear, and what we can do to help citizens learn about public opinion more accurately. The research assistant(s) will join an ongoing project in which ordinary citizens from around the US discuss public policy proposals and try to learn where others stand. In particular, we will explore the costs and benefits of encouraging highly personal styles of communication and more impersonal language, and how this affects perceptions of extremity and polarization.
The research assistant(s) will assist in compiling a literature review and analyzing data from group discussion experiments (text and/or quantitative). The data analysis portion of the research will involve reading the written communication between study participants, noting patterns, and coding the text data as quantitative data that will then be analyzed using statistical methods. Given interest and motivation, the research assistant(s) may also receive guidance and feedback to design and run an original experiment or analysis to answer a new question that arises in the course of research.
Required:
- native/fluent English language
- data entry skills
- curiosity
- courage to ask questions and make mistakes

Recommended:
- familiarity with social science research methods

Ideal but not necessary:
- human subjects research ethics training (CITI certification)
- familiarity with coding in R and/or Python
- familiarity with text-as-data/natural language processing (NLP) methods
I believe in giving mentees opportunities to shape their research experience in the ways that will best serve their academic and professional goals. This means we will explore together what interests and aspirations the mentee has, and what kinds of methods and skills the mentee would like to further develop and add to their repertoire. Tailoring the experience to the mentee's interests, aspirations, and talents makes the research experience more useful and rewarding to the mentee, and simultaneously improves the product of our joint efforts.

Throughout a collaboration, it is also important to me that mentees can see how their slice of the project contributes to the larger team research project and how their contribution expands our overall collective knowledge in the research area. I encourage mentees to ask questions often, raise challenges and concerns, contribute their point of view, and try out their own ideas. By fostering a culture of open dialogue, mutual respect, and brave exploration, both the mentor and mentee can benefit from diverse perspectives and innovative solutions.
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Weds, Sept 6 at 2pm
Friday, Sept 8 at 2pm
https://fsu.zoom.us/j/99868025318

To download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system:
https://fsu.zoom.us/meeting/tJ0lceGorD4pG9x_NRYChGxMJhrK_LdKUKBQ/ics?icsToken=98tyKuChpj0iGtaQsxiPRox5Go_oWfTzpiVejfpFozHXOgNbRRvbHOpQGY1TFPPl

UROP Program Elements

Yes
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Yes
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2023
https://cre.fsu.edu/urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal?element_parents=elements/research_mentor_information/headshot_optional_&ajax_form=1&_wrapper_format=drupal_ajax&token=IzL0Gi7UUxGMKF1uZg4X8WrFY8H3cQppQmC1KyRWoKA