About

Alan S. Gerber is the Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he also serves as director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and holds professorships in economics, statistics, and data science. He has affiliations with the Yale School of Public Health and the Jackson School of Global Affairs. Gerber previously served as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences divisional director for the social sciences and was the inaugural FAS dean of social science from 2014 to 2021. His research focuses on the political economy of evidence production and use in public policy and organizations. He has extensively published on the application of experimental methods to the study of campaign communications and has designed and conducted experimental evaluations of numerous political communications programs, both partisan and non-partisan. Gerber co-authored a widely used book on field experiments with Donald Green, which serves as a key resource for researchers applying field experimental methods to social science problems. His academic honors include the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association's Organized Section on Experimental Research, the Louis Brownlow Book Award, the Donald K. Price Book Award, and the Heinz Eulau Award for the best article in the American Political Science Review. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the Society for Political Methodology, and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences. Gerber has also served as president of the APSA Organized Section on Experimental Research and chaired its Reporting Standards Committee. He is the faculty director of the ISPS program Democratic Innovations, which promotes debate and research on improving representation and government performance. Gerber earned his B.A. from Yale University in 1986 and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Law
• Business
• Pharmacology
• Environmental health
• Public relations
• Accounting
• Psychiatry
• Virology
• Pediatrics
• Internal medicine
• Pathology
• Geography
• Economics
• Chemistry
• Developmental psychology
• Public economics
• Nursing
• Demography
• Family medicine

Selected publications

• Cognitive, motor, and social development in autistic children: a multimodal feasibility study combining traditional assessments with neuroimaging and virtual reality paradigms

  2026-03-05

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Abortion policy preferences are structured, stable, and consequential

  American Journal of Political Science · 2026-02-18

  article

  Abstract Do Americans have structured, stable, and consequential policy preferences that shape political outcomes? We explore this question through the case of abortion, using a large‐scale panel dataset ( n ≈ 130,000) and applying three key diagnostics: coherence, stability, and changes in vote choice. First, we demonstrate that abortion policy preferences exhibit logical coherence, both within and across reasons for seeking an abortion. Second, we show that these preferences are highly stable over time–more so than personality traits–suggesting that abortion attitudes are deeply engrained rather than fleeting opinions. Lastly, we find that abortion policy preferences, measured before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, predict shifts in intended voting behavior between 2020 and 2024. This overall pattern helps rule out key theoretical alternatives, such as non‐opinions, attitudes following vote choice, and elite cues. Additionally, these findings highlight the significant and independent role of abortion attitudes in shaping American political behavior.

  PublisherDOI

• Executive function challenges persist into young adulthood and predict mental health outcomes in autism

  Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · 2026-04-11

  article

  BACKGROUND: Executive functioning (EF) challenges are common among autistic youth and persist throughout childhood and adolescence; they have been linked to important outcomes, including poorer mental health, adaptive skills, and overall quality of life. Despite the significance of EF in autism, few studies have examined the trajectory of EF challenges longitudinally, and those that have are constrained by small sample sizes, limited age ranges, and a focus on global EF at the expense of specific EF subdomains. METHODS: This study examines the trajectory of parent-reported EF flexibility, working memory, and inhibition challenges in autistic youth from early childhood to young adulthood and their relationship to parent-reported aggression, anxiety, and depression symptoms. Leveraging a longitudinal sample of 313 participants (age range = 2-25, 79 females, mean age at first visit = 9.5 ± 4.6 years, age range at first visit 2.6-23.1 years; mean FSIQ = 103.3, FSIQ range 52-159; mean number of visits per participant = 2.3, range 2-9) across 941 observations, multilevel growth curve modeling was used to examine the trajectory of EF challenges and their relationship to mental health across time. RESULTS: We found that EF challenges persist in autistic people from 2 to 25 years old, regardless of cognitive ability and parent education level. Although symptoms of aggression decline with age, depression symptoms increase with age in this sample of autistic people. Notably, autistic females are at unique risk for increasing anxiety in adolescence. Flexibility challenges in particular predict mental health outcomes across anxiety, depression, and aggression symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: These data demonstrate the enduring nature of EF challenges among autistic people during childhood and into young adulthood, as well as their influence on mental health. EF and flexibility, in particular, are potent and persistent yet malleable predictors of key outcomes, making them important targets for intervention.

  PublisherDOI

• Longitudinal relationships between social anhedonia and internalizing symptoms in autistic children: results from the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials

  Psychological Medicine · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Background Social anhedonia, indicating reduced pleasure from social interaction, is heightened in autistic youth and associated with increased internalizing symptoms transdiagnostically. The stability of social anhedonia over time and its longitudinal impact on internalizing symptoms in autism have never been examined. Methods Participants were 276 autistic children ( M age = 8.60, SD age = 1.65; 211 male) with IQ ≥ 60 ( M IQ = 96.74, SD IQ = 18.19). Autism severity was measured using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition. Caregivers completed the Child and Adolescent Symptom Inventory, Fifth Edition (CASI-5) at baseline, 6 weeks, and 6 months. The CASI-5 includes a social anhedonia subscale derived from relevant items across domains. ICC (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient) analysis assessed stability, while cross-lagged panel models examined associations among social anhedonia, depression, and social anxiety across time. Results At baseline, social anhedonia correlated with autism severity, as well as parent-reported social anxiety and depression. Social anhedonia showed relative stability (ICC = 0.763) over 6 months, with a significant decline between baseline and 6 weeks ( β = −0.52, p < .001). Cross-lagged models revealed a bidirectional relationship between social anhedonia and depression over time, while social anxiety displayed concurrent, but not predictive, associations across time. Conclusions Social anhedonia demonstrated stability over 6 months, suggesting that it may be a relatively stable characteristic in autistic children. Concurrent relationships were observed between social anhedonia and depression, as well as social anxiety and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Only depression demonstrated a bidirectional longitudinal association with social anhedonia. This bidirectional relationship aligns with developmental models linking early negative social experiences to subsequent internalizing symptoms in autistic children, underscoring the clinical significance of social anhedonia assessment in this population.

  PublisherDOI

• Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Autism Providers’ ACEs Inquiries

  Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · 2025-07-08

  articleOpen access

  Autistic individuals experience Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), including neglect, abuse, and financial stress, at above-average rates. However, little is known regarding the factors influencing whether autism community-based providers conduct ACEs inquiries in their practice. Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status (SES) group disparities persist in healthcare and may exist in providers' ACEs inquiries. Whether autism community-based providers inquire about ACEs differently between racial, ethnic, and SES groups has not been studied. Understanding potential variations in inquiry rates is crucial, as inquiring can lead to the identification of ACEs and service provision. To investigate whether community providers' ACEs inquiries differ, we surveyed providers (N = 567) serving autistic individuals ages 7-22 years. Logistic regression using generalized estimating equations estimated the association between racial, ethnic, and SES groups providers reported serving and frequency of ACEs inquiries. Considering overall inquiries (i.e., if providers ever inquired) obscured significant specific inquiry discrepancies (i.e., variation in eight ACEs inquiries by groups served). Specific inquiries models revealed that providers serving Black, Native American, high, and low SES individuals reported higher odds of inquiring about various ACEs. In contrast, providers serving Asian individuals reported inquiring less about particular ACEs. The specific characteristics of the population served by providers may influence their ACEs inquiries. Further investigations are needed to reveal factors underlying gaps in ACEs inquiries across groups and narrow such disparities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Field Experiments Invoking Gloating Villains to Increase Voter Participation: Anger, Anticipated Emotions, and Voting Turnout

  British Journal of Political Science · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract In two field experiments conducted in Mississippi and Florida, we present novel evidence about how emotions can be harnessed to increase voter turnout. When we inform respondents that a partisan villain would be happy if they did not vote (for example, a Gloating Villain treatment), we find that anger is activated in comparison to other emotions and turnout increases by 1.7 percentage points. In a subsequent field experiment, we benchmark this treatment to a standard GOTV message, the social pressure treatment. Using survey experiments that replicate our field experimental treatments, we show that our treatment links the act of voting to anticipated anger. In doing so, we contribute the first in-the-field evidence of how we can induce emotions, which are commonly understood to be fleeting states, to shape temporally distant political behaviours such as voting.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A single-blind active-control randomized controlled trial of group-based social competence intervention

  Scientific Reports · 2025-08-07

  articleOpen access

  This study evaluated specific effects of a blinded randomized controlled trial of a group-based social skills intervention, Socio-Dramatic Affective-Relational Intervention (SDARI), against an active attention control (AC) intervention. Fifty-five autistic youth (Mage=12.40; SDage=2.92; 73% boys) were randomly allocated to either the SDARI or the AC condition. Both interventions comprised 10 weekly sessions and were tightly matched for structure, participant age, IQ, and gender, such that the specific activities of SDARI were directly examined. Multimethod assessments at pre-, post-treatment, and 10-week follow-up included informant-reported social skills and autism-related behaviors, observer-rated spontaneous peer interaction, peer-rated friendships, and a metric of social information processing (the N170 event-related potential). Parent expectancy effect was also explored by examining perceived conditions by parents/caregivers, who were blinded to the condition assignment. Compared to the AC condition, the SDARI group evinced improvements in the N170 latency, rapid peer-liking, and reciprocal friendships at endpoint and follow-up. While the conditions did not differ on parent-reported social skills or autism-related behaviors, a parental expectancy effect was found where parent-rated social skills improvements were related to parents’ perceived conditions. These results provide support for the efficacy of the specific SDARI activities on several objective, reliable outcomes of social functioning in autistic youth.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An Ecological Momentary Intervention Targeting Social Attention in Autistic Adults: Behavioral and Neural Non-verbal Communication Outcomes

  2025-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Disagreements About Threats to Electoral Integrity: Beliefs About the Severity and Frequency of Fraudulent, Uncounted, and Forgone Votes in the 2020 and 2024 Elections

  Political Behavior · 2025-07-30 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Editorial Statement About JCCAP’s 2023 Special Issue on Informant Discrepancies in Youth Mental Health Assessments: Observations, Guidelines, and Future Directions Grounded in 60 Years of Research

  UNC Libraries · 2024-01-19

  articleOpen access

  Issue 1 of the 2011 Volume of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (JCCAP) included a Special Section about the use of multi-informant approaches to measure child and adolescent (i.e., hereafter referred to collectively as “youth”) mental health (De Los Reyes, 2011). Researchers collect reports from multiple informants or sources (e.g., parent and peer, youth and teacher) to estimate a given youth’s mental health. The 2011 JCCAP Special Section focused on the most common outcome of these approaches, namely the significant discrepancies that arise when comparing estimates from any two informant’s reports (i.e., informant discrepancies). These discrepancies appear in assessments conducted across the lifespan (Achenbach, 2020). That said, JCCAP dedicated space to understanding informant discrepancies, because they have been a focus of scholarship in youth mental health for over 60 years (e.g., Achenbach et al., 1987; De Los Reyes & Kazdin, 2005; Glennon & Weisz, 1978; Kazdin et al., 1983; Kraemer et al., 2003; Lapouse & Monk, 1958; Quay et al., 1966; Richters, 1992; Rutter et al., 1970; van der Ende et al., 2012). Thus, we have a thorough understanding of the areas of research for which they reliably appear when clinically assessing youth. For instance, intervention researchers observe informant discrepancies in estimates of intervention effects within randomized controlled trials (e.g., Casey & Berman, 1985; Weisz et al., 2017). Service providers observe informant discrepancies when working with individual clients, most notably when making decisions about treatment planning (e.g., Hawley & Weisz, 2003; Hoffman & Chu, 2015). Scholars in developmental psychopathology observe these discrepancies when seeking to understand risk and protective factors linked to youth mental health concerns (e.g., Hawker & Boulton, 2000; Hou et al., 2020; Ivanova et al., 2022). Thus, the 2011 JCCAP Special Section posed a question: Might these informant discrepancies contain data relevant to understanding youth mental health? Suppose none of the work in youth mental health is immune from these discrepancies. In that case, the answer to this question strikes at the core of what we produce―from the interventions we develop and implement, to the developmental psychopathology research that informs intervention development.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Donald P. Green

  Columbia University

  115 shared

• Gregory A. Huber

  Yale University

  96 shared

• Conor M. Dowling

  62 shared

• Eric M. Patashnik

  Providence College

  45 shared

• Mitchell Hoffman

  39 shared

• John Morgan

  The Royal Melbourne Hospital

  39 shared

• Collin Raymond

  38 shared

• David Doherty

  Loyola University Chicago

  35 shared

Awards & honors

• Best Book Award from the American Political Science Associat…
• Louis Brownlow Book Award
• Donald K. Price Book Award
• Heinz Eulau Award for the best article in the American Polit…
• Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences