About

Eric R. A. N. Smith is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes in American Politics, Environmental Politics, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior, Congress, and Political Parties. His research focuses on environmental politics, public opinion, and elections, exploring topics such as public attitudes toward offshore oil development, nuclear power, wind energy, energy crises, and climate change. He has investigated the reasons behind public distrust of scientists and scientific findings. Smith has contributed to understanding how public opinion evolves on issues like LGBTQ tolerance, support for the death penalty, and electoral behavior, including party realignment and candidate evaluation. He is currently working on projects related to the politics of climate change, sustainability knowledge, and public support for the death penalty. Smith received his Ph.D. in political science from UC Berkeley in 1982, and has taught at Brandeis University and Columbia University before joining UCSB in 1986. He has also directed UCSB's Washington Center and is affiliated with the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and the Environmental Studies Program.

Research topics

• Political science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Business
• History

Selected publications

• Pianos

  2024-09-26

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Exploring sustainability literacy: developing and assessing a bottom-up measure of what students know about sustainability

  Frontiers in Sustainability · 2023-06-05 · 24 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  With many organizations, particularly higher education institutions, placing a priority on sustainability education it is important to have a measure of sustainability knowledge to assess growth over time. There have been several attempts using differing approaches to develop a valid assessment tool. However, given wide-ranging conceptual definitions of sustainability and diverse instructional techniques, we are skeptical that sustainability is a concept that can adequately be measured. The existing measures were developed using a top-down approach to question inclusion the questionnaire. As an alternative, in this paper we develop a new measure, using a bottom-up approach. In Study 1 with a sample from the University of California, Santa Barbara, we test the 44 item instrument with a large student sample. In Study 2, with a sample from Northern Illinois University, we test a shortened 10 item instrument in a different student population. Across both studies, we find little evidence for a coherent structure to sustainability knowledge. Yet, the 10 item measure correlates highly with the longer version and may be suitable to other research applications.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The incoherence of sustainability literacy assessed with the Sulitest

  Nature Sustainability · 2021-02-25 · 15 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Path to Gay Rights: How Activism and Coming Out Changed Public Opinion

  Political Science Quarterly · 2020-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Measuring Environmental Values and Identity

  Society & Natural Resources · 2020-09-13 · 17 citations

  articleSenior author

  Scholars who study environmental problems across the social sciences often require a measure of the lens through which people filter information. Many scales have been created to serve in this analytical role, including the New Ecological Paradigm, the Connectedness to Nature Scale, environmentalist identity and environmental movement identity, and the cultural cognition scales. To our knowledge, no study compares them in a single sample. We used a national Internet sample to examine the measures’ predictive powers in explaining a range of environmental behaviors. Connectedness to Nature and environmentalist identity were the strongest predictors of pro-environmental behavior in our sample, and our findings also suggested a difference in private versus public behaviors. Environmentalist identity was slightly stronger than the Connectedness to Nature in predicting public behaviors, while Connectedness to Nature was the strongest predictor of private behaviors. The New Ecological Paradigm and the cultural cognition scales were weaker predictors.

  PublisherDOI

• Confidence in Local, National, and International Scientists on Climate Change

  Sustainability · 2020-12-30 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In many public policy areas, such as climate change, news media reports about scientific research play an important role. In presenting their research, scientists are providing guidance to the public regarding public policy choices. How do people decide which scientists and scientific claims to believe? This is a question we address by drawing on the psychology of persuasion. We propose the hypothesis that people are more likely to believe local scientists than national or international scientists. We test this hypothesis with an experiment embedded in a national Internet survey. Our experiment yielded null findings, showing that people do not discount or ignore research findings on climate change if they come from Europe instead of Washington-based scientists or a leading university in a respondent’s home state. This reinforces evidence that climate change beliefs are relatively stable, based on party affiliation, and not malleable based on the source of the scientific report.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Climate for Psychological Ownership to Enhance Organizational Performance Across Latin America

  Academy of Management global proceedings · 2020-04-16 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  Frequently, employees are supposed to take ownership of their responsibilities. Psychological ownership theory explains why and how employees experience these ownership feelings for their organizat...

  Publisher

• Business Sustainability Strategies of Small Technology Companies

  ScholarWorks (Walden University) · 2019-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Each year, almost 12% of small technology companies fail to survive, and the risks associated with high-tech startups are high for business failure due to the introduction of new technology, similar competitor technology, and the short product life cycle of new products. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the business sustainability strategies that some owners of small technology companies used to remain in operation for longer than 5 years. The population for the study was the owners of 5 small technology companies located in the southeast region of the United States. The general systems theory was the conceptual framework for the study. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and review of company documents, 10K report, cash flow, and profit and loss statements. Methodological triangulation and member checking were used to help ensure the reliability of the study. The analysis and data management process included an examination of the data for themes, trends, redundancy and common denominators. Four themes emerged during the research: prior serial entrepreneurial success, willingness to stay the course, ability to raise sufficient capital to meet obligations and driven and passionate owners. The implications of this study for positive social change include the potential to improve business practices through educating small business owners, first time owners of small businesses, minority and women entrepreneurs, governments, and small business incubators that have a stake in business creation and entrepreneurial development in local communities, on sustainability strategies.

  PublisherOA PDF

• State and National Politics in the Mountain West

  2019-07-11 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter provides the understanding of realignment by examining national and state elections in the period since World War II. It focuses on the eight states of the Mountain West--Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Two things stand out about the patterns of change among the eight states of the Mountain region. The first thing is that the states respond to national electoral forces in the same way. The second is that the states differ in the degree to which they have been moving toward the Republican party. The Southern and Pacific states roughly match up to expectations. The South shows a steady march away from the Democratic party. The eight states in the Mountain region all respond similarly to national political forces. The political "center" of the Mountain states is somewhere on the right in the spectrum of national politics.

  PublisherDOI

• Scripting Revolution: A Historical Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions ed. by Keith Michael Baker, Dan Edelstein (review)

  Journal for the Study of Radicalism · 2018-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Alexandra Hartnett

  Barnard College

  8 shared

• André Béteille

  8 shared

• Shannon Lee Dawdy

  University of Chicago

  8 shared

• Brian Larkin

  8 shared

• Juliet E. Carlisle

  University of Utah

  6 shared

• Richard Herrera

  Arizona State University

  6 shared

• Heather Hodges

  LSVT Global (United States)

  6 shared

• Cheryl Lyn Herrera

  6 shared

Education

• A.B., M.A., Ph.D., Political Science

  University of California Berkeley

  1982