About

Ted Brader is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan and a faculty associate at the Center for Political Studies in the Institute for Social Research. His research and teaching interests include political psychology, political communication, public opinion and voting behavior, campaigns and elections, and political parties. Although his primary expertise is in American politics, his general concern with questions of political psychology and communication leads to research in comparative politics as well.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Computer Security
• Computer Science
• Law
• Social psychology
• Philosophy
• Psychoanalysis
• Economics
• Positive economics
• Cognitive psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Mathematics
• Applied psychology
• Statistics
• Political economy
• Epistemology

Selected publications

• Emotion and Political Psychology

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2023 · 41 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Psychology

  Abstract For many years political psychology and scholars of politics in general neglected the study of emotion. Whatever the reasons for neglect, it no longer holds true. Emotions are best understood as reactions to signals about the significance that circumstances hold for an individual’s goals and well-being. The source of those signals can be external or internal. The chapter reviews major theoretical approaches and questions of methodology in the study of emotion. The remainder of the chapter focuses heavily on research into the causes of politically relevant emotions and their consequences for political behavior across a wide variety of settings. The chapter also draws attention to the ways in which elite actors attempt to manipulate emotions of citizens to further their political goals.

  DOI

• Improving the Measurement of “Big Five” Personality Traits in a Brief Survey Instrument

  European Journal of Psychological Assessment · 2021 · 4 citations

  • Psychology
  • Applied psychology
  • Statistics

  Abstract. The Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) is the leading brief instrument for the “Big Five” personality measurement. However, TIPI’s design has suboptimal features: agree-disagree response options, numeric instead of verbal response labels, and multiple items per page. This paper presents a version of TIPI that addresses these problems. Using two nationally representative sample surveys, we compare the original and revised TIPIs on several dimensions: completion time, item nonresponse, paired item reliability, and validity based on relations to other variables. Completion time is the same and item nonresponse rates are low, while reliability and criterion validity for the revised TIPI is better than the original. The results show how better personality data can be obtained at no additional cost by optimizing questionnaire design.

  PublisherDOI

• “Where You Lead, I Will Follow”: Partisan Cueing on High‐Salience Issues in a Turbulent Multiparty System

  Political Psychology · 2020 · 22 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  The ability of parties to not only reflect, but actually shape, citizens' preferences on policy issues has been long debated, as it corresponds to a fundamental prediction of classic party identification theory. While most research draws on data from the United States or studies of low‐salience issues, we exploit the unique opportunity presented by the 2013 Italian election, with the four major parties of a clear multiparty setting holding distinct positions on crucial issues of the campaign. Based on an experimental design, we test the impact of party cues on citizens' preferences on high‐salience issues. The results are surprising: Despite a party system in flux (with relevant new parties) and a weakening of traditional party identities, we find large, significant partisan‐cueing effects in all the three experimental issues, and for voters of all the major Italian parties—both old and new, governmental and opposition, ideologically clear or ambiguous.

  DOI

Recent grants

• Mass Media, Emotions, and Responses to Globaliztion

  NSF · $366k · 2005–2010

Frequent coauthors

• Joshua A. Tucker

  New York University

  17 shared

• Nicholas A. Valentino

  11 shared

• Ashley Jardina

  George Mason University

  4 shared

• Timothy J. Ryan

  Australian Synchrotron

  3 shared

• Shana Kushner Gadarian

  Syracuse University

  2 shared

• Matthew DeBell

  Stanford University

  2 shared

• Catherine S. Wilson

  James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital

  2 shared

• Natalya C. Maisel

  University of California, San Francisco

  2 shared