Generational Shifts and Gendered Divides: Exploring Attitudes on Social, Cultural, and Political Issues in the United States

Social Science Quarterly · 2026-05-01

ABSTRACT Objective We examine how gendered differences in political attitudes have evolved in the United States across generations and historical contexts. Utilizing Gallup Poll Social Survey Series (GPSS) data (2000–2024), we analyze public opinion across three issue domains: care and social protection, social stability and societal change, and morality and rights conflict. Methods Cross‐classified random effects modeling assesses whether gender gaps reflect generational replacement (cohort effects) or changes over time (period effects). Results Period effects account for much of the observed change in socio‐political attitudes, while cohort effects play a limited role. Although men and women differ in their opinions, their attitudes generally move in parallel, leaving the gender gap stable over time. Women consistently express greater concern than men on issues including hunger and homelessness, crime and violence, drug use, healthcare access, and the environment. Conclusion These findings challenge narratives of increasing gender polarization. Despite intensified public discourse on issues such as race, abortion, gun policy, and LGBTQ+ right, gender gaps remain relatively stable, suggesting that perceived polarization may reflect elite‐driven framing more than mass‐level divergence.

Large Language Models to Support Socially Responsible Solar Energy Siting in Utah

Solar · 2025-11-06

This study investigates the efficacy of large language models (LLMs) in supporting responsible and optimized geographic site selection for large-scale solar energy farms. Using Microsoft Bing (predecessor to Copilot), Google Bard (predecessor to Gemini), and ChatGPT, we evaluated their capability to address complex technical and social considerations fundamental to solar farm development. Employing a series of guided queries, we explored the LLMs’ “understanding” of social impact, geographic suitability, and other critical factors. We tested varied prompts, incorporating context from existing research, to assess the models’ ability to use external knowledge sources. Our findings demonstrate that LLMs, when meticulously guided through increasingly detailed and contextualized inquiries, can yield valuable insights. We discovered that (1) structured questioning is key; (2) characterization outperforms suggestion; and (3) harnessing expert knowledge requires specific effort. However, limitations remain. We encountered dead ends due to prompt restrictions and limited access to research for some models. Additionally, none could independently suggest the “best” site. Overall, this study reveals the potential of LLMs for geographic solar farm site selection, and our results can inform future adaptation of geospatial AI queries for similarly complex geographic problems.

The evolution of economic and political inequality: minding the gap

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2023 · 7 citations

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Economics

The extent of economic and political inequality, their change over time, and the forces shaping them have profound implications for the sustainability of a society and the well-being of its members. Here we review the evolution of economic and political inequality broadly, though with particular attention to Europe and the USA. We describe legal/institutional, technological and social forces that have shaped this evolution. We highlight the cumulative effects of inequality across generations as channelled through wealth and inheritance but also through other intergenerational connections. We also review the state of research on the effects of inequality on economic growth, health and societal cohesion. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolutionary ecology of inequality'.

Of Sore Losers and Bad Winners: Explaining Public Support for Electoral Contestation

2022-03-28

What actions do citizens believe are appropriate to contest electoral outcomes? We test a theory of “winner and loser effects,” where election outcomes affect support for behaviors asso- ciated with contesting an election, including criticizing the election, protests, symbolic speech, ballot recounts, and litigation. Using data from the 2020 Western States Survey, we explore differences in citizen support for different modes of electoral contestation before and after the 2020 election. We find that support for electoral contestation behaviors changes, depending upon whether one’s preferred candidate wins or loses the election. In the days following the 2020 election, Trump voters became more supportive of electoral contestation; Biden voters, on the other hand, became less supportive. Our findings shed light on the aftermath of the 2020 election and expand the scope of “winner effects” to a new outcome—electoral contestation. Ultimately, our findings point to the fragility of the public’s commitment to democratic ideals.

Risk of disease and willingness to vaccinate in the United States: A population-based survey

PLoS Medicine · 2020 · 90 citations

• Demography
• Medicine
• Environmental health

BACKGROUND: Vaccination complacency occurs when perceived risks of vaccine-preventable diseases are sufficiently low so that vaccination is no longer perceived as a necessary precaution. Disease outbreaks can once again increase perceptions of risk, thereby decrease vaccine complacency, and in turn decrease vaccine hesitancy. It is not well understood, however, how change in perceived risk translates into change in vaccine hesitancy. We advance the concept of vaccine propensity, which relates a change in willingness to vaccinate with a change in perceived risk of infection-holding fixed other considerations such as vaccine confidence and convenience. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We used an original survey instrument that presents 7 vaccine-preventable "new" diseases to gather demographically diverse sample data from the United States in 2018 (N = 2,411). Our survey was conducted online between January 25, 2018, and February 2, 2018, and was structured in 3 parts. First, we collected information concerning the places participants live and visit in a typical week. Second, participants were presented with one of 7 hypothetical disease outbreaks and asked how they would respond. Third, we collected sociodemographic information. The survey was designed to match population parameters in the US on 5 major dimensions: age, sex, income, race, and census region. We also were able to closely match education. The aggregate demographic details for study participants were a mean age of 43.80 years, 47% male and 53% female, 38.5% with a college degree, and 24% nonwhite. We found an overall change of at least 30% in proportion willing to vaccinate as risk of infection increases. When considering morbidity information, the proportion willing to vaccinate went from 0.476 (0.449-0.503) at 0 local cases of disease to 0.871 (0.852-0.888) at 100 local cases (upper and lower 95% confidence intervals). When considering mortality information, the proportion went from 0.526 (0.494-0.557) at 0 local cases of disease to 0.916 (0.897-0.931) at 100 local cases. In addition, we ffound that the risk of mortality invokes a larger proportion willing to vaccinate than mere morbidity (P = 0.0002), that older populations are more willing than younger (P<0.0001), that the highest income bracket (>$90,000) is more willing than all others (P = 0.0001), that men are more willing than women (P = 0.0011), and that the proportion willing to vaccinate is related to both ideology and the level of risk (P = 0.004). Limitations of this study include that it does not consider how other factors (such as social influence) interact with local case counts in people's vaccine decision-making, it cannot determine whether different degrees of severity in morbidity or mortality failed to be statistically significant because of survey design or because participants use heuristically driven decision-making that glosses over degrees, and the study does not capture the part of the US that is not online. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we found that different degrees of risk (in terms of local cases of disease) correspond with different proportions of populations willing to vaccinate. We also identified several sociodemographic aspects of vaccine propensity. Understanding how vaccine propensity is affected by sociodemographic factors is invaluable for predicting where outbreaks are more likely to occur and their expected size, even with the resulting cascade of changing vaccination rates and the respective feedback on potential outbreaks.

Polarization politics and hopes for a green agenda in the United States

Environmental Politics · 2019-08-14 · 22 citations

In the past, support for environmental protection in the United States was relatively nonpartisan. That situation began to change in the late 1970s with partisanship playing an increasing role in attitudes and behavior regarding the environment. Despite the growing importance of environmental issues, Republicans, especially conservative Republicans, express greater skepticism about climate change, global warming, and environmentalism in general. We take advantage of a new method of estimation to gauge the degree of partisan and ideological variability in environmental concern across birth cohorts and time, while also testing the role of compositional and contextual causes of this variability. This contributes to our understanding of large-scale changes in environmental attitudes, and the degree to which partisan identification and political ideology is to blame for lack of environmental concern and efforts to promote a green agenda.

The effect of trust and proximity on vaccine propensity

PLoS ONE · 2019-08-28 · 42 citations

The main goal of this paper is to study the effects of (1) trust in government medical experts and (2) proximity to a recent disease outbreak on vaccine propensity. More specifically, we explore how these variables affect attitudes with regards to measles. Using original survey data, collected in January/February 2017, we obtain three main empirical findings. First, contrary to our expectations, an individual's proximity to a recent measles outbreak has no independent effect on vaccination attitudes. Second, corroborating previous studies in the field, we find that trust in institutions such as the CDC has a positive effect on our dependent variable. Third, there is a significant interactive relationship between proximity and trust in governmental medical experts. While distance from a previous measles outbreak has no effect on vaccination attitudes for respondents with medium or high levels of trust, the variable exerts a negative effect for subjects with little confidence in government medical experts. In other words: low-trust individuals who live farther away from a recent measles outbreak harbor less favorable views about vaccination for this particular disease than low-trust respondents who live close to an affected area. This implies that citizens who are skeptical of the CDC and similar institutions base their vaccination decision-making to some degree on whether or not a given disease occurs in close vicinity to their community.

Pushing a Green Agenda: Explaining Shifting Public Support for Environmental Spending

Political Research Quarterly · 2019-01-04 · 5 citations

Although mass opinion on many political issues is generally stable, Americans’ beliefs about environmentalism have undergone dramatic changes in recent decades. Many studies of attitudinal change identify cohort- or period-based effects as contributing to large-scale opinion changes. However, limited research exists that considers both explanations simultaneously. This study estimates variability in environmental spending support across cohort and periods while also testing the role of compositional and contextual causes of this variability. Our findings contribute to understanding mass opinion change, as well as variations in the American public’s concern about the environment. Furthermore, the modeling approach addresses the question of which macro- and micro-level characteristics are influential for pushing forward a green agenda. The evidence presented casts doubt on studies that see pro-environmentalism as dependent on personal or national wealth as well as findings that view shifts in concern as stemming from generational replacement. Yet, among the major explanations identified in public opinion research, we find support for elite cues and, to a lesser degree, subjective economic security as important factors that drive shifts in public concern about the environment. Given these results, we argue that theories of postmaterialist environmentalism and theories of global environmentalism are incomplete on their own.

Pushing a Green Agenda: Explaining Shifting Public Support for Environmental Spending

Political Research Quarterly · 2019 · 1 citations

• Political Science
• Political Science
• Public economics

Although mass opinion on many political issues is generally stable, Americans’ beliefs about environmentalism have undergone dramatic changes in recent decades. Many studies of attitudinal change identify cohort- or period-based effects as contributing to large-scale opinion changes. However, limited research exists that considers both explanations <i>simultaneously</i>. This study estimates variability in environmental spending support across cohort and periods while also testing the role of compositional and contextual causes of this variability. Our findings contribute to understanding mass opinion change, as well as variations in the American public’s concern about the environment. Furthermore, the modeling approach addresses the question of which macro- and micro-level characteristics are influential for pushing forward a green agenda. The evidence presented casts doubt on studies that see pro-environmentalism as dependent on personal or national wealth as well as findings that view shifts in concern as stemming from generational replacement. Yet, among the major explanations identified in public opinion research, we find support for elite cues and, to a lesser degree, subjective economic security as important factors that drive shifts in public concern about the environment. Given these results, we argue that theories of postmaterialist environmentalism and theories of global environmentalism are incomplete on their own.

Social media echo chambers and satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections

Journal of Elections Public Opinion and Parties · 2018-02-08 · 58 citations

There is widespread evidence that individuals select information that supports their convictions and worldviews. This behavior yields the formation of echo chambers - environments in which an individual's own political beliefs are repeated and amplified and dissenting opinions are screened out. Recent research demonstrates that social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook or Twitter can facilitate this selection into homogenous networks. Using data from a representative nationwide online survey, we consider the degree to which respondents' social media networks resemble virtual echo chambers. We then analyze the effect of these social media echo chambers on satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. elections. Our findings reveal that virtual echo chambers boost democratic satisfaction among Republicans but they do not have an effect on system support by self-identified Democrats. Our paper therefore adds to a growing literature linking online behaviors to mass attitudes about politics.