The Different Effects of PAC Funding Refusal Based on Candidate Race and Gender. 

Dudley, Jennifer S.K. and Olivia T. Neff. 2025. "The Cost of Political Action Committee Funding: Evidence on Political Action Committee Funding Refusal Across Candidate Race and Gender." The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. Published online 2025:1-27. doi:10.1017/rep.2024.32

Research on campaign finance suggests that Americans prefer candidates who are not funded by Political Action Committees (PACs). However, prior research has not examined how perceptions of a candidate who is PAC-funded vs. PAC-free might differ for racial minority and female candidates compared to White, male candidates. Using experimental vignettes, we test the causal impact of PAC funding, race, and gender on voter perceptions of the candidate. We find that refusing PAC funds, for example, is associated with appearing more ethical and more likely to work for voters’ interests over special interests, less corrupt, and more capable of winning elections. However, we show that race, more than gender, interacts with PAC funding to impact voter perceptions. We find that White female and male candidates benefit the most from PAC refusal. While Black female and male candidates receive little or no significant change in perceptions, Black PAC-funded candidates are perceived favorably compared to White PAC-funded candidates. Our results have implications for White and Black political candidates considering their funding strategies. Additionally, we contribute to existing literature by showing that refusing PAC funds status does not signal the same qualities for all candidates. 

Experimental Evidence for the Effects of Race and Incivility on Voter Choice. 

Sociologists are fundamentally concerned with the way an individual’s identity, especially their race, inform evaluations of their behavior. Yet, sociological insights from decades of empirical and theoretical advancements have been under-utilized to inform conversations on contemporary U.S. politics, especially in the context of increasing political incivility. Specifically, political theorists have argued that preferences for white or non-white racial categories explain racial minorities’ performance in U.S. elections. I argue that Americans respond differently to political candidates’ behavior depending on the race of the candidate with heterogeneity across non-white racial categories. I apply this argument to a conjoint experimental setting centered on testing the impact of uncivil political behavior. I administered the experiment to more than 3,000 individuals across two samples of U.S. adults from the Cooperative Election Study and Prolific Academic, Ltd. I measure the effects of civil versus uncivil statements (critiques versus lies and insults) for Asian, Black, Latino, and white political candidates. Notably, I find that when candidates behave civilly and when they lie, respondents’ candidate racial preferences are minimized. It is among candidates who insult their opponents that race explains preferences with stereotype-breaking behavior by Asian and Latino candidates being rewarded most. Black and white candidates who insult their opponents are penalized. I discuss implications for the racialized perceptions of political candidates in the U.S., focusing on where existing theories explain these results and where they fail to do so.

Manuscript available upon request

Civility in Congress: Demonstrating Organizational Change Through Automated Text Analysis.

Do Congress members become more civil over the course of their tenure? I address this question using an automated text analysis of 35 years of the daily Congressional Record. My results reveal two conflicting trends. First, while older cohorts did increase their use of polite language, more recent cohorts do not increase their polite language over the course of their tenure. Second, older cohorts and men use polite language at higher rates than newer cohorts and women. However, women and newer cohorts use more prosocial language than men and older cohorts. These shifts reveal changes in both the relative value of traditional measures of civility and the limited power of organizational influence on member behavior in Congress.  

Manuscript available upon request

Creating Community through Informal Culture 

Dudley, Jennifer, Moshoula Capous Desyllas, Theresa Cisneros, Nayeli Perez, and David Boyns.  "Understanding the strengths and challenges of grandparent caregivers raising children and youth: Creating community through informal culture." The Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26408066.2022.2159778

Grandparents are increasingly finding themselves taking care of their grandchildren for various reasons, including their adult child’s incarceration, mental health issues, drug and alcohol addiction, or child abuse or neglect. The purpose of this mixed-methods needs-assessment research study was to highlight the caregiving experiences of custodial grandparents and to identify their unique set of needs, strengths, and challenges. Recruiting from a support network known as Grandparents as Parents (GAP), we invited grandparent caregivers to participate in surveys, focus groups and a photovoice project in order to identify the types of services they received, their unmet needs and their lived experiences in their role as a grandparent caregiver. Findings highlight the increasing number of custodial grandparents who create an informal community among caregivers to address their unmet needs. We advocate for a multi-disciplinary approach, including the implementation of formal kinship navigation services prior to the placement of children with their grandparents.

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A Tool Kit for Relation Induction in Text Analysis

Stoltz, Dustin, Marshall Taylor, and Jennifer S.K. Dudley. “Dictionaries and Distances: A Tool Kit for Relation Induction in Text Analysis.” Sociological Methods and Research. 

Distances derived from word embeddings can measure a range of gradational relations—similarity, hierarchy, entailment, and stereotype—and can be used at the document-and author-level in ways that overcome some of the limitations of weighted dictionary methods. We provide a comprehensive introduction to using word embeddings for relation induction, and demonstrate how such techniques can complement dictionary methods as unsupervised, deductive methods.

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