Survey reports, research and commentary
What the lab has published
Latest · Report · · Full report with tables
Skepticism about the value of college is easing but remains the majority view. The share saying a four-year degree is worth the cost rose from 19% to 25% over six months, yet 58% still say it is not.
1 item
Report · · Full report with tables
While nearly half of American adults use AI for news occasionally, most remain deeply skeptical of its role in elections, with AI chatbots ranking dead last as a source for candidate information.
7 items
Report ·
PRL has collected data on Americans' support for political violence since 2022. We also fielded a survey on attitudes toward partisan violence in the week following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Report ·
For six weeks our national polarization tracking survey included an item measuring public support for an explicitly antisemitic murder—an act motivated by a victim's Jewish identity. Our data…
Blog ·
In the inaugural year, PRL Lab Director Sean Westwood traveled with 10 Dartmouth undergraduates to Washington, D.C., for a three-day immersive experience exploring the work required to sustain a…
Report ·
How do Americans perceive the role of the courts? The independence of court decisions from executive and legislative politics plays an important role in maintaining the balance of power in the U.S.…
News ·
AI models are increasingly part of our daily lives, but we know little about their potential biases. The Model Slant project analyzes the political slant of large language models. The goal is to…
7 items
Report ·
In this final report for our Path to 2024 series, we examine how the election did or did not shift partisan attitudes. The build-up to the 2024 presidential election was marked by a significant…
Report ·
What do Americans expect to happen in the 2024 election and its aftermath? This report examines who Americans expect will win the 2024 presidential election and if/when the losing candidate…
Research article ·
In a new paper out in PNAS Nexus, PRL researchers show that affective polarization is better explained by individual-level attitudinal measures than by geographic differences across states, such as…
Report ·
How do Americans perceive political scientists? Many projects rely on political scientists as experts to comment on political events, evaluate candidates, and sometimes offer predictions on…
Research article ·
In a new paper in the Election Law Journal, PRL researchers look more closely at who election skeptics are and why they are skeptical. Using a nationally representative survey from around the 2022…
7 items
Article ·
By Nic Dias, Graduate Fellow, Polarization Research Lab & Doctoral Candidate, University of Pennsylvania Democracies must ensure that benefits and burdens are distributed across citizens justly.…
Article ·
September 12, 2023 -- PRL Director Sean Westwood presented on a panel in Manchester, NH, at the National Governors Association Disagree Better Convening. The event featured discussions with leading…
Article ·
Derek Holliday Do presidential nominees dictate the fortunes of down-ballot candidates? While this has been a growing concern of many political commentators, I find evidence that elections for lower…
Article ·
Did Donald Trump’s indictment increase support for democratic norm violations and political violence? Political commentators have indicated concern that pursuing criminal charges against the former…
Article ·
The Polarization Research Lab announces the launch of the Library of Partisan Animosity, an information and learning hub for the most important academic work on partisan animosity–the study of what…
7 items
Article ·
Harnessing our massive set of survey interviews and MRP (Mulitilevel Regression and Post-Stratification), we generated state-level estimates of affective polarization. Though affective polarization…
Article ·
The common theory is that partisan animosity surges before elections and then reduces after an election has passed. Our data, however, show that while there are fluctuations between weeks, the…
Article ·
Only 34.8% of Republicans agree that the 2022 midterms produced accurate results, while 81.7% of Democrats agree that the 2022 midterms produced accurate results. Members of both parties have wrong…
Article ·
MAGA Republicans are substantially more likely that non-MAGA Republicans to support democratic norms violations across the board. When it comes to support for political violence, we see that MAGA…
Article ·
The PRL is now including \"born again\" identity status in our topline results. Insights across measures show interesting takeaways about those who identify as born again. Affective polarization…
The list comes from the main site’s reports index, last changed Aug 28, 2026. Categories and titles are shown as the index records them.
