CPS Lecture
For, my email. Let's. Go to 32. Arrow. Keys or whatever okay. Let, me change the display. Fewer. Americans, are working today than when President Obama took, office it. Doesn't have, to be this way. You. You. Don't. Feel that this. Is a pretty smart. Oh. Okay. Great. Yeah. No I saw him to the Midwest I was just there. We. Have the problem, with my. Kids. So families, home that no one forget at work. So. We tried to change but very, quickly there. Was introduced it's interrupting, night. Hello. Everybody. Welcome. Everybody, my, name is Ken Coleman, I'm the director of the Center for Political, Studies here, at the ISR, it's, a great pleasure on behalf of the faculty, and staff and our Center to welcome, everyone. Here to this, year's Miller converse, lecture, our. Speaker, today is. Absolutely. Appropriate not only for this honor in, giving, the lecture but, also appropriate, for this moment in contemporary. American, politics, and indeed. In politics, all over the world, my. Colleague Ted braider will introduce Diana. Mots shortly. This. Occasion, celebrates, the careers, of Warren, Miller and Phil converse, two. Giants, in the development, of some. Modern social, science and, then the development of this institution, is our here at Michigan. Warren. And Phil of course were two of the, so-called four. Horsemen, who wrote the American voter a seminal. Book in behavioral, political science, they. Were young, when that book was written. But. If it was if that was all they did they. Would earn the right to have a lecture named after them and not. To mention the various scholarships, and fellowships. And. Other. Honors around the profession, named. After them but. They of course did so much more than. Be part of that amazing book project. Each. Of them they wrote many more books and articles and established, New Directions in research, both. Continue to write on voting decision, making and political, attitudes, making. Many Brown great. Groundbreaking. Advancements. Phil. With, his famous, 1964. Article, on mass publics. Established. And I really mean established. Several. Areas, of research, on. Political. Knowledge on. Ideology and, on non attitudes. Worn. With this famous research, on representation. And is. Moving in comparative, directions, to broaden the study of voting behavior and attitudes, both. Of them in fact worked on data from, other countries, and also became interested. In elite, attitudes. Both. Of them were institution. Builders, Warren. With, icpsr. And also with our own Center CPS, and Phil, with, broader is our in general in the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford, they. Understood, the value of public, goods and institutions, in research and in, the creation of knowledge in the, training and teaching of students, in the, kind of spillover effects, that, excellent, research has on other, parts of campus on the community, and in our country. For. Those familiar with, Phil's 1964. Paper and many of you in this room are. Some. Of you probably assign, it in your class is still and still cited, in your work. Consider. His context. Post. Fascist. Europe post. McCarthyism. During. A period when people were claiming the end of responsible. Parties the. End of ideological, politics. Just. After the 1960. Presidential. Election. When. You would be hard-pressed even, today to declare one or the other major party candidate, as the. More left or right on many issues. Phil. Was saying something, about the world as he saw it in that moment.
So. Our speaker is going to talk about a very salient topic. At propose for our times. Warren. And Phil were more than willing to weigh in on the big questions, of the day though. They were subtle, in how their social scientific, findings, should inform the, present, moment, the. Latter parts, of that 1964. Converse paper are. Clearly, his attempt to communicate the dangers, of apathy, low. Knowledge, in the American population, and the, dangers, of demagogues, and falsehoods. Some. Things change. Like. Our party's today are more ideologically. Consistent. Than. They were in the 1960s, early 1960s. And for, good or bad we now have something much closer to responsible, political parties in the United States. But. Some things haven't changed or, some things come back, such. As the dangers, of having large portions, of the public easily misled by demagoguery, and falsehood. The. Project, that Warren and Phil started. Understanding. Better, the interests. Of ordinary people, their, attitudes. The. Political, organizations, and the ambitious people who run them and, partisanship. All of that project is still a work in progress we. Continue, to make headway thanks. To them and the, the work that they began, and thanks. To people like our speaker today, so. Ted Brady will now introduce our speaker. Okay. So. So. Ken didn't want me to go on too long I don't know why you'd be worried about that knowing. Me but so. I'm gonna keep this less than a half hour. The, primary purpose as Ken indicated the Miller converse lecture is to hear the latest insights from leading voices in the. Study of Elections public opinion and voting behavior a field, that Warren and Phil did, so much to build but. It is in part a recognition, that by virtue of being invited here the. Lecture has already, told us a great deal about these topics and already. Played, her own substantial. Role in building this field, it. Is therefore my privilege to introduce this, year's Miller converse lecture Dianne, watts is the. Samuel a Stouffer professor of political, science and communication, and director. Of the institute for the study of citizen and politics at the University of Pennsylvania prior. To arriving. At Penn she also taught at two Big Ten schools conspicuous. For their red uniforms, but, the more so the lesson on that topic the better I think.
Professor, Months is indeed a leading voice in the field her research has focused particularly on questions of political communication and, political psychology, her, research can be found in dozens of articles and leading journals and numerous. Award-winning books for. Those less familiar with all, of her work these include such titles as impersonal influence, how mask perceptions. Of mass collectives affect political attitudes. Hearing. The other side deliberative, versus participatory, democracy. And. In-your-face politics. The consequence, of incivility among, other titles among. Her many many articles and books that I personally have read cited or taught, in. The classroom perhaps one of my favorites is the, dog that didn't bark the. Role of canines, in the 2008. Presidential campaign. I should, mention perhaps. That diana is a pet lover. Among. Numerous honors professor mutts has been. Elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at. Extremely. Young age received, though many, years ago received the Lifetime career achievement, award from, the political communications, section of the, American. Political Science Association, and, she's been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship again, on, top of many other honors her, tremendous impact comes not only through published research but. Through her extraordinary service to the profession, for. Example she has been a mentor to many younger scholars standing, well beyond her own students, in. Many years for example at a major disciplinary conference, she. Has organized the dinner that gives young female scholars the chance to meet with. And discuss their research with prominent researchers in their field researchers. Of their choosing. Diana. Has also served on the advisory boards, of both the Canadian and American national, election, studies she. Was one of the principal investigators on the 2008, national, Annenberg, election study and she's, received the Warren makovski innovator award from a port for. Co finding, time sharing experiments, for the Social Sciences known. To many of us as test this. NSF, funded infrastructure, project. Has enabled hundreds, of researchers across the social science disciplines, to. Collect survey experimental, data on nationally, representative, samples, for, free through. A competitive peer reviewed process, I've. Personally got to know Diana better this, past decade during. My time our time together serving, on the American National Russia studies first. I discovered, she's a terrific storyteller. She. Has been on many adventures intellectual, or otherwise I'm. Sure I don't know, all of her stories and I. Couldn't begin to share the ones I do. But. I can't say there's a very good chance she is the only Miller Congress lecture to. Have attended a lecture not. Her own mind you in, a gorilla suit. Just. A fun fact. But. Even more than the stories Diana's contributions, that aeneas board meetings have, left me further in all of her as a social scientist the. Sample, of the Assyrian, staple of those meetings are presentations. Making recommendations. On changes, to the A&E s questionnaire, as you. Can imagine in, a room with 20 plus experts, in the field academic. Experts debating, a set of recommendations. Over. How to use limited space on the disciplines. Biggest investment. Monetary, investment. No. Set of recommendations is, without. Controversy, the. Most glaring exception in, my time of service came, when professor mots recommended, important shifts in how aeneas majors media usage her. Presentation, so thoroughly, showed. The limitations, of earlier Majors as well, as demonstrated the potential benefits of a new set, of majors that something. Quite magical happen, this, room full. Of professors, went. Silent. And. On that note I'll go silent too it. Is my pleasure to introduce this. Year's Miller converse lecture professor Diana, Maas. Thank. You Ted, for that generous, introduction, and just to let you know I still have the gorilla suit if you want to borrow it. Comes out every couple of years it. Is delightful to be here I am truly honored. To be giving this lecture and I've been looking forward to it for months because I, was, told that giving, the Miller Congress lecture is a sure cure, for, impostor, syndrome so I'll let you know how it turns out but.
I'm Greatly, looking forward to it for that reason alone. In. The midst of writing a book on the psychology of attitudes. Toward trade, and globalization in, the United States and. In. The context, of doing this, I've. Learned a great deal both. About a merit, the American public but also about. Studies. That, my co-authors, do in international, relations international, political, economy, and so forth, on. The one hand you, might think and I was told when I started, becoming interested in studying trade attitudes don't. Do it nobody. Cares. With the mass public thinks about trade there's, this Washington, Consensus. Elites are for, it and it really doesn't matter with the mass public things it's not a partisan, political issue, uh nonetheless. I, was drawn, into it because I wasn't quite, sure that was correct on the, one hand if we think about trade as an issue it's, incredibly, complex. Usually. When elites and academics. Of various kinds, talk about it it's in complex, economic, terms. It's. Highly abstract to understand, an international. Economy, of a kind we have today. On. The other hand I. Have. Found over, that's. Five years now of. Researching. This issue that. This may, be better, understood, when. It when these opinions among the mass public is social. Psychological, rather, than economic terms, in. Fact what I find is that many. People's attitudes, toward trade in the US are driven by. Our more colloquial, understanding. Of what it means to trade like if you know I have a recipe sandwich you have peanut butter and jelly and I want yours you want mine we, trade there's, still only two sandwiches there aren't three, the. Idea, of trade, is, so close to that in the mass public's, mind that it. Turns out that the same things that influence people's willingness to trade their sandwich also influence. Their willingness to trade with other countries so. What I ended up doing is, applying a lot of series of intergroup and interpersonal, relations. To, people's. Opinions on trade, on one. Hand trade as complex, as I said but what I find is that it acts a lot more like what we would call in the car minds and Stimpson sense an easy issue meaning, that people are responding to gut level, kinds. Of things when they form views on trade and we don't find a lot of difference between the, more sophisticated, and, the, less knowledgeable, when, it comes to at, what these attitudes are based on which was to me quite surprising. Instead. What I find is that what is most important, is people's. Reliance, on what, are known as folk, economic, beliefs, meaning. That these are label, efz that come from, our world of face-to-face interaction. And. You know get essentially. Extended. To explain, how. Trade works in the. International. World one. Of the first things that is a, well-known. Belief, that you know children are socialized, to at a very young age is, the idea that impersonal. Transactions. Are inherently more dangerous, don't, talk to strangers people. You don't know you know that's, dangerous, these aren't face-to-face, interactions, and certainly all, things international, strike most people as highly, impersonal. And in fact more, risky, kinds, of exchanges, there's. Also this widespread belief that trade is, zero-sum. Meaning, that the way the public thinks about it is, that, you know they're X number of jobs in the world and all, we're doing is we're shuffling them around from one place to another, but. Essentially, we're not creating more jobs or. Economic. Growth we're simply moving things around. Who. Can blame the mass public for, thinking that something called the deficit, is a bad thing let's face it most of us think of a deficit, as something. Negative right the term is inherently, a negative, thing and that's, certainly something that President, Trump capitalized, on during his election and he continues, to be pretty obsessed, with the idea of the balance of trade to trade deficit, and so forth it's.
Widely Misunderstood. By the American, public to mean that we're losing more jobs than we're gaining ah and, that, is of course not what it means but again, it seems like a highly. Understandable. Interpretation. Of what it means to have a deficit. What's. More there's, an underlying assumption. That, markets. In general must. Be a bad thing. That is they must have a negative social, impact. Of some kind and this, comes out of the idea, that, we judge a lot of things by the underlying motives, it drives them so, you, know if greed is the motive for, trade then the consequence, is that it produces must be socially. Bad. People. Believe that markets, and gem are not socially, beneficial things. Because. They're driven by self-interest. On the part of both parties, yet. Obviously, trade. Theory presumes, that greed can have beneficial, consequences for. Both people involved, in trade both parties involved. Beyond. That again you can really blame people for, thinking, that protectionism. Protects, us hey, it sure sounds, that way from the term doesn't it we call it protectionism, in fact there are lots of survey questions that ask if protectionism. Is a good thing and again who doesn't want to be protected, in some way, another. Belief again, all of these have emerging. From. Ellen evolutionary. Psychology, is that, things, that we possess, are rightfully. Ours, and we hear that a lot these days in terms of, jobs that, is if the jobs are here now they, must rightfully, be our jobs, and so, when, they go elsewhere we, say that foreigners, are stealing. Our jobs. That, those are actually rightfully, belonging, to us and someone even though maybe a long time ago they were someplace else, so possession. Equals ownership. The. Very first study I did a trade attitudes came out of a bet that I had with, one of my IR colleagues, over lunch in. Mansfield, and I were talking, I was studying trade at Sue's and he would say well you know we all know where trade addicts come from and you know launched. Into, heckscher-ohlin. And, Stolper Samuelson theories, and so forth about how, people's, personal, economic, self-interest, drove. Their, preferences, on trade and. I kind of smiled and said well yeah. In theory that's nice but that's we've done all this work in political psychology, showing. That people have a really tough time, connecting. Their, personal. Economic, interests, to the political world and, we, have many of them done by people here, in. Michigan like Don kinder for example. So. We decided to co-author and, we decided that he, would get to determine, what the data were that we collected, that is how. Much detail we had on their jobs the, industry, in which they were employed where, they lived all this kind of thing actually tape-recorded. A representative. Sample, of interviews. In the u.s. so that we could later. Code, a lot of the detail that people gave us during the interviews and, again. What we found was, more consistent, with the political psychology. Literature than, that in IP that, is we. Found that people's trade attitudes, were not even remotely related to their occupation. Or their. Industry, of employment. Whether, or not it was a line.
Of Work likely, to be positively. Negatively, influenced, by trade or not influenced, by trade at all didn't, seem to make a difference we. Also looked at job, loss in the immediate community, and whether that had an impact did not find anything the geographic, location heavy manufacturing area, or not so forth, individual. Job loss also didn't, seem to matter, we, also asked people questions about. Whether they thought the place that they worked was. Positively, negatively, or not influenced. By international. Trade and. To. See whether or not at least the subjective, perception, might influence, their attitudes toward trade, we, found that they, did no better than random guessing, most. People had no clue whether or not they were hooked into the International, economy in some way and. Essentially. Even their perceptions, didn't, have anything to do with their attitudes toward trade now, we did find that union members were. More anti trade but. When we looked at the union members, occupations. And forms, of employment and so forth, they. Were mostly, employed in non-tradable. Lines of work they're mostly teachers. Civil. Service employees, and so forth so the bulk, of the union members we're not actually those that we might stereotypically. Think of as union, members that. Is those in manufacturing. Work and so forth, the. Thing that is driven more than anything else this belief the, trade attitudes, are self-interested. Is the strong relationship. Between educational. Level and support, for trade the, more well educated you are the more supportive, you are of international, trade and that. Nothing, I'm going to show you today contradicts, that at all the, question, though is what does education, represent. Many. Scholars, have suggested it represents, skill level and the cut type of work you're in but. What. I'm going to suggest is that it represents something very different. Education. Does a lot of things for people and we know that from, a, lot, of work that has come before so. What. I'm arguing for is a different interpretation of, that particular relationship, to. Give you a sense of what. Happens when you ask the American public, whether, or not trade. Affects them or not they most. People say it has no effect whatsoever on their family financial, situation, and that, number this was originally, done in 2007. That number hasn't changed at all people still say they. Are not affected, by it however, they, do have impressions. That are a lot more interesting, of how the US, as a whole is affected. By train. If. It's not self interest driving, these attitudes, my, first guess was that it was going to be societal, views, that is what. They perceived to be in the country's, collective, interest matter even. If it's, not their own personal, financial situation and we did in fact find strong evidence, of that and. No evidence that the perceived effects on their own family, matter to, their trade attitudes, at all, the. Question, after, that became of course where do they get these perceptions, of how the country, as a whole is affected, by trade they. Appear to get them primarily from media. Did. A long-term, study of trade coverage, across, media. Sources, in the United States and the, main conclusions. Are that first. Of all before 2016. There was very little of it it's not a big source. Of news stories. Around. 2016. Though we did not only get a lot more stories we also get more balance, in coverage that is most. Of the stories going way back we're about the problems, trade causes, not, just job loss but other kinds of problems as well environmental. And so on and so forth what's. Interesting is around 2016. There. Is, more coverage in general and there's more balance. That coverage, now, the the really interesting thing is trying to explain why was it so negative before, I don't, think it was necessarily.
Partisan. Bias because people. Perceive both parties, elites, as being pro trade during that period of time it. May have been the media's sense that they. Were there, to counterbalance, the Washington, Consensus, and to push, back a little on behalf of the, common person I'm not really sure how to explain that yet but it's clear that the tone has changed post, Trump, there, is, a lot more coverage, of both the benefits, and the drawbacks of, trade, so, it, seems that trade is now within the realm, of legitimate, partisan, controversy, and thus is given a different type of coverage by media. I've. Done a bunch of experiments, on different types of coverage of trade. One. Of the things that I find, repeatedly. Is that people's. Mental, imagery, when you talk about trade, has a lot to do with the kind of attitudes, that they then express the. Negative, consequences. Job loss in particular, is, a lot easier to visualize than. Job Dan's when we give people equal. Numbers of both and, you ask them what's in their heads what are they visualizing, it's the negative stuff which, isn't surprising based. On what we know about political psychology, the, losers, from trade are a lot more vivid in people's minds than the winners but. Type of coverage also matters a whole lot. Individuals. Who are featured in these stories as case studies elicits, a lot more sympathy. Or empathy than. Whole, groups of people who have lost jobs in large, numbers, so the, one is more influential, than the many it. Has a laugh I did a image, search at one point this is just a plain Google image search for job loss and what. Do you see again. It's the kind of mental imagery that people gave, me in my studies it's a lot of white. Men looking sad with pink slips right there. Is that horrible one up here about PhD, don't read that one graduates just, ignore that but it just came up so. Yeah you see a lot of sad white guys here. You. Know layoffs wreck lives it's highly sympathetic, kinds of things I then, tried putting into it just a random google image search job, creation, or job gains and this is what you get you, get statistics. You, get graphs. And. Everything. We know suggest these are not going to move people to the same extent, that, these. Kinds. Of case study approaches, of people going through very very difficult, life experiences. Are, so. Overall, what. I can say about media coverage is that this case study framing, of job loss in particular, is extremely popular, I'm sure you've, all seen that kind of coverage but ask yourself whether you've seen any, case, study framing of job pinning it's probably. Not right, it's. Very difficult, to do a story on someone, who gained, a job due to export, markets even though those people obviously do exist it's. Multiple. Links. In a chain that, make that far less vivid in people's minds and far less. Important. As a part of the media coverage a. Lot. Of the coverage, that we see is about individual, users which I find have the most negative effect on trade attitudes. Even, when, we, balance. It out with trade winners, the. Other thing that most coverage does is it does suggest to, people that, most, manufacturing. Job loss in particular is. Due to trade and not, automation. That's important, because the reverse is actually, true like 85% of it is due to automation and 15 due to trade but.
The Public perception, is the reverse of that. And. Again, as you'll show, you that makes a difference in their attitudes, did. An experiment where we took an article off the front page of New York of a. Sad. White guy who lost his job at. A manufacturing plant, and couldn't. Put his kids through college and so forth and what's. Interesting about this is we only changed, one sentence, in the story and that was about why he lost his job in one case it was due to trade in, one case we didn't say that was our control condition, and in one case it was due to automation he was being replaced by a robot well. Interestingly, the. Belief that jobs, can come back is, far, greater when. It's a job loss student train then, when it's a job loss due to automation. People, believe this guy could, get his job back that those jobs can come back to the country. They, don't feel. That way when it's a robot they don't you, know envision, that happening support. For trade is not surprisingly, much higher when, job loss is attributed, to technology. Rather. Than to. Training, what. Was even more interesting to me though was oh yeah, this is a pointing. Out mainly but it's not just about job loss job loss is sad and this is real for these people but. We have job loss do two things other than trade and yet, it isn't nearly. As. Influential. When. People, read. About it for example, the, anger. That people voiced. When. The guys job, was lost due to trade significantly. Greater than, the. Anger that they felt when the, job was lost due to unstated, causes, or due. To automation so, people don't really get very mad at robots, even. Though robots, are stealing, their jobs it's. Far more personal. Far, more. Emotion. Emotionally. Evocative when, it is a person. In another country, in their mind. What. Else is, driving, trade, I've talked about media coverage and socio topes trophic, perceptions, of how the country as a whole is affected by it I. Had, a number of clues but I was honestly kind of starting from scratch here but, one, of the clues was that in the day, I had, just regular. Cross-sectional, survey data I had, measures of domestic, racism, just how blacks whites, and Hispanics feel. About the other group, I, found. That greater prejudice, was strongly, predictive. Of anti-trade. Views and. This. Turns. Out to be a finding that's been replicated. Since then and American national election study David and elsewhere but it. Didn't seem obvious to me what right I could see well maybe because, racial. Attitudes are linked to xenophobia, and attitudes. Toward foreigners, that would be the case. The. Second thing that was kind of surprising. To me is I, ask people about their trade attitudes a variety of different ways it didn't really matter they were highly, here correlated, but, the surprising, thing was that inward foreign.
Direct Investment, which brings jobs into, the country. Was. People's, attitudes, for that were highly correlated with her attitudes toward trade who, supposedly, disliked, because because. It took jobs out of the country right so. In fact there. Is highly correlated as are any two indicators, of trade attitudes, so, what, do they have in common, well, foreign. Right they both involve. Some. Sort of interaction, involvement. With foreigners, whether it's a foreign. Company locating. In the United States providing, jobs to Americans, or its. Trade producing. Competition. Via imports, so, again, it seemed like the operative, thing here that people are reacting to and, we didn't ask them by the way about foreign direct investment, we use the colloquial, way. That that is explained, to people but basically their. Attitudes were the same. The. Other thing, that was really surprising was, that minorities, are significantly. More favorable. Toward, international, trade than, our white Americans, now, this is something that was particularly surprising to those who approach this from the economic, standpoint because, of, course minorities, are much more vulnerable to, the negative impact that trade has because, of the kinds of jobs that they hold but. Overwhelmingly, at, least as of the, early 2000s. Minorities. Are more supportive and, Hispanics. Are most supportive. African-americans. After that but, basically. All, non-white. Groups. Were. Consistently. More. Pro. Trained this, was not something that Donald Trump created because it started long before Donald, Trump. The. Other thing I do is I did a survey where, I just asked people after, I asked them of whether they you know thought trade was a trade, agreements or a good idea or bad idea. Why, and then these are just open-ended, questions that were coded, later, on and, overwhelmingly. People's. Reasons. For disliking trade, are concentrated. Into two explanations. One, is the obvious one it's about jobs and hurting job availability, in the United States the. Second, though is, about in-group. Favoritism it's, if, you're not opposed, to trade you are not a loyal American. And. That you know the patriotic, thing to do is to be American by American, and so forth so. The desirability. Of, national. Ingre favoritism. Was mentioned, very. Very frequently, as. A reason, for disliking trade, this, of course was also part of Trump's. Campaign, what. I find interesting about it as a social, scientist, is that you, know we spent all this time in, our studies, trying, to allow, people. To, show, us there's socially, unacceptable views. Of various kinds, that involving, her favoritism, whether it's sexism racism or whatever, but. People have absolutely no, problem whatsoever. Saying. That. Expressing. In-group, favoritism toward. Their, nation, in. Fact many people did, say oh yeah, you're not a good American, if you support the international, trade so. Basically. I. Wanted, to look further at, in-group. Favoritism and, what that meant national, in-group favoritism in, particular, what. Is suggested to me was that Americans, should be more likely to support trade, with, those they dude as more or less like, them. That. Should be particularly important, to. White. Americans. The tendency, for the American, national identity, to, be viewed as white, Christian. Etc, and, Elizabeth. Tyson Morris work suggests that's the case not just among whites but even minorities. See. The American, identity in, those terms. Basically. People, trust, those who are similar to themselves when you trade a sandwich with somebody you're not going to do it with a total stranger you're, gonna do it with someone you trust and.
I. Wanted to see whether or not this also. Applied, in the context, of trade relationships. That, Americans, would prefer trading, more with, similar. Other countries, the problem with this sorry. We know that Americans. Are more supportive of trading with some countries than others but every country carries, all this baggage so, it's hard to say why so. Anytime you have those measures people will argue with you about oh no it's really because that, country we have this long history of a war with and so on and so forth so what, I did was had a survey experiment, or the national population and, what. I did was to describe a country for people and. We had five different characteristics. Of the country you just seeing three of them here that were randomly. Assigned we. Didn't tell them what country it was and, then. We asked them whether or not they would favor America, having a trade agreement with that country so. The whole idea was, to, see whether or not similarity. Of various kinds. Would. Influence people's, willingness. To, trade with these countries. What. We found is overwhelmingly. It does every, single additional, characteristic, that was similar. Boosted. Trade support by roughly the same amount didn't. Even matter which characteristic. What's. Problematic, about, that is that theoretically. It's. The dissimilarities. Of preferences. Endowments, technologies, and so forth that, are the major reason, the trade is beneficial, right we do what we do best they do what they do best and so forth and everybody gains so. The theory is that suggests, trade is good all rely on differences. In country endowments, the. Differences, between labor intensive, and capital intensive countries and so forth, but. In, actual practice if, you look at trade flows we, it looks a lot more like this public opinion data does that is we. Trade with countries, that are similar, to ourselves, that. Is the dominant pattern and it. Comes out in. Real. Italian flows not just public opinion, as well. We there's a lot of more trade between countries with cultural, and language similarities. And so forth. What's. More in this experimental, data what, you see is that those similarities, matter, a lot more whites. Whites. Are, much more likely there the dashed lines here stronger. Relationship. Meaning, they're affected, more by these cues, than our minorities, they care more about, similarity. To the United States than do minorities. By. The way it's also true when we just ask people what, countries they think we trade with that. People. Who. Name a lot of, dark-skinned. Countries, are more anti trade and people who name, a lot of light-skinned, countries are more pro trader, now that causal, relationship, could go either, way in, that case but that's the reason for the experiment, here, one. Of the things I get asked a lot is well, isn't, this really just a sense of loyalty that, people, have to, their, you. Know compatriots. Sense. Of duty or obligation. The. Problem, with this explanation for me is that it, doesn't fit other data that is people. Demonstrate. Little, enthusiasm, for helping, their fellow, Americans. Via. Things like social welfare and that's, true even when these, people are need due to trade related job loss so. You would think if you really are expressing. These views because you care about your in-group, your fellow Americans. That, you would be willing to support things like train adjustments distance, and so forth, but, instead, we see the opposite pattern and we also see that the more strongly people identify, as Americans, the more, likely they are to oppose, policies. That, help their fellow Americans so. It's hard to interpret people's. Of attitudes toward trade as a sense of loyalty to the in-group so, much as negative, attitudes, toward, out-group.
That Is our countries. Why. Is it people see it in these terms well. My. Own. Opinion. On this is that we suffer, as a country, from a huge lack of elite leadership. On this issue there's. Plenty, of elite, opportunism. In, this area for example we know that of, the political, ads aired, across, presidential. Gubernatorial. Senate. And congressional races. Out. Of a pool of like 5,000. Of them and, then have been gathered at this archive there's only one that. Is portrayed. Basically. When, this issue comes up it's. Something that people use to electoral advantage and they back straight I'm. Going to show you two, ads from the 2012. Election. So. You can get an idea of what I mean. One. Of the interesting. Things is we end up using these ads as, stimuli. In an experiment. That I'll show you the results of in a bit. Fewer. Americans, are working today than when President Obama took office it. Doesn't have, to be this way if, Obama would stand up to China China is. Stealing, American ideas. And technology, everything, from computers, to fighter jets, seven. Times Obama, could have taken action seven, times he said no his, policies, cost us two million jobs Obama. Had years to stand up to China we, can't afford for. More I'm, Mitt Romney and, I approved this message. It's. Time to stand up to the cheaters, and make, sure we protect jobs, for, the American people Mitt Romney tough. On China, Romney's. Companies, were called pioneers and, shipping US manufacturing. Jobs overseas he, invested, in firms that specialized. In relocating, jobs, to low-wage countries like. China even, today part of Romney's fortune, is invested, in China Romney's, never stood up to China all he's done is send, them our jobs. I'm Barack Obama and, I approve this message. Okay. So as you can see there's. Not a dice with a difference between these two candidates, and that is in fact what, our panel. Survey shows they perceived the Democrats, and Republicans, to be identical. The candidates, on train. In particular. The. Public has always been much less enthused, about international. Trade than elites have been even. Though international, trade was part of the Republican, platform in, 2012. What. Trump. Was able to capitalize on was the fact that not. Just Republicans. But in general, the American public, was already, less. Supportive, of trade. Going. Into the, 2016. Race. At. This point I decided that. You. Know I'm talking about basic, psychological things like in-group favoritism I really. Need to look at another country, that has a different, level of support for trade to get a sense of whether this is us specific, and just basic human psychology or, whether. Something. Different is going on and I chose Canada, in part, because I, can speak French and English and.
Not, A lot, else but. I knew that Canada, was a lot more Pro trade a lot more dependent, upon trade, as an economy, I also. Knew that Canadian, elites have, promoted. Trade, there has been an elite leadership, of opinion in this area in Canada. It's. Also true that they have a stronger, social. Welfare, safety net should you lose your job due. To train. The. Other thing that made, it particularly interesting in light of how, racial, attitudes, are related, to trade is, that Canada, and 1988. Passed. The. Multiculturalism. Act which officially. Identifies. Their, country, as. Promoting. Multiculturalism. And diversity as, a national, value, obviously. In the u.s., multiculturalism. Is still far, more controversial. So. I started out doing the same thing I did in the u.s. I asked people in open-ended, questions. Why. They like trade if they liked it so their, reasons, for favouring trade are almost. Exactly the same as Americans, that is overwhelmingly. They. Would cite first of all the availability. Of goods so again think of the sandwich, analogy, they. Have things we want we, have things they want that's why we trade. Very, much the, most, popular. Reason. Of. Anything, specific that people, said about reasons. For favoring trade I have to say it relative to the reasons for opposing trade these are all over the map there many more categories. But. Canadians. Sound a lot like the u.s. their reasons for opposing trade are also similar, and concentrated. On, job, loss in particular, and, uninjured. Favoritism. I heard, over and over again be Canadian by Canadian, and so, on the snow for so you might as well just plug and chug it's the very same things Americans, were saying. They. Also had similar types. Of misperceptions, of, trade they, misunderstood. Trade deficits, in the same way I suggested, earlier, the. Most surprising. One to. Economists. That I've talked about this with is I gave them a question that asked them about the effects of international, trade on consumer, goods in their country and there, are only three options, you could choose it increases, the cost of consumer goods it decreases, the cost of consumer goods or, it has no effect on the cost of consumer goods, basically.
People. Did tiny. Bit better than chance but under, 50%, of Americans, are aware the, trade lowers the cost of consumer, goods that they buy now. I thought that was just Oh Americans. Were so ignorant so forth it's exactly the same in Canada. They. Also do. Not understand, the relationship, between, trade, and, inexpensive. Consumer goods, and it was also the case that manufacturing. Job loss was. Viewed as primarily, results of trade in Canada as well. There's. Another difference though that turns out to be extremely important. And under, how, Canadians, responded, differently and that is Canadians. Are higher in what we call social dominance orientation. And sto, as it's commonly called is a measure of how, much you believe in, hierarchy, over equality and, it's not about particular, groups or, any. Content. Specific, thing it's just whether some groups have a right to dominate other groups, because. They're better than. Those other groups so, what, you see here is the u.s. is a lot higher on social, dominance that, is Canada, that, turns out to be important. To the story that I'm telling. Americans. Also you know based on world value survey, America's. Love competition, they, believe in the fairness of unequal. Outcomes, and that competition, you know separates, the wheat from the chaff and. Gives. The deserving, what they deserve, at. The expense of others so, basically. Americans. Are a more competitive. Bunch, than, any. Other industrialized. Country. What's. Interesting, when. We talk about trade. As a competition. Is that, one economist, talked about winners and losers due to trade they're talking about the distributional. Consequences of. Trade they're talking about the fact that people's certain lines of work are likely to be hurt and people in other lines of work are likely to benefit, that's, what they mean by winners and losers but the way the American public, talks about winners and losers do you trade is, as if this were the Olympics, and. We're competing with other countries. In. International. Trade and. The. Most common thing we're going to be the losers and they're the winners and so forth it's. A very different. Framing. Of winners and losers what. I found is this is pretty common even, this is a book by a couple of well-known journalists, called the betrayal of the American dream. That. Very much makes, this, zero-sum, argument. Basically. It's the CEO of a global hedge fund. Made. This clear to a Reuters, journalists, when he told her that, his firms investment, committee often discusses the question of who wins and who loses in, today's economy. He. Said one of his colleagues argued, recently that, the, American middle-class didn't. Really matter, his, point the CEO explained was that if the transformation, of the world economy, lifts. For people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class and, mimmo. Means one American, drops out of the middle class that's. Not such a bad deal okay. So. Of course these journalists, don't, agree with that view as they go on to say the only problem, is that no one told working Americans, they were going to forfeit their future, so that people in China India Brazil and other developing, countries could become part of a global middle class, okay. So you get the idea here that it's us, versus. Them, the. Way that's zero something is being, set, up. It's. A really good question right if, one, American, loses a job but for other people gain, them, is. That a good deal and this. Became the basis, for a survey experiment. That I did in both the US and in Canada and, I, asked people not just about jobs but about a whole bunch of different dimensions of how trade in. Their view influences, the US and influences, our trading partner countries what. Was fascinating. To me is that 50% of, the American public said, trade hurt, US jobs and helped, trading, partner jobs that, it was essentially, a form of foreign aid that, we were engaged in here very. Few people took the standard economists, view that it's a win-win kind of situation. Some. Were completely isolationist. And so forth but the, reason these don't add to 100 is that some people didn't know as particularly when it came to training partner countries what they thought. Here's. The same exact, question asked in Canada, okay. Instead. What we see when we combine those two questions is the only 27% of. Canadians. See, trade, in zero-sum, terms, far, more of them see it in terms of the standard economic view, that is that we, can both win due, to trade. Given. This difference, it means that Canadians. Are half, as likely as Americans, are to see trade in these zero-sum, highly, competitive terms. And what I find is this makes a big, difference. If, you look just straightforward survey, models, and so forth what. You find is that social, dominance only. Matters in the United States, this, may be in part due to the, impact of prejudice, against, racial out groups and foreigners or, from, just this competitive, need to dominate, other countries, the.
Other Thing that I find really fascinating is, nationalism. A scale asking, you know essentially do, you think your country is wonderful and everyone else should be like you. National. And reduces, support for trade in US that is the, more you think your country is wonderful the more you hate trade in. Canada, it's just the opposite, that is those who think, Canada's. The best thing since sliced bread are very pro trade and they're more Pro emigration, as well which is also the opposite. Of the, relationship. That. We're used to seeing why is that well, I think it has a lot to do with Canada, trying to define. Its national identity, in terms, of diversity and openness, if. You don't like Canada. Or if you don't like diversity, and openness you, don't like the Canadian government, because they have officially, made the country stand, for that so it makes some sense to me that. Nationalism. And thinking, canada's wonderful, goes hand in hand with being pro trade and pro immigration. In that context, the, american definition, is obviously very different. The. Final thing I did was to do a survey. Experiment. Following. Up this survey, to look at whether or not if we experiment, control, who wins and loses in, a given situation, do. Americans, and Canadians essentially. Respond the same way are they no different it's just they have different assumptions, that they bring to the table when they evaluate trade, or. Do they respond differently even, when we give them the same basic, facts about a, trade, agreement. Did, an experiment, that was, it looks big here but basically there, are three main conditions. In. One case we tell people the. Trading partner gains X number of jobs and, the home country loses X. Number of jobs in another case it's the reverse the trading partner loses and, the home country gains and we hold the total number of jobs constant. In. The third condition. It's, the win-win it's the classic economists. View that in fact everybody. Wins from. This arrangement and in. This case obviously more, jobs are. Gained because. Both are gaining and there is no loss those, are the three basic conditions. But we also altered. How much is gained or loss so, seven. Different. Possible. Combinations, of gain or loss across. Three, different. General. Scenarios, of who gains and who loses and the. Point of this was to see whether or not hey, at some point or if enough, jobs are gained by people, in the world due to this is it worth it even if let's, say one American loses, a job. Very. Simple experimental, treatment this is the whole thing right here. Depending. Upon whether you are in the US or Canada we're told your, country's considering, a trade policy that would have the following effects. And. Then people were just asked do, they favor the US embracing. That agreement or not or, opposed it I. Looked. For two forms, of Ingrid favoritism, here the first one I call compatriot, ISM which is the obvious just favoring.
Your, In-group your national in-group because, no citizens of the same country so to the extent that you're, more supportive, the more your. Country, gains that's. Evidence, of kin patriotism, so it's basically these first two conditions. And. What you see here is pretty interesting. Americans. Are more supportive when the. Home country gains and the, trade partner loses jobs, then. Our Canadians, the, Canadians, are the reverse when it comes to when they, lose and, the, training partner gains they're more willing, to support, it when it produces jobs for. Their trading, partners even, when it means a loss, of jobs within, their own country, so. This is obviously a strong interaction. Here between. Country. And these, experimental, scenarios. That were you know administered, identically, in the two places. We. Had open-ended, questions at the end of this that I find really interesting about. Asking. People what, they were thinking about is they decided, about this trade agreement there. Was plenty, of evidence of, people. Valuing, lives equally and overcoming, this kind. Of sense of tribalism, all people should be treated equal people shouldn't be favored just because of where they live, so, obviously, that idea is entering, their minds. Also. Some people saying it could help the rest of the world a lot more than it can help us so. We do see these kinds of comments however those are not the majority. Overwhelmingly. What we see is people making, statements about American. Lives being, more valuable or. Canadian. Lives be more valuable than, trading. Partner lives, or. Livelihoods I, should say my favorite, one is this one the, middle here Americans, greater than foreigners, all that. That was pretty concise, is but, basically you, get a strong sense, here, that, people. Feel we are more deserving, of, these. Jobs than, our people in our training come partner, countries, we, need to take care of our own first, we.
Should Care about our own people not in other countries, people and so forth, this. Is the predominant kind, of thing that people say, when we ask them what they were thinking about very much about in-group. Favoritism. This. Is a front. Page article from the New York Times that caught my attention in part because I'm from Indiana this is not a company in Indiana. That was closing and. Basically. This woman here her name is Shannon okay. She this is your classic case study frames she is losing her job it's going to Mexico, but. What's really interesting and, I think representative. Of the more nuanced, kinds, of stories that we're seeing about people hurt by trade, is, that in this story. It's. Actually three whole interior, pages the New York Times really long, basically. She. Has given, the. Option. Of going, to Mexico to train her replacement and, she, decides. I've. Never been to Mexico sure, I'll go and I'll get paid more and given that I'm losing my job I could use the money so. Some of her co-workers criticized her for that but, she. Does go to Mexico, she, trains her replacement, and. She kind of changes, and the story really follows, that for example. Ricardo's. The guy she's training training, he. Pecks at a calculator, 16, he knows Rex nor could pay 16, Ricardo's, for the cost of one shamon. Okay. So they're doing things that kind of calculus. That was in the journalist, book. 16. Ricardo's, could be paid for when Shannon, and she. Starts to like this guy - um and, then. She, finds out what, his standard, of living is like and it's. Not nearly as good as hers in the US and she. Actually comes, to think as the article, ends, she. Says well I'm. Not having about losing my job but I guess it's his turn to be blessed so there's, this kind of um when. I want to say lack of anger, that comes. Out in the story after. She, goes and sees what that situation, is well, one. Of the things that's fascinating to me is that in. Canada, we can actually you. Know identify, at what, level, of gain to, the trading partner countries do. People essentially, say yeah the loss of one, Canadian job is okay it's worth it I'll support trade and you, can see that by where these two lines cross, when we take into account jobs. Gained and loss and basically, one Canadian jobs worth. Ten trading. Partner jobs in. The minds of Canadians, the. Really interesting thing about this though is when you look at Americas. They. Never cross and. I'll be honest you know I pre tested this experiment, on em turned and they, did cross em. Talkers look like Canadians. When. You do the same experiment but, in these representative, samples, there, is no amount, of gain, in trading, partner countries, that, makes, Americans, okay with the loss of even one American, job now. What that suggests is, that this is a highly symbolic, attitude. And that. Is in fact what I find across the board. People. Favor and a published trade for reasons that have little to do with complex, calculations. About jobs or, incomes. Or risk of job loss and so, forth. Moving. On I want to talk about a second, form of in-group favoritism which, I find even more interesting, and that is this. Notion of intergroup competition. I've mentioned that Americans, are a lot more competitive, and Canadians in general.
They Like competition, more. What. I mean here is a tendency to favor the national in group relative. To the out group so. That they maximize, their relative, advantage, over the, other country, so, in this case they're following a strategy of maximizing. The difference, between what they get and what, the other countries. Get and this is something Jim sedae Gnaeus has called Vladimir's. Choice, and it's, based on this Eastern, European folk tale about. A guy named Vladimir, Vladimir. Is a peasant. He's a good life that comes, to imitative his life and says I will. Give you one wish, anything you want you name it it's, one catch though whatever. I give you I'm giving to your neighbor Ivan twice, over so. Buddy who thinks about it and says fine take out one of my eyes. Okay. So, obviously he doesn't end up better off but, he is relatively, a lot better off and, Ivan is who's now completely, blind well, it's the same kind of logic that, we see in. The integral, competition. Comparison. Here we. Know that, being competitive. Makes, you more susceptible, to, this and, what's. Interesting is in the US when. We compare the conditions, where the in-country games are identical, and the two conditions all, that's, different is whether the trading partner loses or the trading partner also gains from, this agreement there, is absolutely no difference, between Americans, level of support for it so you, know you look at this and you say well basically Marys don't care about how other countries are affected. By. Trade. What's. Interesting, is. That in Canada they do in. Canada they're significantly, greater support, for the win-win, policy. As. Opposed to the one where the in country win wins the same amount but the trading partner, loses, jobs so. More. Orientation. Toward the greater collective. Beam. From, the policy, again. When you put those two things together for Canada in the US again, what you see is when it's a game game Canadians. Like. To trade the most because, everybody wins, but. The more competitive, Americans, prefer, when. The trading partner, loses. And the u.s. gains they're, more supportive. Under. Conditions where it increases their relative dominance over. The, other country, yeah, I know it doesn't make it sound very nice. Well. Basically. What. We see is, that the biggest difference comes. In in. Attitudes. When it comes to whether or not Americans. Actually think, of trade, in. Terms of competition. And whether or not we want to increase our relative, advantage, versus. Simply, whether we gain, from. That experience, or not so. If, you look at these are all 27. Conditions shown simultaneously, here. For the three. Different scenarios. This. Intergroup, competition, thing turns out to tell us a lot about group. Differences in u.s. for example if you look at Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans. Overwhelmingly like, trade when the u.s. wins and the trading partner loses again, far, more emphasis. On an agreement, where we win they lose we, dominate, more Democrats. On are, more supportive of the win-win type. Of trade agreement in the u.s. we. See the same difference, with men. And women mag. Are more likely to favor the competitive. Scenario. Where we win, more than they do. Women. On the other hand are more, supportive of trade when, everybody, wins when, it's more of a cooperative. Everybody, wins type of arrangement. Before. I finish I want to talk a little bit about. This. Is my excuse for what I'm not done with this book yes thanks. Keep happening and they're really interesting, so we, had rising. Opposition, to trade between 2012. And 2015, and I can, show a zillion measures that show that but. What's fascinating is, what's happened, since then we've. Had a continuations. Instead of the same pattern, of, basically. The same. Percentage. Of people fake, trade has affected, them positively, and negatively at, the individual, level no, big, difference there at all but. We've, also had. The. Racialization, of, trade going on at the same time and, what I mean by that is that we, know racial attitudes are linked, to trade and I. Had a feeling, that all this anti, trade rhetoric we saw like in those ads, did. More than just encourage, opposition. To trade so did, this experiment, and is allows for experimental, design where we use those two ads I showed you earlier Obama. And Romney's. Trade bashing, ads or China bashing as I guess you could call them and basically. People participated. In one experiment and then an hour later. We asked them if they could sort these students for admission to a college to to these links should get in, and. We rotate the characteristics, of students so they're exactly equally. Qualified and, so forth, all. That we change is what they look like and whether they're, Asians.
Chinese, Nationals, or Asian Americans, and what, we find is that those. Exposed, to the trade, bashing, ads were, systematically. Less, supportive. Of the. Asian American students, even though they're Paul vacations were identical, so. It's, not only that attitudes, toward foreigners, are influencing. People's attitudes, toward trade it's, also that, their attitudes, toward trade are. Influencing. Their attitudes, I think. I've got the reference but you've got the idea toward. Borders so regardless. Of what kind of anti. China campaign, ad you're exposed to again. I don't think people were at all where they, were influenced, this way but. They found Chinese. Nationals, and asian-americans. Both less, deserving. Having. Seen that ad in the outfit for. Part. Of the reason I did that study was because people told me that oh no it's, not going to influence the election I actually, have some mounted as it did play a big role in the election. But. I think it's also true that it affects society. As a whole that, we find it's socially acceptable to, bash. Foreigners, this, is another experiment, we did job. Law student trade made. People think, Asians. Were less trustworthy, Chinese, in particular in this case we, also gave people a list of negative tiny stereotypes. We, didn't ask them and they supported them because we pretty much knew they wouldn't say they did but, we asked them whether these would be unacceptable things, to say like at a cocktail party and if. You've seen the trade bashing as you're more likely to say it's, acceptable, to, say these kinds, of things. Even. Again, if we had a job loss new technology, didn't create that same kind of effect at all I. Don't. Think I want to point out is although some, of this is kind of depressing the. Other thing we've done is look at how malleable, people's. Attitudes, toward trade are and what we find is that you.
Know The economic, arguments, really don't work very well we've. Tried to educate, people about the cost of consumer, goods to determine we don't get any change in their trade attitudes, however. When we go for trust interpersonal. Trust. We. Find that we can move people's, attitudes, toward, trade and I want to give you an example of, that, here's an example of one of our failed ones where, we, take the cost of consumer goods and show how massively, more expensive, they are if they're made overseas people. I mean if they're made in the US that overseas people, don't care it had no influence whatsoever, done. Other ones of this variety on. The other hand. Approaches. That emphasize, human. Similarity, we, found very big, and consistent. Affection to show you an example I think the Chinese people. And their, work. Ethic is the key to the future, they, have immolated. In what we did with I just, resolution. And they're taking, it to another level and we. Want to be there with us. What. Would surprise you, about America. And Chinese, citizens, if there were more life than we're different because, both cultures, are based, on family. Values. When. A Chinese company purchases, a cup in the US I think the thought is they're, gonna come here they're, gonna buy the company, take the brand move all the manufacturing, to China and not. Do anything to help with us market, economy, we've, found out to be the exact opposite. We. Were concerned listening. To different, things on TV about the Chinese how they were trying to buy up everything but, it hasn't happened we're able to hire people on and we hadn't done that in many years it's, like a family atmosphere when. TDC, bought into it I had my daughter she was in college but she graduated, so. That helped. Me put her through, college which I was concerned about I also have a grandson, he's awesome but you know her teenagers, are very expensive, so, thanks. To Jeff. I'm. Still able to afford him. My. English name is Jeff Chi I got this name when I was in university, if we work in this company you try to love this company try to make this company like your family, beginning, of this company and make that word company. Is your family. Well, the price of lumber had got down so low that. It. Was hard to make it and so we closed the business down but. Jimmy. Came along and offered, me a job. That. Was his first employee, I didn't. Know what to expect. From a Chinese, boss man. Never. Worked around in any. Chinese, people so. It. Was quite an experience and, it. Was a great experience too he. Put a great, number of people back to work, well Jimmy he counts us all family, when. We have our meetings, that's one of the first things he'll say is. My, family. Chinese. Companies, have invested, more. Than 46. Million dollars since 2000. And that, alone has. Created, over. 80,000. Jobs in, the United States we all have a dream right and whether it's an American dream our China dream when. You wake up as a child and, your parents are telling you you can be anything you want to be that's. Universal, right it doesn't matter where you're from and, I think if we're working together and, we're talking about what our goals are what is our dream what do we want to be then, we have a chance to getting there together.
Okay. As, you can see. But. The emphasis here is on how we're all the same right, we. Found that, in experiments. That this ad had a really. Big effect on people's attitudes not just toward foreign direct investment. In, the United States from Chinese companies which is really what it was designed to do it, also improves, their attitudes toward trade with China the, Chinese people became more trustworthy etc. Etc what's. Fascinating about, this is that what are my graduate. Students from China. You, know originally brought this to my attention and. They're. A bunch of videos like this this isn't the only one and they're all very professional, and part. Of what he. Told. Me was that it, says it's made by the Communist, Party trying to hear at the end okay.
2019-04-14 13:48
