Assistant Professor Hillary Shulman and PhD student Matthew Sweitzer recently co-authored an article in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology on research showing that when students are asked political questions using simple language, they reported liking politics more and being more confident in their political abilities.

The article, “Varying Metacognition through Public Opinion Questions: How Language Can Affect Political Engagement,” reports the findings of an experiment that examined whether the difficulty of language used in public opinion questions influenced people’s reports of political interest and political efficacy.