Browsing by Subject "Risk acceptance"

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When Latinos reject and accept uncertainty : risk attitudes and political mobilization
(2019-08) Tafoya, Joe Robert; Leal, David L.; Michelson, Melissa R; Luskin, Robert C; Shaw, Daron R
In this dissertation, I examine how political participation is shaped by the avoidance and acceptance of risks (better known as “risk attitudes”). This relationship, I posit, influences Latino and Black political behavior as it helps to account for advantages, disadvantages, and differences in engagement compared to the white majority. First, I present the emergence of risk attitudes from prospect theory and its contribution to understanding human behavior. I develop a hypothesis for racial and ethnic minority differences in risk attitudes based on socioeconomic disadvantages and demographic and political differences with Whites. I uncover that differences in underpinnings of risk attitudes are unique to Latino political efficacy, whereby risk accepting Latinos are more confident about their influence on politics than White peers. Second, I raise the puzzle that while non-electoral participation is costlier than voting, Blacks and Latinos report being (or desiring to be) as involved or more than Whites, finding that risk acceptance emboldens minorities to report high participation and that the effect is strongest for Latinos without prior experience in the activities. Third, I establish with voter validation records that voting is also associated with risk attitudes but in the opposite direction – risk averse, not risk accepting respondents were more likely to have voted. Risk acceptance yields Latino voting gaps with Whites, I observe, while the gaps are bridged with White peers under risk aversion. I also find that the relationship between risk attitudes and voting is conditional on campaign contact, as only contacted risk averse Latinos voted more than risk accepting counterparts. I conclude that mobilization efforts encouraging Latino voting may spend resources more efficiently by screening for risk attitudes, targeting the risk averse with traditional methods, and changing messaging for the risk accepting to loss-oriented frameworks. These findings suggest avenues for increasing the diversity of voices in civic and electoral arenas of democracy, as risk attitudes might be primed to supplement traditional forms of political mobilization.