Help fund my dissertation research!

I am studying the social and psychological factors that influence political polarization for my dissertation. America has become more polarized than ever and this continues to grow at an unsustainable rate. My research will consist of two experiments. The first will determine if increasing self-esteem can decrease negative feelings for the political outgroup and also make partisans process information more objectively. The second study will collect data on the types of people Democrats and Republicans talk to and then assess what components of personal discussion networks are associated with reduced polarization. The goals of the project are to expand academic knowledge, but also generate possible ways to reduce polarization.

I will be collecting data from Democrats and Republicans online. I will pay them to participate in my study and there will be a total of 580 participants. The total cost to pay them is $1,202. I also need to purchase a student subscription to Qualtrics software so I can run my experiments online. This costs $95 and brings the total to $1,297. Thankfully, I received a $1,000 research award from my department so I only need to cover the remaining $297.

I will definitely share the results of my work with the public once I am done! I aim to collect data by the end of October 2019, write up my findings in my dissertation during the next few months, and then finish my PhD by the summer of 2020. 

Here is my website to check out my previous research and other work. 

Thank you so much!