Peer-reviewed Publications
The motivation and consequence of fact-checking behavior: An experimental study
PLoS ONE, 2025, 20(4), e0323105. [ Abstract | Open Access | Harvard Dataverse ]
In a series of online experiments, we asked subjects to evaluate news veracity and varied two experimental conditions: (1) the opportunity to receive fact-checking results and (2) bonus payment for accuracy. We tested three competing theories for fact-checking behavior: value of information (VoI), limited attention (LA), and motivated reasoning (MR). We find that monetary incentives do not promote fact-checking. Prior awareness of the news and perceived easiness in determining news authenticity significantly reduce fact-checking. Democrats are more likely to fact-check on the news aligning with Republicans' ideology, suggesting a tendency to seek information when there is a need to defend one's pre-existing belief. Overall, our results contradict VoI, show mixed evidence for MR, and support LA. When available, fact-checking consistently improves subjects' accuracy in evaluating news veracity by over 40%, underscoring the importance of promoting fact-checking in curbing misinformation.
Bureaucrat or artificial intelligence: People’s preferences and perceptions of government service
Public Management Review, 2024, 26(6), 1498–1525. [ Abstract | Preregistration | Preprint | Postprint ]
The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in public service delivery presents important yet unanswered questions about citizens’ views of AI. Especially, are citizens’ perceptions of decisions made by AI different from those made by bureaucrats? We answer this question by conducting a conjoint experiment. Our results show that individuals prefer minority bureaucrats over AI to make decisions. This is particularly true for racially minoritized citizens. However, when passive representation within the bureaucracy is unavailable, racially minoritized individuals do not have a clear-cut preference between AI and out-group bureaucrats. Our findings provide insight into the interaction between automation, representation, and equity.
Get bureaucrats on board: Unmasking bureaucrats’ attitudes toward the government’s adoption of AI
ACM dg.o, 2024, June 11-14. [ Abstract | Postprint ]
With the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), governments around the world have been exploring possibilities to adopt AI technologies in their operations to improve efficiency and citizen satisfaction. Few studies examine bureaucrats' preferences of using or working with AI in making decisions and delivering public services. Are they supportive of government use of AI? We answer this question by analyzing public officials' opinion data from Taiwan Government Bureaucrats Survey. Our results show that bureaucrats with higher levels of innovativeness favor the idea of adopting AI in their organizations whereas bureaucrats with higher levels of career commitment oppose such adoption.
Body-worn cameras and representation: What matters when evaluating police use of force?
Public Administration Review, 2023, 84(6), 1117-1133. [ Abstract | Preregistration | Postprint ]
Public administration scholarship seeks to understand ways to increase accountability within the policing profession. We employ an online conjoint experiment to disentangle the effects of both representation and BWC on police accountability and legitimacy. In the experiment, we ask participants to rate the likelihood that a police use of force incident prompts an investigation when there is a BWC present and racial and gender representation matches between the officer and the civilian in the use of force incident. We find that Caucasian officers who use force are more likely to be investigated. Our findings also reveal that civilians believe male officers who use force should be investigated and there is no need for further investigation when a BWC is utilized during a use of force situation. The implications of this study show that civilians view BWCs as the most important tool is providing accurate and honest assessment of police-civilian encounters.
The power of protest on policing: Black Lives Matter protest and civilians evaluation of the police
Public Administration Review, 2022, 83(1), 130-143. [ Abstract | Preregistration | Postprint ]
In 2020, police brutality against Black Americans catalyzed BLM protests across all 50 states. Though BLM protests continue to permeate society, few scholars explore how these protests change Americans’ perceptions of the police. To investigate this phenomenon more meticulously, we administered an online survey experiment—oversampling Black American participants—to measure how protest culture, specifically BLM protests, influence participants’ perceptions of the police. Our survey found that 1) Black American participants have a lower evaluation of police performance, but a higher evaluation of the BLM Movement than White American participants and 2) the presence of a general protest negatively impacts peoples’ perception of police performance. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) these findings suggest that the visibility of BLM protest changes both Black and White perceptions of the police at varying degrees.
Flagging fake news on social media: An experiment of media consumers’ identification of fake news
Government Information Quarterly, 2021, 38(3), 101591. [ Abstract | Preregistration | Preprint | Postprint ]
- Florida State University de Guzman Best Graduate Paper Award for 2020
- Media Appearance: Taiwan Communications Commission, Austrian Federal Ministry of Defence, Medical News Today
Policymakers are taking action to protect their citizens and democratic systems from online misinformation. However, media consumers usually have a hard time differentiating misinformation from authentic information. There are two explanations for this difficulty, namely lazy reasoning and motivated reasoning. While lazy reasoning suggests that people may feel reluctant to conduct critical reasoning when consuming online information, the motivated reasoning theory points out that individuals are also thinking in alignment with their identities and established viewpoints. A proposed approach to address this issue is adding fact-checking flags in the hope that flags could alert people to information falsehoods and stimulate critical thinking. This study examines the impact of fact-checking flags on media consumers' identification of fake news. Conducting an experiment (n = 717) on Amazon Mechanical Turk, the study finds that experimental participants with different political backgrounds depend heavily on flag-checking results provided by flags. Flags are powerful to influence people's judgments in a way that participants have blind beliefs in flags even if the flag assessments are inaccurate. Furthermore, the study's results indicate that flag assessments made by professional fact-checkers or crowdsourcing are equally influential in shaping participants' identification. These observations provide public and private leaders with suggestions that fact-checking flags can significantly affect media consumers' identification of fake news. However, flags appear to have little ability to promote critical thinking in this experiment.
Place plus race effects in bureaucratic discretionary power: An analysis of residential segregation and police stop decisions
Public Performance & Management Review, 2021, 44(2), 352-377. [ Abstract | Postprint ]
- Media Appearance: The Washington Post, Bill of Health, Florida Politics, Newswise, sciencenewsnet.in
Discrepancies in bureaucrat behavior, residential segregation, and police stops that turn deadly have spurred critical analysis surrounding who gets stopped by the police and what happens once they get stopped. This study considers the effect of officers’ decision when performing vehicle stops and conducting vehicle or person searches, as measured at the block group level in Minneapolis neighborhoods. This research is one of the few empirical studies within public administration which examines police stop decisions during vehicle stops in segregated areas, and one of the few empirical studies that explores police actions toward immigrants. We find that majority African American areas of high segregation have 40% more vehicle or person searches than other parts of the city. Second, we find that in predominately African American areas with growing pockets of East African immigrant areas will be subject to 50% more vehicle and person searches. These results indicate that Black (whether native or foreign born) populations of people are more likely to have investigatory interactions with police officers.
Policy Briefs & Popular Writings
Students as faculty gender equity allies: Mitigating students’ gender biases through short-term awareness intervention and long-term research literacy training
University of Dayton Provost’s Office, 2024. [ Report ]
COVID-19 in Florida: A breakdown of disparities in the Black population by county for June & July 2020
Florida State University Libraries, 2020. [ Report ]
COVID-19 in Florida: Disparities in the Black population
Wicked Problems, Wicked Solutions, 2020. [ Webpage ]
