Research Interests
American Politics, Political Psychology, Biological Components of Political Behavior, Social Networks and Social Media
Background
Professor Jaime Settle received her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Richmond and her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at San Diego. She teaches courses on various aspects of American politics, focusing primarily on topics related to political behavior and psychology. Professor Settle incorporates data and methods from the natural sciences into her research to help explain fundamental aspects of political behavior. Her dissertation examined how innate differences between people—genetic, psychological, and personality—moderate the effect of exposure to political contention on voter turnout. She is also interested in the potential of large-scale datasets derived from online social networks (such as Facebook) to refine an understanding of the effects of our social network on how we think, feel and behave politically. Her work has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and American Politics Research.