Jaime Settle

Research Interests

American Politics, Political Psychology, Biological Components of Political Behavior, Social Networks and Social Media, democratic erosion 

Background

Jaime Settle is the Department Chair and Professor of Government at William & Mary. She is the director of the Social Networks and Political Psychology Lab and co-director of the Social Science Research Methods Center. 

Professor Settle is a scholar of American political behavior with expertise in the fields of political psychology and communication. Her research focuses on how political interactions—in both face-to-face and online contexts—affect the way individuals perceive conflict in their environment, evaluate other people, and engage within the political system. She integrates tools from other disciplines—such as behavior genetics, psychophysiology, and data science—to inform our approach in understanding key questions within political science. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and Meta.

Settle has published dozens of peer-reviewed manuscripts or chapters, including several in venues such as Nature, Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. In 2018, her first book Frenemies: How Facebook Polarizes America was published by Cambridge University Press. The book has won the prestigious Philip E. Converse Award (best book published in previous 10 years from the Elections, Voting, and Public Opinion section) as well as the Doris Graber Award (best book published at least five years ago from the Political Communication section), in addition to recognition from the Experiments Section and Political Networks Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). Her second book, What Goes Without Saying: Navigating Political Discussion in America, was co-authored with W&M alum Taylor Carlson ('14), and received a best book award the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and from the Political Networks section of APSA.

In 2018, she won an Outstanding Faculty Award—Rising Star from the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia, which recognizes excellence in teaching, research, and public service. In 2019, she won a Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence, which will fund work with her lab students in the coming years. Settle served on the board of the American National Election Study between 2019 and 2025 and has served as an associate editor at the Journal of Experimental Political Science and at Political Behavior.

Dr. Settle graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Richmond (2007). She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at San Diego (2012).