Kristyn Karl (kkarl)

Kristyn Karl

Associate Professor

School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Education

  • PhD (2015) University of Michigan (Political Science)
  • MA (2011) University of Michigan (Political Science)
  • BA (2006) Franklin & Marshall College (Government, Psychology)

Research

Political Psychology, Emotion, Gender & Political Attitudes, Partisan Bias, Public Opinion & Nuclear Weapons, Risk Perception, Biological Foundations of Political Behavior

Institutional Service

  • HASS Subject Pool Chair
  • International Politics Search Committee Chair
  • Vice President Enrollment Management Search Committee Member
  • Faculty Senate Member
  • Junior Faculty Board of Representatives Member
  • Ad Hoc Committee on Stevens Employee Handbook Member
  • Academic Appeals Committee Chair
  • External Unit Review: Center for Faculty Engagement & Advancement Member

Professional Service

  • Reviewer
  • Reviewer
  • Chair, Discussant
  • American Journal of Political Science; Political Behavior; Science Communication; Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Reviewer
  • American Political Science Association; International Society of Political Psychology; Southern Political Science Association Discussant

Professional Societies

  • SPSA – Southern Political Science Association Member
  • WCPS – National Women's Caucus for Political Science Member
  • Midwest Political Science Association Member
  • APSA – American Political Science Association Member
  • ISPP – International Society of Political Psychology Member

Grants, Contracts and Funds

Reinventing Civil Defense. Carnegie Corporation of New York. ($500,000; PI, with Alex Wellerstein). Seeks to develop new communication strategies regarding nuclear risk that have high potential to resonate with a public audience. Building on the prior history of Civil Defense, the overarching goal is to identify what an effective, non-partisan, level-headed approach to nuclear risk communication looks like in the 21st century.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Nuclear Risk Communication Tools.
Thompson Family Foundation. ($37,600; PI, with Ashley Lytle).

Gender, Emotion, and Political Communication. Stevens’ College of
Arts and Letters Small Grant ($3,900; with Lindsey Cormack).

Selected Publications

Kristyn L. Karl & Yu Tao. 2023. "Correcting Overconfidence in Online Privacy: Experimenting with an Educational Game." Information, Communication, and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2166360

Cormack, Lindsey, & Kristyn L. Karl. 2022. “Why Women Earn High Marks: Examining the Role of Partisanship and Gender in Political Evaluations.” Politics & Gender, 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X2100012X

Karl, Kristyn L., & Lytle, Ashley. 2021. “Nuclear weapons risk communication: evaluating the impact of message exposure and format.” Journal of Risk Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1819387

Kristyn L. Karl & Lindsey Cormack. 2021. “Big Boys Don’t Cry: Evaluations of Politicians Across Issue, Gender, and Emotion.” Political Behavior, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-021-09727-5

Lytle, Ashley, & Karl, Kristyn L. 2020. “Understanding Americans’ Perceptions of Nuclear Weapons Risk and Subsequent Behavior.” International Journal of Communication, [S.l.], v. 14, p.25. ISSN 1932-8036. Available at: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/12369

Karl, Kristyn L. 2019. “Motivating Participation Through Political Ads: Comparing the Effects of Physiology and Self-reported Emotion.” Political Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-019-09569-2

Karl, Kristyn L. & Ryan, Timothy J. 2016. “When are Stereotypes about Black Candidates Applied? An Experimental Test.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, 1(2): 253-279. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2015.6

Arthur Lupia, Logan S. Casey, Kristyn L. Karl, Spencer Piston, Timothy J. Ryan, and Christopher Skovron. 2015. “What Does it Take to Reduce Racial Prejudice in Individual-Level Candidate Evaluations? A Formal Theoretic Perspective." Political Science Research and Methods, 3(1): 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2014.12

Ted Brader, George Marcus, and Kristyn L. Miller. 2011. “Emotion and Public Opinion” In Robert Shapiro and Lawrence Jacobs (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media. Oxford University Press, 384-401.

Courses

Political Psychology and the Media

Research Design and Methodology,

Introduction to Science Communication

U.S. Campaigns and Elections

STEM Law and Policy, Pre-College Summer Program

Special Topics: Persuasion and Communication Strategy

Seminar in Leadership Studies