Faculty Affiliate
About
Nicholas A. Valentino is a Professor of Political Science and Research Professor in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. He currently serves as a PI of the American National Election Studies (ANES). He was President of the International Society for Political Psychology from 2019-2020 and has served on the American National Election Studies Board since 2010, becoming Associate PI in 2018. Valentino specializes in political psychological approaches to understanding public opinion formation, socialization, information seeking, and electoral participation. His work employs experimental methods, surveys, and content analyses of political communication. The research has focused on the intersecting roles of racial attitudes and public emotions, especially the distinct power of anger versus fear. He has also written extensively on the causes and consequences of empathy for ethnic outgroups.
His work has been published in outlets such as the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, Political Psychology, Political Communication, and Public Opinion Quarterly. He is a co-author (with Cigdem Sirin and Jose Villalobos) of Seeing Us in Them: Social Divisions and the Politics of Group Empathy, Cambridge University Press. The book has won several awards, including the APSA Best Book, the David Sears Best Book in Political Psychology at ISPP, and the Robert Lane Best Book in the Political Psychology section of APSA. He also wrote Beyond Rationality: Behavioral Political Science in the 21stCentury, also with Cambridge University Press, coauthored with Alex Mintz and Carly Wayne. Valentino is currently exploring the changing nature of racial rhetoric in America and around the world, and the ways empathy for outgroups can blunt dangerous overreactions to threats from globalization and multiculturalism.
Books:
Seeing Us in Them: Social Divisions and the Politics of Group Empathy (Cambridge University Press 2021, with Cigdem Sirin and Jose Villalobos)
Beyond Rationality: Behavioral Political Science in the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press 2021, with Alex Mintz and Carly Wayne)
My students on the market:
Erin Cikanek
Hilary Izatt
Sara Morell
Recent Students:
Antoine Banks (University of Maryland), Eric Groenendyk (University of Memphis), Yanna Krupnikov (Michigan), Anil Menon (UC Merced), Fabian Neuner (Arizona State), Marzia Oceno (Florida International University), Timothy Ryan (UNC), Ismail White (Princeton University), Princess Williams (Amherst College), and Kirill Zhirkov (Virginia)
