publications | Alberto López Ortega

2025

Do Citizens Stereotype Muslims as an Illiberal Bogeyman? Evidence from a Double-List Experiment

Stuart J Turnbull-Dugarte , Alberto López Ortega , and Michael Hunklinger

British Journal of Political Science, 2025

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Does learning political candidates’ social categories through visual cues affect voter preferences? This paper explores this question by conducting a visual conjoint survey experiment with 2,324 German voters, varying whether respondents received information on candidates through explicit labels or pretested AI-generated candidate pictures. The results confirm our expectations that the way in which social categories are perceived affects preferences, with visual cues having a more significant effect on voter preferences compared to textual cues, leading to more discriminatory preferences for certain social categories. Moreover, we show that the effect of visual cues is moderated by the visibility of social categories, with visible social categories, such as gender binaries and ethnic in-/out-group, eliciting more discriminatory preferences with visual cues. The study sheds light on how visible and invisible social categories affect political candidates’ preferences and emphasizes the importance of considering the intersectionality of social categories and their relationship with ideology.
@article{turnbull2025bogeyman, author = {Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart J and López Ortega, Alberto and Hunklinger, Michael}, title = {Do Citizens Stereotype Muslims as an Illiberal Bogeyman? Evidence from a Double-List Experiment}, year = {2025}, journal = {British Journal of Political Science}, }
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries

TISP project

Nature Human Behaviour, 2025

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Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most people trust scientists and agree that scientists should engage more in society and policymaking. We found variations between and within countries, which we explain with individual- and country-level variables, including political orientation. While there is no widespread lack of trust in scientists, we cannot discount the concern that lack of trust in scientists by even a small minority may affect considerations of scientific evidence in policymaking. These findings have implications for scientists and policymakers seeking to maintain and increase trust in scientists.
@article{colgna2025trust, author = {project, TISP}, title = {Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries}, year = {2025}, journal = {Nature Human Behaviour}, }
How congruent are populist parties with their constituencies? Evidence from the 2019 European Parliament Elections in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden

Andrei Zhirnov , Jan Philipp Thomeczek , Michele Scotto Di Vettimo , and 5 more authors

Electoral Studies, 2025

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The rise of populism in Europe has often been described as a response to representation deficits. Arguably, populist parties (1) contribute to the representation of underrepresented constituencies by taking stances that non-populist parties are too constrained to advocate and (2) make a promise of extreme responsiveness to those frustrated with the lack of representation. In this research note, we investigate whether populist parties are indeed closer to their voters in the policy space than non-populist parties and are more congruent with their constituencies than the other parties are with theirs. Using data from Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, we find that populist parties are indeed often the best policy option for their voters, but the correspondence between their positions and those of their constituencies is on average as good or bad as that between other parties and their voters.
@article{zhirnov2025congruence, author = {Zhirnov, Andrei and Thomeczek, Jan Philipp and Scotto Di Vettimo, Michele and López Ortega, Alberto and Krouwel, André and Antonucci, Lorenza and Di Stefano, Roberta and Kersting, Norbert}, title = {How congruent are populist parties with their constituencies? Evidence from the 2019 European Parliament Elections in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden}, year = {2025}, journal = {Electoral Studies}, }

2024

Visual conjoint vs. text conjoint and the differential discriminatory effect of (visible) social categories

Alberto López Ortega , and Marco Radojevic

Political Behavior, 2024

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Does learning political candidates’ social categories through visual cues affect voter preferences? This paper explores this question by conducting a visual conjoint survey experiment with 2,324 German voters, varying whether respondents received information on candidates through explicit labels or pretested AI-generated candidate pictures. The results confirm our expectations that the way in which social categories are perceived affects preferences, with visual cues having a more significant effect on voter preferences compared to textual cues, leading to more discriminatory preferences for certain social categories. Moreover, we show that the effect of visual cues is moderated by the visibility of social categories, with visible social categories, such as gender binaries and ethnic in-/out-group, eliciting more discriminatory preferences with visual cues. The study sheds light on how visible and invisible social categories affect political candidates’ preferences and emphasizes the importance of considering the intersectionality of social categories and their relationship with ideology.
@article{lopezortega2024visualconjoint, author = {L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto and Radojevic, Marco}, title = {Visual conjoint vs. text conjoint and the differential discriminatory effect of (visible) social categories}, year = {2024}, journal = {Political Behavior}, }
Beyond Homophobia: Investigating the Uniqueness of Biphobic Attitudes Under Consideration of Sexual Identity

Constantin Wurthmann , and Alberto López Ortega

European Journal of Politics and Gender, 2024

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With the increasing visibility of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer and other (LGBTQ+) individuals, sociological debates about attitudes towards the group and their intergroup dynamics have intensified. This article investigates the link between factors explaining homophobia and negative attitudes towards bisexuals, often referred to as ‘biphobia’ or ‘bisexual erasure’, using original data collected in August 2021 from Germany (N = 1,342). The study reveals that while factors influencing homophobia and favouring bisexual erasure are similar, they are not identical. Our findings indicate that when bisexual (N = 72) and homosexual (N = 70) individuals are grouped together, they exhibit lower levels of homophobia compared to heterosexuals (N = 1,200). However, we find no significant difference between them and heterosexuals regarding bisexual erasure. This effect is primarily driven by homosexuals’ prejudice towards bisexuals. Furthermore, bisexuals, in comparison with homosexuals, are less likely to disagree with the notion that homosexuals are less capable of being good parents than heterosexuals.
@article{wurthmann2024beyond, title = {Beyond Homophobia: Investigating the Uniqueness of Biphobic Attitudes Under Consideration of Sexual Identity}, author = {Wurthmann, Constantin and L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, year = {2024}, journal = {European Journal of Politics and Gender}, }
The war on flags: The opposition to state-sponsored LGBTQ+ symbols

Alberto López Ortega

Research & Politics, 2024

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Negativity against LGBTQ+ and gender equality symbols is escalating across Western European countries, including those at the forefront of sexual modernism. Drawing on data from Spain, this paper theorizes and finds that state-sponsored LGBTQ+ symbols receive significantly more negativity than other aspects of LGBTQ+ issues related to general and specific attitudes toward formal rights. The negativity is primarily explained by support for Vox, a radical right-wing party, and age. The study provides insights into the complexities of public opinion surrounding LGBTQ+ symbols, offering a nuanced understanding of the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community in terms of acceptance and visibility. Furthermore, it highlights the influence of political affiliations and generational factors in shaping these attitudes.
@article{lopezortega2024war, title = {The war on flags: The opposition to state-sponsored LGBTQ+ symbols}, author = {L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {Research \& Politics}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, year = {2024}, publisher = {Sage Publications}, }
Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

TISP team

Science advances, 2024

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Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.. The study provides insights into the complexities of public opinion surrounding LGBTQ+ symbols, offering a nuanced understanding of the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community in terms of acceptance and visibility. Furthermore, it highlights the influence of political affiliations and generational factors in shaping these attitudes.
@article{tisp2024addressing, title = {Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries}, author = {team, TISP}, journal = {Science advances}, volume = {10}, number = {6}, pages = {eadj5778}, year = {2024}, publisher = {American Association for the Advancement of Science}, }
Instrumentally inclusive: the political psychology of homonationalism

Stuart J Turnbull-Dugarte , and Alberto López Ortega

American Political Science Review, 2024

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Can nativist attitudes condition support for LGBT+ rights? The sustained advance in pro-LGBT+ attitudes in the West often contrasts with the greening of anti-immigrant sentiment propagated by nativist supply-side actors. We argue that these parallel trends are causally connected, theorizing that exposure to sexually conservative ethnic out-groups can provoke an instrumental increase in LGBT+ inclusion, particularly among those hostile toward immigration. Leveraging experiments in Britain and Spain, we provide causal evidence that citizens strategically liberalize their levels of support for LGBT+ rights when opponents of these measures are from the ethnic out-group. In a context where sexuality-based liberalism is nationalized, increasing tolerance toward LGBT+ citizens is driven by a desire among nativist citizens to socially disidentify from those out-groups perceived as inimical to these nationalized norms. Our analyses provide a critical interpretation of positive trends in LGBT+ tolerance with instrumental liberalism masking lower rates of genuine shifts in LGBT+ inclusion.
@article{turnbull2023instrumentally, title = {Instrumentally inclusive: the political psychology of homonationalism}, author = {Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart J and L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {American Political Science Review}, pages = {1--19}, year = {2024}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, }

2023

Do political duos diminish discriminatory voter preferences? Evidence from a combined conjoint experiment

Alberto López Ortega

European Union Politics, 2023

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In Europe, more and more parties and governments are led by a pair of leaders. What consequences does the presence of duos have on voter preferences? I argue that voters have less discriminatory preferences against untraditional candidates when they choose two leaders instead of only one. However, discriminatory preferences do not entirely vanish; rather, traditionally excluded candidates are often relegated to secondary positions, and there exists a certain threshold of tolerated ticket diversity. Through a novel combined conjoint experiment, I find relative support for this conjecture, especially in the case of ethnic minority candidates. In view of the increasing number of new types of leadership, the results of this study have important implications for the study of political behaviour and elite diversity.
@article{lopezortega2023duos, title = {Do political duos diminish discriminatory voter preferences? Evidence from a combined conjoint experiment}, author = {L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {European Union Politics}, volume = {25}, number = {1}, pages = {106--129}, year = {2023}, publisher = {SAGE Publications}, }
Insights into the accuracy of social scientists’forecasts of societal change

The Forecasting Collaborative

Nature Human Behaviour, 2023

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How well can social scientists predict societal change, and what processes underlie their predictions? To answer these questions, we ran two forecasting tournaments testing the accuracy of predictions of societal change in domains commonly studied in the social sciences: ideological preferences, political polarization, life satisfaction, sentiment on social media, and gender–career and racial bias. After we provided them with historical trend data on the relevant domain, social scientists submitted pre-registered monthly forecasts for a year (Tournament 1; N = 86 teams and 359 forecasts), with an opportunity to update forecasts on the basis of new data six months later (Tournament 2; N = 120 teams and 546 forecasts). Benchmarking forecasting accuracy revealed that social scientists’ forecasts were on average no more accurate than those of simple statistical models (historical means, random walks or linear regressions) or the aggregate forecasts of a sample from the general public (N = 802). However, scientists were more accurate if they had scientific expertise in a prediction domain, were interdisciplinary, used simpler models and based predictions on prior data.
@article{forecasting2023insights, author = {Collaborative, The Forecasting}, journal = {Nature Human Behaviour}, number = {4}, pages = {484--501}, title = {Insights into the accuracy of social scientists'forecasts of societal change}, volume = {7}, year = {2023}, }
The personality is political (especially for populists)

Alberto López Ortega

Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 2023

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Are elections becoming personality contests? A growing literature is concerned about the increasing personalization of politics and its democratic consequences. This paper argues that part of the phenomenon is due to voters using politicians’ personalities to infer their party and valence and that voters of populist parties are especially able in this inferential task. Using a varying conjoint experiment in Spain, the author certainly finds evidence that the importance of personality decreases when voters learn both about candidates’ party and valence and that this mediating effect is especially relevant for Vox and UP voters. These results dispel concerns about the irrationality of today’s politics by showing that the independent effect of personality is minimal and suggesting that populist voters efficiently use the personality of politicians to infer classical vote determinants.
@article{lopezortega2023personality, title = {The personality is political (especially for populists)}, author = {L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties}, pages = {1--20}, year = {2023}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, }
Do all voters appreciate rebels? Ideology moderates valence benefits from factional dissent

Johannes Besch , and Alberto López Ortega

The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2023

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Various studies show that voters appreciate individual legislators who dissent against their party as it increases their valence appeal. Simultaneously, political psychology research shows that right voters consider loyalty substantially more important than left voters. However, whether ideology moderates voter reactions to legislator dissent is so far unexplored, similarly to the question of whether voters also appreciate factional dissent of a group of legislators. This article investigates these two questions employing a survey experiment with Spanish citizens. We find that voters indeed appreciate factional dissent and that ideology moderates how voters react to dissent. While left voters welcome all forms of factional dissent more than party loyalty, right voters value party loyalty more than some forms of factional dissent. The results suggest that legislators face different benefits of dissent depending on the ideological composition of their electorate, with important implications for legislator behaviour and party cohesion.
@article{besch2023all, title = {Do all voters appreciate rebels? Ideology moderates valence benefits from factional dissent}, author = {Besch, Johannes and L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {The Journal of Legislative Studies}, volume = {29}, number = {1}, pages = {113--134}, year = {2023}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, }

2022

Are microtargeted campaign messages more negative and diverse? An analysis of Facebook Ads in European election campaigns

Alberto López Ortega

European Political Science, 2022

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Concerns about the use of online political microtargeting (OPM) by campaigners have arisen since the Cambridge Analytica scandal hit the international political arena. In addition to providing conceptual clarity on OPM and explore the use of such techniques in Europe, this paper seeks to empirically disentangle the differing behaviours of campaigners when they message citizens through microtargeted rather than non-targeted campaigning. More precisely, I hypothesise that campaigners use negative campaigning and are more diverse in terms of topics when they use OPM. To investigate whether these expectations hold true, I use text-as-data techniques to analyse an original dataset of 4,091 political Facebook Ads during the last national elections in Austria, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Results show that while microtargeted ads might indeed be more thematically diverse, there does not seem to be a significant difference to non-microtargeted ads in terms of negativity. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for microtargeted campaigns and how future research could be conducted.
@article{lopezortega2022microtargeted, title = {Are microtargeted campaign messages more negative and diverse? An analysis of Facebook Ads in European election campaigns}, author = {L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {European Political Science}, volume = {21}, number = {3}, pages = {335--358}, year = {2022}, publisher = {Springer}, }

2019

Public Attitudes on Energy (In)security: Evidence from Spain

Lala Muradova , and Alberto López Ortega

Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2019

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This study investigates how citizens perceive energy security challenges, by analysing an original survey data fielded in a quota sample of Spanish citizens (n=339). Findings demonstrate that energy security in general and the affordability of household electricity prices in particular is of extremely high concern for the citizens. Older citizens in our sample are more worried about the equitable access to energy services than the younger population. Citizens with more education are more aware of energy security risks. Creating closer ties between the public and policy makers, by raising awareness on energy matters and fostering a public debate around the issue of energy security could decrease the mismatch between the energy needs of energy-users and the energy policies, and eventually alleviate energy troubles of the most disadvantaged.
@article{muradova2019public, title = {Public Attitudes on Energy (In)security: Evidence from Spain}, author = {Muradova, Lala and L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {Revista Espa{\~n}ola de Investigaciones Sociol{\'o}gicas}, volume = {167}, number = {167}, pages = {19--36}, year = {2019}, publisher = {Centro de Investigaciones Sociol{\'o}gicas (CIS)}, }