Research

My research focuses on political communication and risk perception, partisan bias, and the impact of gender and emotion on political attitudes. Methodologically, I conduct quantitative social science and use experimental methods, through both surveys and in-person studies.

Below, you can click to find more information across three substantive themes: 1) Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons, 2) Emotion, Gender, and Political Attitudes, 3) Risk Perceptions and Bias. Within each topic, I've included article links and abstracts, data and replications files, and additional information on a 3-year grant project sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation aimed at more effectively communicating with the public about nuclear weapons.

Please reach out to me if there's more you'd like to learn about my work.

Google Scholar Profile

Open Science OSF Profile

Public Opinion & Nuclear Weapons

Emotion, Gender, & Political Attitudes

Risk Perception

& Bias

Publications List

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