Professor of Political Science
Philip H. Alston, Jr. Distinguished Chair

Curriculum Vitae

Stephen P. Nicholson is the Philip H. Alston Jr. Distinguished Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Georgia. He received his B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. His research interests include mass public behavior, public opinion, political psychology, and direct democracy.

Dr. Nicholson is the former Editor of Advances in Political Psychology, a journal of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). He also serves on the editorial boards of Political Behavior and Journal of Experimental Political Science. Currently, he is an Associate PI for Time Sharing Experiments in Social Sciences (TESS). He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Political Behavior, Public Opinion Quarterly and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. He has also published in journals outside of political science, including Cognitive Science, Topics in Cognitive Science, and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. In addition to publishing numerous book chapters, Dr. Nicholson has a Princeton University Press book, Voting the Agenda: Candidates, Elections and Ballot Propositions, based on his award-winning dissertation.

His research has been recognized with two notable awards. In 1999, he won the American Political Science Association’s E.E. Schattschneider Award for the Best dissertation in American Politics, and in 2006 he was awarded the Emerging Scholar Award for the American Political Science’s section on Elections, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior. Dr. Nicholson has been awarded numerous grants for his research, including a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Education
+

Ph.D. University of California, Davis, 1998, Political Science
B.A. University of California, Los Angeles, 1989, Political Science

Areas of Expertise
+

Political Psychology
Public Behavior

Honors, Awards, and Achievements
+
  • Emerging Scholar Award, Presented by the Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting
    Behavior Section of the American Political Science Association for the top scholar in the field within 10 years of doctorate, 2006.
  • E.E. Schattschneider Award for the best dissertation in American Government and
    Politics, American Political Science Association, 1999.
Research Interests
+

Mass public behavior
Public opinion
Political psychology
Direct democracy

Selected Publications
+

Books:
Voting the Agenda: Candidates, Elections, and Ballot Propositions. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Articles:

Nicholson, Stephen P. and Haifeng Huang. 2023. “Making the List: Reevaluating Political Trust and Social Desirability in China.” American Political Science Review 117(3):1158-1165.

Intawan, Chanita and Stephen P. Nicholson. 2018. “My Trust in Government is Implicit: Automatic Trust in Government and System Support.” Journal of Politics 80(2):601-614.

Nicholson, Stephen P. and Thomas G. Hansford. 2014. “Partisans In Robes: Party Cues
and Public Acceptance of Supreme Court Decisions.” American Journal of Political Science 58(3):620-636.

Nicholson, Stephen P. 2012. “Polarizing Cues.” American Journal of Political Science 56(1):52-66.

Nicholson, Stephen P. 2011. “Dominating Cues and the Limits of Elite Influence.”
Journal of Politics 73(4):1165-1177.

Heit, Evan and Stephen P. Nicholson. 2010. “The Opposite of Republican: Polarization
and Political Categorization.” Cognitive Science 34(8):1503-1516.

The Latest News from SPIA

January 2025 MPA Student of the Month: Caleb Bagley

Join us for an Event

Jan 22
Jan 24