Artifact 2

Methods and Statistics Final Exam (Spring 2022)

For your final exam, explore the sources of citizens’ affect towards the Black Lives Matter movement
using the ANES 2020 data set I provide below. Citizens’ affect towards Black Lives Matter is
measured using a feeling thermometer. Respondents were asked to represent their feelings towards
Black Lives Matter in terms of warmth or coolness, with 100 degrees indicating very warm feelings,
50 indicating neutral feelings, and 0 indicating very cool feelings. You should use the script file I provide to
clean this variable and others for this assignment.

Your completion of this assignment requires that you satisfy the following objects.
1. Identify relevant independent and control variables.
a. You will explore how the following variables shape feelings towards Black Lives
Matter: racial_resentment, pid7_new, authoritarianism,
authoritarianism*pid7_new, ideo7_new, age, educ_new, white_v2, female_v2,
spending_preferences, I(spending_preferences^2),
I(spending_preferences^3). Describe why you think these variables shape (or
don’t) bias/warmth towards Black Lives Matter. (Hint: hypotheses should
accompany these explanations).
i. Racial resentment – this is an index variable that measures how racially
resentful against black people a person is. My hypothesis is: as someone
becomes more racially resentful (moving towards 1), they will also be cooler
on the Black Lives Matter thermometer. I believe this is because as
someone is more racially resentful towards black people, they will be less
likely to see the Black Lives Matter movement as having legitimate gripes
with America.
ii. Party ID – this variable measures a respondents party and the strength of
their party identification. My hypothesis is: as the party ID variable
increases, closer to 7 (Strong Republican), the cooler the person will be on
the Black Lives Matter thermometer. I believe this is because Republicans
are more conservative on racial issues and Democrats are more liberal on
racial issues, so Republicans will be less open to the changes the Black Lives
Matter movement suggests.
iii. Authoritarianism – this index variable measures a person’s preferences on
child traits. My hypothesis is: as a person’s authoritarianism score goes up
(closer to 1/more authoritarian), they will be cooler on the Black Lives
Matter thermometer. I believe this is because people with higher
authoritarianism scores are more likely to be Republican, and as stated
above, I believe that Republicans will be less open to the changes the Black
Lives Matter movements proposes.
iv. Ideology – this variable measures a respondent’s political ideology and the
strength of their ideology. My hypothesis is that as someone’s ideology goes
up (closer to 6/extremely conservative), they will be cooler on the Black
Lives Matter thermometer. This is because I believe a conservative will be
more resistant to the change the Black Lives Matter movement proposes.
v. Age – this variable measures a respondents age in years. My hypothesis is
that as the age variable increases (a person gets older), they will be cooler on
the Black Lives Matter thermometer. I believe this is because the older
people will be more conservative, and more racially resentful, and therefore
they will be more likely to be cold towards the Black Lives Matter
movement.
 vi. Education – this variable measures someone’s level of educational
attainment. My hypothesis is: as this variable increases (moves closer to
4/becomes more educated), the person will become warmer on the Black
Lives Matter thermometer. I believe this is because as a person becomes
more educated, they will also spend more time around more liberal people.
Liberal people will be more accepting on racial issues, and so therefore
more warm towards the Black Lives Matter movement.
vii. White – this is a binary variable that measures if a person is white or
non-white. My hypothesis is: if a person is white (a 1), they will be cooler
than non-whites on the Black Lives Matter thermometer. I believe this will
be because non-white people will be more likely to see the merit of the
Black Lives Matter movement, and be able to see their experiences as
mirroring those that the Black Lives Matter movement highlights. This will
make non-whites more warm towards the Black Lives Matter movement,
while on average, white people will be cooler than non-whites.
viii. Female – this is a binary variable that measures if a person is female or
male. My hypothesis is: if a person is female (a 1), they will be cooler than
males on the Black Lives Matter thermometer. I believe this will be the case
because females are more liberal than men, and therefore will be cooler on
racial issues like the Black Lives Matter movement.
ix. Spending Preferences – this is an index variable that measures someone’s
operational ideology with a series of questions about preferences on
government spending. My hypothesis is that as the variable increases (goes
more liberal/closer to 1), a person will be cooler on the Black Lives Matter
thermometer. This is because going up the spending preferences score
means that a person is more liberal on spending issues, and therefore more
likely to be more liberal, and more liberal people will be more likely to
support Black Lives Matter and the changes they propose.
b. Notice that you will use a polynomial for spending_preferences and an interaction
effect for authoritarianism and pid7_new. What do interaction effects and
polynomials mean, and why (or why not) might they make sense for these variables?
i. Interaction effects – Interaction effects show how an independent variable
affects a dependent variable while controlling for another independent
variable. The interaction effect makes sense for these variables because we
might assume that being an authoritarian could have a strong effect on
views towards the Black Lives Matter movement, regardless of party.
ii. Polynomials – polynomials allow us to look at a variable and see if the
relationship between independent and dependent variable is nonlinear. I
hypothesize that the polynomial will not make sense for this model, because
I expect the relationship to be linear between spending preferences and the
Black Lives Matter feeling thermometer.
iii. Authoritarianism x PID7 – this variable measures a person’s preferences on
child traits given their political party/strength of their identification. My
hypothesis is that the effect of authoritarianism will be stronger for Strong
Republicans than Strong Democrats, and that those who are more
authoritarian and Strong Republicans will be cooler towards Black Lives
Matter. I believe that this will be because this combination of two variables
will not change either of them, but that a combination of the two will just
make each one stronger in the direction they already lean in.
iv. Spending Preferences (Quadratic and Cubic) – this variable allows us to see
if spending preferences has a nonlinear relationship to Black Lives Matter
 thermometer. I hypothesize that these will not be significant, and that the
relationship will still be mostly linear.
2. Explore these data
a. How is your dependent variable measured? How is it distributed in the sample? Is
this appropriate for OLS? Hint: provide a pretty histogram and describe it!

Figure 1

The dependent variable is measured on a feeling thermometer from 0 to 100, 0 meaning someone is
cold towards Black Lives Matter and 100 meaning someone is warm towards Black Lives Matter. This
is not normally distributed, it is bimodal. This is not appropriate for OLS because it is not a
continuous variable.
b. How are your independent variables measured? Provide a table with “descriptive
statistics” of your independent variables including the minimum, maximum and
average (mean or median) values of each variable. Make sure you discuss these
quantities! Also, don’t include the interaction effects or polynomials in this
table
Table 1
Variable Minimum Maximum Median Mean
0
Racial -1 1 (moderately racially -0.090
Resentment (not racially resentful) (racially resentful) resentful) 3
Party 0 6 3
Identification (strong Democrat) (strong Republican) (Independent) 2.888
0
-1 1 (moderately
Authoritarianism (not authoritarian) (authoritarian) authoritarian) -0.05
6
0 (extremely 3
Ideology (extremely liberal) conservative) (moderate) 3.078
Age 18 80 52 51.59
0
(less than high 4 2
Education school) (postgraduate) (some college) 2.387
0 1 1
White (not white) (white) (white) 0.7291
0 1 1
Female (not female) (female) (female) 0.5418
-1
(conservative 1 0.25
Spending spending (liberal spending (slightly liberal
Preferences preferences) preferences) spending preferences) 0.2552
Racial Resentment is a qualitative variable, measured on a scale from -1 to 1, -1 being not racially
resentful and 1 being racially resentful. The average and best way to measure Racial Resentment is the
median, 0.
Party Identification is a qualitative variables, measured on a scale from 0 to 6, 0 being strong
Democrat and 6 being strong Republican. The average and best way to measure Party ID is the
median, 3 (independent).
Authoritarianism is a qualitative variable, measured on a scale from -1 to 1, -1 being not authoritarian
and 1 being authoritarian. The average and best way to measure Authoritarianism is the median, 0
(moderately authoritarian).
Ideology is a qualitative variable, measured on a 7 point scale from 0 to 6, 0 being extremely liberal
and 6 being extremely conservative. The average and best way to measure Ideology is the median, 3
(moderate).
Age is a quantitative variable measured in years. It ranges from 18 to 80. The average, and best way
to measure Age is the median, 52.
Education is a quantitative variable, measured on a scale from 0 to 4, 0 being less than high school to
4 being postgraduate. The average, and best way to measure education is the median, 2 (some
college).
White is a dummy, qualitative variable that measures a person’s race with only two categories, white
and non-white. The average, and best way to measure White is the median, 1(white).
Female is a dummy, qualitative variable that measures a person’s gender with only two categories,
male and female. The average, and best way to measure Female is the median, 1(female).
Spending preferences is a qualitative variable that measures a person’s operation ideology, going form
-1 to 1, -1 being conservative spending preferences to 1, liberal spending preferences. The average,
and best way to describe Spending preferences is the median, 0.25 (slightly liberal spending
preferences).
 c. Provide one scatterplot with race_resent_scale on the x-axis and FT_black_lives on
the y-axis. Interpret this graph.

Figure 2

This graph shows a strong, negative relationship between the racial resentment variable
(independent) and the Black Lives Matter Feeling Thermometer (dependent). As people become
more racially resentful, they also cooler feelings towards Black Lives Matter. This also confirms one
of my hypotheses.
d. How are your independent variables related to your dependent variable? Hint:
answer this question with a single regression model including the following
independent variables: racial_resentment, pid7_new, authoritarianism,
authoritarianism*pid7_new, ideo7_new, age, educ_new, white_v2, female_v2,
spending_preferences, I(spending_preferences^2),
I(spending_preferences^3)
 Estimate Standard Error P-Value
Intercept 74.24065 1.42856 < 2e-16 ***
Racial Resentment -22.96409 0.61791 < 2e-16 ***
Party Identification -3.44918 0.18174 < 2e-16 ***
Authoritarianism 4.0402 0.69787 0.00000000737833 ***
Ideology -3.4153 0.26746 < 2e-16 ***
Age -0.03153 0.01553 0.0423 *
Education -1.41309 0.25 0.00000001646679 ***
White -4.51994 0.63962 0.00000000000174 ***
Female 4.58096 0.51578 < 2e-16 ***
Spending Preferences 21.79682 1.43378 < 2e-16 ***
Spending Preferences^2 -1.20966 2.30068 0.5991
Spending Preferences^3 -13.67992 2.97132 0.0000042194448 ***
Party
Id:Authoritarianism -0.76504 0.18617 0.00004012258055 ***

e. Interpret your findings for each variable – direction, magnitude/practical

significance, and statistical significance, aside from the interaction and polynomials.
Note: You should present this model in a table that includes coefficients, standard
errors, and some notation for which variables meet statistical significance (maybe an
asterisk - *).
i. The coefficient for the intercept shows that, holding all else equal, a
nonwhite male, aged 0, who is a strong Democrat, extremely liberal, makes
less than $9.9k, and is moderate on authoritarianism, spending preferences,
and racial resentment, will have a score of 74.24 on the Black Lives Matter
feeling thermometer. This is a person who is pretty warm towards Black
Lives Matter. This is statistically significant because it is
ii. The Racial Resentment coefficient shows that, holding all else equal, for
every 1 unit increase in the racial resentment variable, there is a 22.96
degree decrease on the Black Lives Matter thermometer. This means that as
someone becomes more racially resentful, they also have a cooler feeling
towards Black Lives Matter. This is statistically significant because the
p-value is less than 0.01. It is also practically significant, as moving one
point can cause a negative shift of almost 1/4th of the scale.
iii. The Ideology coefficient shows that, holding all else equal, for every 1 unit
increase in the ideology variable, there is a 3.42 degree decrease on the
Black Lives Matter thermometer. This means that as someone becomes
more conservative, they have cooler feelings towards Black Lives Matter.
This is statistically significant, as the p-value is less than 0.01. It is also
practically significant. This is not as big as some of the other coefficients,
but it shows that moving from extremely liberal to extremely conservative
would move someone down by almost 24 degrees.
iv. The Age coefficient shows that, holding all else equal, for every 1 unit
increase in the age variable, there is a 0.03 degree decrease on the Black
Lives Matter thermometer. This means that as someone gets older, they
have cooler feelings towards Black Lives Matter. This is statistically
significant, but much less than other variables, as the p-value is less than 0.1.
 This is not very practically significant, as someone at the oldest end of the
age variable would only be 2-3 degrees cooler than the youngest person.
v. The Education coefficient shows that, holding all else equal, for every 1 unit
increase in the education variable, there is a 1.41 degree decrease on the
Black Lives Matter thermometer. This means that as someone becomes
more educated, they become cooler towards Black Lives Matter. This is
statistically significant, as the p-value is less than 0.01. It is also practically
significant, as someone who has a post-graduate degree is about 7 degrees
more cool than someone who has less than a high school education.
vi. The White coefficient shows that, holding all else equal, being white
(compared to being nonwhite), makes someone 4.52 degrees cooler on the
Black Lives Matter thermometer. This is statistically significant, as the
p-value is less than 0.01. This is also practically significant, as going from
white to nonwhite makes almost a 5 degree difference.
vii. The Female coefficient shows that, holding all else equal, being female
(compared to being male), makes someone 4.58 degrees warmer on the
Black Lives Matter thermometer. This is statistically significant, as the
p-value is less than 0.01. This is also practically significant, as going from
male to female makes almost a 5 degree difference.
f. Interpret the interaction effect (via plots or marginal effects) and the polynomial (via
plot).
i. Party ID conditional on Authoritarianism
1. Holding all else equal, for people who are not authoritarian, a one
category increase in the party ID variable causes a 2.68 degree
decrease on the Black Lives Matter thermometer.
2. Holding all else equal, for people who hold are moderately
authoritarian, a one category increase in the party ID variable
causes a 3.45 degree decrease on the Black Lives Matter
thermometer.
3. Holding all else equal, for people who are very authoritarian, a one
category increase in the party ID variable causes a 4.21 degree
decrease on the Black Lives Matter thermometer.
4. This shows that the impact of party identification is stronger
among more authoritarian respondents.
ii. Authoritarianism conditional on Party ID
1. Holding all else equal, for strong Democrats, a one category
increase in authoritarian attitudes causes a 4.04 degree increase on
the Black Lives Matter thermometer.
2. Holding all else equal, for Independents, a one category increase in
authoritarian attitudes causes a 1.75 degree increase causes a 1.75
degree increase on the Black Lives Matter thermometer.
3. Holding all else qual, for strong Republicans, a one category
increase in authoritarian attitudes causes a 0.55 degree decrease on
the Black Lives Matter thermometer.
4. The impact of authoritarianism is stronger for strong Democrats.
iii. Polynomial
1. The figure below shows a nonlinear relationship between spending
preferences and the Black Lives Matter thermometer. As people
become more liberal with their spending preferences, they become
warmer towards Black Lives Matter, with a small dip at the
beginning. However, after about 0.6-0.7, people start to become
cooler.
 g. Finally, interpret the R-Squared.
i. The R-Squared is 0.6451, which means that this model captures 64.5% of
the variance in our dependent variable. This means we have an ok model,
but still a significant portion of the variance is unexplained.

Submit a R-script file as well as your .DOCX in the portal below.