Chase A. Privett

My research broadly focuses on social identities in American politics and how those identities have political implications. In particular, I am interested in how and under what conditions new social groups can form out of seemingly nothing and form into social identities proper. My work focuses on generational groups (e.g., Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z) that have long been established by popular culture and attempt to measure how much Americans identify with their generational identity and whether that identity has impacts on various political attitudes and behaviors. My research aims to rigorously and from multiple angles examine how and why certain social groups become political social identities. I conduct my research through a mixed methods approach, including qualitative data illustrating the evolution of generational labels over time, large time-series datasets to demonstrate divergence in political attitudes over time, and two novel survey experiments to evaluate the viability of processes and mechanisms related to generational identities and their political effects.