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Reposted by Åshild A Johnsen

Alexander Wuttke @kunkakom.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Are preferences for authoritarian rule individual predispositions—or can they spread socially? Using field + survey experiments in the Norwegian Armed Forces, we show that openness to strongman rule can spread socially. American Journal of Political Science: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

American Journal of Political Science | MPSA Journal | Wiley Online Library

The increasing popularity of strongman rule in democratic societies underscores the need to explore how authoritarian regime preferences might spread socially. We assess the role of social influence ...

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Åshild A Johnsen @aajohnsen.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Finally, we discuss a measurement challenge for RCTs on harassment prevention. Interventions may increase women’s awareness, making incidents more likely to be labeled and recalled at endline, making real reductions in exposure harder to detect. Please reach out if you lack access to the article.

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Åshild A Johnsen @aajohnsen.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Importantly, we find no evidence of backlash among men who initially held more tolerant attitudes toward sexual harassment, which other prevention methods have sometimes been shown to trigger.

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Åshild A Johnsen @aajohnsen.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

We estimate a 29% reduction in women’s exposure to harassment from a roommate relative to the control group. This is a large point estimate, but imprecise (p = 0.37), so we cannot rule out a null effect.

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Åshild A Johnsen @aajohnsen.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

The treatment produced lasting improvements in knowledge about what sexual harassment is and about women’s job performance. It also reduced tolerance of harassment among both men and women, with effects still visible eight weeks later.

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Åshild A Johnsen @aajohnsen.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

The intervention gave some recruit groups information about their peers’ beliefs — specifically, that “telling sexualized jokes can be labeled sexual harassment” — and about women soldiers’ equal performance on military skill tests.

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Åshild A Johnsen @aajohnsen.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

🚨 New paper: Can light-touch information reduce tolerance of sexual harassment? We tested this in a randomized controlled trial with recruits in the Norwegian Armed Forces. doi.org/10.1016/j.je... with @ollefolke.bsky.social , Torbjørn Hanson, @kotsadam.bsky.social and @johannarickne.bsky.social

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