A Change is Gonna Come: How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America. 2020. New York: Oxford University Press.

Get your head out of your @*&. Snowflake. You’re an idiot. Stupid liberal. Ignorant conservative. It’s easy to use a disparaging name to dismiss a divergent belief or opinion as naïve and ill-formed. It might even feel good for a moment but it simply doesn’t do anyone any good because it turns people off from genuine engagement. We speak to, interact with, and even live near people who share our beliefs. It has become so easy to live a life blissfully devoid of any political contradiction because we simply like, Tweet, and share what we find agreeable while we hide, unfollow, and block what we don’t. Political attitudes seem to be hardening, with little to no room for discussion or dissent. Insults are thrown, feelings are hurt, and family and friends, at best, decide to avoid political discussions altogether. At worst, arguments cause social groups to break apart. How can deliberative democracy survive if we can’t even speak to people with whom we disagree?

Grandma told us to avoid talking about politics in polite company. Respectfully, her wisdom no longer applies: something has to change and we need to find a way to talk.

One of the most contentious set of political and social issues in contemporary America surrounds the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. It is also one of most perplexing. Public opinion doesn’t usually move quickly on average, even on prickly political issues of the day, but we have seen unprecedented change on issues like same-sex marriage in a short period of time. One of the most powerful reasons is probably the most simple: supportive people from many different social and identity groups were willing to talk about their contentious and sometimes uncomfortable opinions. These were everyday conversations that got people who may not have thought about LGBT rights out of their echo chambers to get them to start listening and thinking. The unprecedented attitude change toward marriage equality and LGBT rights is not only a compelling public opinion phenomenon, it’s a potential roadmap for how to talk about other contentious political and social issues.

Drawing from a mix of empirical research from social psychology, communication studies, and political science as well as personal narratives and interviews, A Change is Gonna Come reflects on the last 15 years of LGBT struggles and successes to answer the seemingly simple question: How can we be politically civil to each other again?

Transforming Prejudice: Identity, Fear, and Transgender Rights. 2020. Oxford University Press, with Melissa Michelson, Menlo College.

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a seismic shift in attitudes toward gay and lesbian people, with a majority of Americans now supporting same-sex marriage and relations between same-sex, consenting adults. However, support for transgender individuals lags far behind; a significant majority of Americans do not support the right of transgender people to be free from discrimination in housing, employment, public spaces, health care, legal documents, and other areas. Much of this is due to deeply entrenched ideas about the definition of gender, perceptions that transgender people are not “real” or are suffering from mental illness, and fears that extending rights to transgender people will come at the expense of the rights of others. So how do you get people to rethink their prejudices?

In this book, Melissa R. Michelson and Brian F. Harrison examine what tactics are effective in changing public opinion regarding transgender people. The result is a new approach that they call Identity Reassurance Theory. The idea is that individuals need to feel confident in their own identity before they can embrace a stigmatized group like transgender people, and that support of members of an outgroup can be encouraged by affirming the self-esteem of those targeted for attitude change. Michelson and Harrison, through their experiments, show that the most effective messaging on transgender issues meets people where they are, acknowledges their discomfort without judgment or criticism, and helps them to think about transgender people and rights in a way that aligns with their view of themselves as moral human beings.

Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes Toward LGBT Rights. 2017. Oxford University Press.
With Melissa Michelson, Menlo College.

American public opinion tends to be sticky. Although the news cycle might temporarily affect the public’s mood on contentious issues like abortion, the death penalty, or gun control, public opinion toward these issues has remained remarkably constant over decades. There are notable exceptions, however, particularly with regard to divisive issues that highlight identity politics. For example, over the past three decades, public support for same-sex marriage has risen from scarcely more than a tenth to a majority of the population. Why have people’s minds changed so dramatically on this issue, and why so quickly? It wasn’t just that older, more conservative people were dying and being replaced in the population by younger, more progressive people; people were changing their minds. Was this due to the influence of elite leaders like President Obama? Or advocacy campaigns by organizations pushing for greater recognition of the equal rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people?

Listen, We Need to Talk tests a new theory, what Brian Harrison and Melissa Michelson call The Theory of Dissonant Identity Priming, about how to change people’s attitudes on controversial topics. Harrison and Michelson conducted randomized experiments all over the United States…

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Publications/Forthcoming Work

  • Michelson, Melissa R. & Brian F. Harrison. LGBTQ Life in America: Examining the Facts. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO.
  • Harrison, Brian & Melissa R. Michelson. 2018. “Gender, Masculinity Threat, and Support for Transgender Rights: An Experimental Study.” Sex Roles.
  • Harrison, Brian F. & Melissa R. Michelson. 2017. Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes Toward LGBT Rights. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Harrison, Brian & Melissa R. Michelson. 2017. “What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Emotion, Rationality, and Framing LGBT Rights.” New Political Science: A Journal of Politics and Culture.
  • Harrison, Brian F. & Melissa R. Michelson. 2017. “Using Experiments to Understand Public Attitudes towards Transgender Rights.” Politics, Groups, & Identities.
  • Harrison, Brian F. & Melissa R. Michelson. 2016. “More than a Game: Football Fans and Marriage Equality.” PS: Political Science and Politics.
  • Harrison, Brian. 2016. “The Partisan Pulpit: Partisanship, Elite Polarization and U.S. Presidential Communication.” Social Science Quarterly.
  • Panagopoulos, Costas & Brian F. Harrison. 2016. “Consensus Cues, Issue Salience, and Policy Preferences.” North American Journal of Psychology.
  • Harrison, Brian F. & Melissa R. Michelson. 2015. “God and Marriage: The Impact of Religious Identity Priming on Attitudes toward Same-Sex Marriage.” Social Science Quarterly. doi: 10.1111/ssqu.12169
  • Harbridge, Laurel, Neil Malhotra, and Brian F. Harrison. 2014. “Public Preferences for Bipartisanship in the Policymaking Process.” Legislative Studies Quarterly, 39(3): 327-355.
  • Harrison, Brian F. & Melissa R. Michelson. 2012. “Not That There’s Anything Wrong with That: The Effect of Personalized Appeals on Marriage Equality Campaigns.” Political Behavior, 34(2): 325-344.

    Opinion pieces:

  • Michelson, Melissa R. & Brian F. Harrison. 2020. “How to be an Ally for Transgender Rights.” Oxford University Press Blog, https://blog.oup.com/2020/03/how-to-be-an-ally-for-transgender-rights/
  • Harrison, Brian & Melissa R. Michelson. 2015. “How to Change Minds about Same-Sex Marriage.” Washington Post Monkey Cage, May 26, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/05/26/how-to-change-peoples-minds-about-same-sex-marriage/
  • Harrison, Brian. 2014. “Republicans Driving LGBT Progress?! The Atlantic Loses its Mind.” Salon.com, March 28, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2014/03/28/republicans_driving_lgbt_progress_the_atlantic_loses_its_mind/

Under Review/Working Papers:

  1. Book manuscript #4 (under contract): Dispelling myths and misconceptions about LGBTQ life in America
  2. Book manuscript #5: Structure of attitudes toward Americans living with HIV/AIDS, strategies to persuade to generate more support for policies that benefit Americans living with HIV/AIDS

**I’m more than happy to discuss any current projects or talk about new ones! Please feel free to contact me at brianfharrison@icloud.com.