Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina
My research can broadly be divided into two camps: 1) rural politics and political behavior, and 2) health attitudes, trust, and misinformation. Detailed information and published pieces in each of these areas can be found below, along with other scholarly work that I've done.
Rural Politics
I grew up on a family farm in rural Minnesota, where my family planted corn and soybeans, as well as raised some chickens and cattle. The experience of growing up in a rural area profoundly influenced how I view politics and political division in the U.S. and globally. This is the motivation for my research on urban-rural division, with a particular focus on rural identity and affect. Alongside several papers in progress on this topic, as well as my dissertation, I am also working on a book project on rural identity.​
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Published work:
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​[7] Lin, J., & Lunz Trujillo, K. 2024. "Urban-rural differences in respect for the norms of American civil-military relations." American Politics Research.​
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[6] Lunz Trujillo, K. 2024. "Feeling out of place: Who are the non-rural rural identifiers, and are they unique politically?" Political Behavior. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad059.
- Research covered in Bloomberg News.
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[5] Lin, J., & Lunz Trujillo, K. 2023. “Are Rural Attitudes Just Republican?” Political Science Research and Methods. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2023.48
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[4] Lin, J. and Lunz Trujillo, K. (2022). “Urban-Rural Differences in Non-Voting Political Behaviors.” Political Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129221119195
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[3] Lunz Trujillo, K., and Crowley, Z. (2022). "Symbolic versus Material Concerns of Rural Consciousness in the United States." Political Geography, 9(61). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102658
- Research covered in the New York Times.
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[2] Lunz Trujillo, K. (2022). "Rural Identity as a Contributing Factor to Anti-Intellectualism in the US. Political Behavior, 1-24." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-022-09770-w
- Research covered in Newsweek and FiveThirtyEight.
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[1] Lunz Trujillo, K. (2021). A Case of Misunderstood Identity: The Role of Rural Identity in Contemporary American Mass Politics. Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/224936 https://hdl.handle.net/11299/224936.
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Drafts:
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Lunz Trujillo, K. “Rural Consciousness and Undocumented Immigrant Attitudes.” Under Review; Invited to Revise & Resubmit at Political Geography.
Lunz Trujillo, K, & Lin, J. “American Urban-Rural Differences in Political Values.” Under Review.
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BOOK PROJECT: Lunz Trujillo, K. Rural Identity. In preparation.
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Misinformation, Trust, and Health Attitudes
I also research health and vaccine misinformation endorsement and correction. This work began in 2018 by looking at general vaccine skepticism, though with some emphasis on the MMR vaccine. Since the pandemic, this research has expanded to COVID-19 and other vaccines. I, along with co-authors, received a half million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to assess vaccine messaging tactics from governmental agencies.
Studies from this line of work are published in various outlets including Political Research Quarterly, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Social Science & Medicine, and Politics, Groups, and Identities. One of these papers, "How Internet Access Drives Global Vaccine Skepticism" (with Matt Motta), won the Leonard S. Robins Award for Best Paper on Health Politics and Policy presented to the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Another won the Best Paper in 2021 for the Journal of Rural Health. Further, I have interviewed on both lines of research for outlets such as Newsweek, FiveThirtyEight, Times Radio UK, and The Star Tribune . I have also co-written news pieces on vaccine hesitancy that have been picked up in various media sources such as Time, U.S. News and World Report, and Forbes.
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Published work:​
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[13] Lunz Trujillo, K., Green, J., Safarpour, A., Lazer, D., Lin, J., & Motta, M. 2024. “Covid-19 Spillover Effects onto General Vaccine Attitudes.” Preprint DOI: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/w7mq5. Public Opinion Quarterly. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad059.
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[12] Callaghan, T., Ferdinand, A., Motta, M., Lockman, A., Shrestha, A., & Lunz Trujillo, K. 2023. “Public Attitudes and Inequities in the Launch of the 988 Lifeline.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law: 11066312. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-11066312
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[11] Perlis, R., Lunz Trujillo, K., Green, J., Safarpour, A., Druckman, J., Santillana, M., Ognyanova, K., & Lazer, D. 2023. “Misinformation, Trust, and Use of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19.” JAMA Health Forum, 4(9):e233257. DOI: doi.org/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.3257
- Research covered in various outlets, including Politico and The Daily Mail.
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[10] Perlis, R., Lunz Trujillo, K., Safarpour, A., Quintana, A., Simonson, M., Perlis, J., Druckman, J., Santillana, M., Baum, M., Ognyanova, K., & Lazer, D. 2023. “Community Mobility and Depressive Symptoms During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States.” JAMA Network Open, 6(9):e2334945. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.34945
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[9] Motta, M., Callaghan, T., & Lunz Trujillo, K. 2023. “‘The CDC Won’t Let Me Be:’ The Opinion Dynamics of Support for Health Agencies’ Regulatory Authority.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law: 10852592. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-10852592
[8] Motta, M., Callaghan, T., Lunz Trujillo, K., & Lockman, A. 2023. “Erroneous Consonance: How Inaccurate Beliefs About Physician Opinion Influence COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy.” Vaccine, 41(12): 2093-2099. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.02.052
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[7] Sylvester, S., Motta, M., Lunz Trujillo, K., & Callaghan, T. (2022). “Vaccinating Across the Aisle: Using Co-Partisan Source Cues to Encourage COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake in the Ideological Right.” Journal of Behavioral Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-022-00323-4.
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[6] Callaghan, T., M. Motta, S. Sylvester, & K. Lunz Trujillo. (2021). “Identifying the Prevalence, Correlates, and Policy Consequences of Anti-Vaccine Social Identity.” Politics, Groups, and Identities. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2021.1932528.
[5] Lunz Trujillo, K. & M. Motta. (2021). “How Internet Access Drives Global Vaccine Skepticism.” International Journal of Public Opinion Research. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edab012
(Received the Leonard S. Robins Award for Best Paper on Health Politics and Policy presented to the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.)
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[4] Callaghan, T., J. Lueck, K. Lunz Trujillo, & A. Ferdinand. (2021). “Rural and Urban Differences in COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors.” Journal of Rural Health, 37(2): 287-295. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12556.
- Research covered in Forbes.
[3] Motta, M., S. Sylvester, T. Callaghan, & K. Lunz Trujillo. (2021). “Encouraging COVID-19 Vaccine
Uptake Through Effective Health Communication.” Frontiers in Political Science - Politics of Technology, Special Issue, 28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.630133.
[2] Lunz Trujillo, K., M. Motta, T. Callaghan, & S. Sylvester. (2021). “Correcting Misinformation Endorsement about the MMR Vaccine: Identifying Psychological Risk Factors and Effective Communication Strategies.” Political Research Quarterly, 74(2): 464-478. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920907695.
[1] Callaghan, T., M. Motta, S. Sylvester, K. Lunz Trujillo, & C. Crudo Blackburn. (2019). “Parent psychology and the decision to delay childhood vaccination.” Social Science & Medicine, 238: 112407. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112407.
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​Drafts:
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Lunz Trujillo, K. “Immoral or Incompetent? American Distrust in Political and Scientific Entities.” Under Review. Preprint DOI: https://osf.io/4u2yh
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Cologna, V., et al. “Trust in scientists and their role in society across 67 countries.” Preprint DOI: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/6ay7s. Under Review.
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BOOK PROJECT: Lazer, D., Ognyanova, K., Baum, M., Druckman, J., Green, J., Simonson, M., Safarpour, A., Lunz Trujillo, K., Schulman, J., Quintana, A., Qu, H., & Uslu, A. (Dis)Trust in America: Pandemic, Protest, and Insurrection. In preparation.
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Conjoint Experiments and Who Receives Health/Welfare Funding
Finally, I have a line of research that employs conjoint experiments to understand which considerations people use in determining who deserves health care funding, or who is stereotypically is on welfare, in the minds of Americans. One of these papers won an Honorable Mention for the Leonard S. Robins Award for Best Paper on Health Politics and Policy presented to the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.
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Published work:
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[2] Zhirkov, K., Lunz Trujillo, K., & Myers, C. D. 2023. “Measuring Support for Welfare Policies: Implications for the Effects of Race and Deservingness Stereotypes.” Journal of Experimental Political Science. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2023.31
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[1] Myers, C.D., Zhirkov, K., & Lunz Trujillo, K. (2022). “Who is “On Welfare”? Validating the Use of Conjoint Experiments to Measure Stereotype Content.” Political Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09815-0
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Drafts:
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Williamson, A., Lunz Trujillo, K., Willen, S., & Walsh, C. “Whose Health Deserves Investment? Hidden Consensus in a Crowdfunding Conjoint Experiment.”
- Honorable Mention for the Leonard S. Robins Award for Best Paper on Health Politics and Policy presented to the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA).
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Other Work
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Published work:
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Safarpour, A., Lunz Trujillo, K., Green, J., Lin, J., Pippert, C., & Druckman, J. 2024. “Divisive or Descriptive?: How Americans Understand Critical Race Theory.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, 9(1): 157-181. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2023.39
- Report version of paper mentioned in John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight - “Critical Race Theory” segment, February 2022 (time mentioned in show: 3:37-3:50).
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Drafts:​
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​BOOK PROJECT: Schneider, M., Callaghan, T., Lunz Trujillo, K., & Sylvester, S. Development and Political Consequences of Identity in Parents of Disabled Children. In preparation.
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