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David O. Sears

Social Sciences · Purdue University West Lafayette

OpenAlex
Established · publishing since 1965Rising activity
Electoral Systems and Political ParticipationSocial and Intergroup PsychologyRace, History, and American SocietySocial Media and PoliticsAcademic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology

Publications

241

Citations

20,968

Est. group size

—

Recurring co-author estimate

Active years

61

Publishing since 1965

Research summary
AI-generated

David O. Sears studies political psychology, focusing on how people develop political attitudes over their lives, racial attitudes and prejudice (including concepts like symbolic racism and racial resentment), and how group identities and self-interest shape political beliefs such as views on healthcare, gun rights, and policing. His work combines psychology and political science to explain why people hold the political and racial attitudes they do, and how these attitudes form in childhood and persist into adulthood.

Political psychology and belief systemsRacial attitudes and symbolic racismChildhood and adult political developmentGroup identity and intergroup relationsPublic opinion on policy issues (health care, gun rights, policing)

Publication output has been variable but generally steady over the past decade, with a notable spike in 2023 followed by a return to lower yearly counts.

Generated by claude-sonnet-5 from public bibliographic data · Jul 20, 2026

Publication cadence
Publications per year over the last 10 years — averaging 3.2/year recently
2017: 2 publications172018: 1 publication182019: 3 publications192020: 4 publications202021: 1 publication212022: 3 publications222023: 10 publications10232024: 2 publications242025: 1 publication2526
Recent publications
Publishes in
  • Oxford University Press eBooks×4
  • Psychological Inquiry×2
  • Political Psychology×2
  • Political Behavior×1
  • Perspectives on Politics×1
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By research-topic overlap

This profile was generated automatically from public scholarly data (OpenAlex). Group size and activity levels are estimates derived from co-authorship patterns.

Last updated Jul 20, 2026.

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