About

Andrew Delton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University. He holds a PhD in psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on evolution, psychology, and politics, aiming to uncover the psychological mechanisms that enable humans to live as cooperative and moral species. His work includes studying generosity, social dilemmas, personality, and emotions such as anger, compassion, shame, and gratitude. Delton views human psychology as a series of information-processing systems designed to solve important ancestral problems. His research also seeks to understand how evolved psychological processes influence political thought, including voting behavior, partisanship, and public goods. He is working on a forthcoming book about the politics of climate change and is interested in how psychological evolution shapes liberalism, rights, and toleration. Delton employs various methods, particularly experimental economic games, to explore these topics and has contributed to the field through numerous publications.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Psychology
• Economics
• Law
• Social psychology
• Sociology
• Microeconomics
• Risk analysis (engineering)
• Positive economics
• Ecology
• Business
• Law and economics
• Public relations

Selected publications

• Why Anxious People Lean to the Left on Economic Policy: Personality, Social Exclusion, and Redistribution

  British Journal of Political Science · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Liberals experience more distress than conservatives. Why? We offer a novel explanation, the social support hypothesis. Maintaining social support and avoiding exclusion are basic human motivations, but people differ in their sensitivity to the threat of social exclusion. Among people high in the personality trait neuroticism , exclusion easily triggers feelings of vulnerability and neediness. The social support hypothesis translates this to politics. Concerned with their own vulnerability, we find that neurotic people prefer policies of care – social welfare and redistribution – but not other left-wing policies. Specifically, it is anxiety – the facet of neuroticism tapping sensitivity to social threats – that drives this link. And it is only for people experiencing exclusion that anxiety predicts support for social welfare. Our results come from two experiments and four representative surveys across two continents. They help to resolve the puzzle of liberal distress while providing a new template for research on personality and politics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The politics of pooling risk: People want to help the vulnerable by involving the government in healthcare

  Political Psychology · 2024-10-29 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Many people want the government involved in healthcare. Is this because citizens are concerned about their own vulnerability, the plight of vulnerable others, or both? To test for these concerns, we used representative surveys and experimental economic games. We found robust evidence for concern for others. In surveys, people who worried about vulnerable others wanted more government involvement in healthcare. In experiments, people with the opportunity to subsidize vulnerable others often helped. The evidence for personal concern was more mixed. In surveys, people who were personally vulnerable did not usually want more government involvement in healthcare. In experiments, however, vulnerable people often wanted more healthcare. Additional data suggests that concern for the vulnerable is motivated by social preferences, empathy, and compassion. We discuss how the logic of healthcare is different from other aspects of the welfare state and therefore needs to be studied separately.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Climate Games

  2024-01-01

  otherOpen access

  Can humanity work together to mitigate the effects of climate change? Climate Games argues we can. This book brings together a decade and a half of experimentation, conducted by researchers around the world, which shows that people can and will work together to prevent disasters like climate change. These experiments, called economic games, put money on the line to create laboratory disasters. Participants must work together by spending a bit of money now to prevent themselves from losing even more money in the future. Will people sacrifice their own money to prevent disaster? Can people make wise decisions? And can people decide wisely on behalf of others? The answer is a resounding yes. Yet real climate change is a complex social dilemma involving the world’s nearly eight billion inhabitants. In the real world, the worst effects of climate change are likely to be felt by developing countries, while most of the decisions will be made by rich, industrialized countries. And while the world as a whole would be better off if all nations reduced their greenhouse gas emissions, any given nation could decide it would be even better off if it continued emitting and let other nations take care of the problem. These disaster experiments test how real people respond to climate change’s unique constellation of challenges and deliver a positive message: People will prevent disaster.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Climate Games

  University of Michigan Press eBooks · 2023-07-19 · 2 citations

  book

  Can humanity work together to mitigate the effects of climate change?<I> Climate Games</I> argues we can. This book brings together a decade and a half of experimentation, conducted by researchers around the world, which shows that people can and will work together to prevent disasters like climate change. These experiments, called <I>economic games</I>, put money on the line to create laboratory disasters. Participants must work together by spending a bit of money now to prevent themselves from losing even more money in the future. Will people sacrifice their own money to prevent disaster? Can people make wise decisions? And can people decide wisely on behalf of others? The answer is a resounding yes. <BR /><BR /> Yet real climate change is a complex social dilemma involving the world's nearly eight billion inhabitants. In the real world, the worst effects of climate change are likely to be felt by developing countries, while most of the decisions will be made by rich, industrialized countries. And while the world as a whole would be better off if all nations reduced their greenhouse gas emissions, any given nation could decide it would be even better off if it continued emitting and let other nations take care of the problem. These disaster experiments test how real people respond to climate change's unique constellation of challenges and deliver a positive message: People will prevent disaster.

  PublisherDOI

• Cognitive foundations for helping and harming others: Making welfare tradeoffs in industrialized and small-scale societies

  Evolution and Human Behavior · 2023 · 30 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  PublisherDOI

• Who Do You Trust? Institutions That Constrain Leaders Help People Prevent Disaster

  The Journal of Politics · 2022-05-17 · 6 citations

  article

  We are vulnerable to disasters, yet citizens hesitate to spend on disaster prevention. Is this because the problem is too complex? Or are citizens concerned political elites will behave poorly? Using an experimental economic game that simulates disaster, we tested whether people can understand when an institution incentivizes elites to exaggerate the cost of disaster prevention. Citizen players could contribute money to prevent disaster. Leader players knew the cost of prevention and reported it to citizens, with the option to exaggerate. We manipulated whether the institution allowed leaders to personally benefit if citizens contributed too much. Citizens were sensitive to this, trusting the leader less and contributing less when leaders could benefit from exaggeration. Thus, players could discriminate between institutions that did and did not create incentives for inefficiency. This helps clarify why voters might oppose spending on disaster prevention and sheds light on the nature of voter rationality.

  PublisherDOI

• Anticipating moral hazard undermines climate mitigation in an experimental geoengineering game

  Ecological Economics · 2022 · 42 citations

  • Political Science
  • Economics
  • Law and economics
  PublisherDOI

• Are we there yet? Every computational theory needs a few black boxes, including theories about groups

  Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2022-01-01 · 2 citations

  letter1st authorCorresponding

  Pietraszewski exemplifies the need for computational theory using group conflict; I complement this with an example of group cooperation. He criticizes past theories for having black boxes; I suggest his theory also has a black box - the concept of costs. He divides what mentally constitutes a group from mere ancillary attributes; I hazard that some of these attributes are essential.

  PublisherDOI

• Partisans use emotions as social pressure: Feeling anger and gratitude at exiters and recruits in political groups

  Party Politics · 2021-06-03 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Political collective action requires assembling and motivating supporters. Many theories view emotions as functional tools for managing relationships, including within groups. We study what leads citizens to use the emotions anger and gratitude as social pressure. Specifically, we test what determines the use of these emotions to prevent potential exiters from leaving a political group and to encourage potential recruits to join. Because parties are enduring social affiliations (compared to transient or issue-focused groups), we predicted that partisans would express stronger emotions. We tested this proposition in two separate studies—one an observational study featuring a representative sample of US adults and one an experimental study conducted in Denmark. As predicted, people with a partisan mindset, whether naturally occurring or experimentally manipulated, felt more anger and gratitude at potential exiters and recruits. Citizens strive to fortify and expand their ingroups and sometimes use emotions as social pressure to do so.

  PublisherDOI

• Altruism and Spite in Politics: How the Mind Makes Welfare Tradeoffs About Political Parties

  Political Behavior · 2021 · 6 citations

  • Political Science
  • Social psychology
  • Psychology
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Theresa E. Robertson

  Nottingham Trent University

  30 shared

• Leda Cosmides

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  17 shared

• John Tooby

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  15 shared

• Max M. Krasnow

  Harvard University

  14 shared

• Talbot M. Andrews

  University of Connecticut

  8 shared

• Reuben Kline

  8 shared

• Vladas Griskevicius

  University of Minnesota

  7 shared

• Joshua M. Tybur

  Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

  7 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of California, Santa Barbara