I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside. My research broadly lies in American politics and political behavior, with specific foci in class and income inequality, poverty, redistribution, policing, and incarceration.

My dissertation, For Them, Not Me: Assessing the Role of Contact with Poor Friends and Family Members on Support for Redistribution, which is partially funded by the American Political Science Association’s Centennial Center Research Grant, explores the extent to which contact with close friends and family members experiencing poverty or financial distress motivates support for redistribution and engenders more favorable attitudes toward those in poverty. I argue that the emotional bonds born from close contact with poor friends and family members uniquely galvanize support for redistribution and improve attitudes toward the poor, and that knowing the cause(s) of a loved one’s financial distress (e.g., unemployment) will engender support for policies that relieve the specific source of distress (e.g., unemployment benefits) as well as broader redistributive efforts (e.g., aid to the poor).

In addition, I rectify limitations in extant research by clearly accounting for overlapping and correlated levels of contact. In addition, I leverage three original survey experiments to test whether the effects of common mechanisms identified in extant literature (subjective status comparisons and empathy) to catalyze support for redistribution vary depending upon the nature of contact with the poor. Overall, I find that close contact with financially struggling loved ones increases support for broad redistributive efforts, but the extent of contact’s influence is conditioned upon the reason(s) for a friend or family member’s distress. Moreover, I find no effects of downward subjective status comparisons to poor friends or relatives on support for redistributive or antipoverty policies.

I earned my Master of Arts in 2022 and my Bachelor of Arts in 2018, both from the University of California, Riverside. Outside of academia, I enjoy gothic horror, golden hour, and tending to my small jungle of house plants.

If you would like to get in touch, please don’t hesitate to email me at booi001@ucr.edu or submit a contact form. Thank you for visiting!