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People are poor judges of both their own skills and the mental states of others. This creates important differences in perceptions of influence in conversations about politics. In this study, I explore how political knowledge and sociodemographic characteristics pattern perceptions of influence in political conversation.

Perceptions of occupational prestige are commonly associated with job satisfaction and job turnover intentions, but little is known about law enforcement officers’ (LEOs) own views of the prestige of policing. The purpose of this study is to quantify how LEOs rate the prestige of their profession, how they think their communities view their profession, and whether these views vary by sociodemographic characteristics.

Protests against police brutality, such as those that followed the murder of George Floyd in the spring of 2020, can affect public opinion of police. By acting as a form of identity threat, they may also affect police officers’ meanings of their own occupational identities.

Substantial research details individuals’ estimates of affective cultural meanings and how they vary along demographic and socioeconomic lines. However, much less is known about individuals’ levels of uncertainty about these meanings—what I refer to as ambiguity—or how ambiguity is patterned among respondents or concepts, though it is likely ambiguity has consequences for interaction and cultural change.