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College of Arts & Sciences
Department of Political Science
Andrew Delton

Andrew Delton

Associate Professor

PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara

N-725, Social and Behavioral Sciences Building
Department of Political Science
4392 SUNY
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4392 

andrew.delton@stonybrook.edu

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  • Biography

    Biography

    Andrew Delton is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and the College of Business. He received his PhD in psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

  • Research

    Research

    Delton studies evolution, psychology, and politics. One goal is to uncover the psychology that allows humans to live as a cooperative and moral species. This includes research on generosity, social dilemmas, personality, and emotions like anger, compassion, shame, and gratitude. He views human psychology as a series of information-processing systems, each one designed to solve an important problem that our human ancestors faced. Another goal of his research is to use this knowledge to understand politics, including voting, partisanship, and public goods. Current work includes a forthcoming book on the politics of climate change. He is also interested in how our evolved psychology gives rise to political thought, focusing on liberalism, rights, and toleration. He uses many methods to study these topics, particularly experimental economic games.

  • Recent Publications

    Book

    Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. (2024) Climate Games: Experiments on How People Prevent Disaster. University of Michigan Press. [UMich Press, Amazon]*

    *The complete book is available as a free download at the UMich Press link or as a free Kindle book at the Amazon link.

    Articles

    Alva, D. P., Andrews, T. M., & Delton, A. W. (in press). The Politics of Pooling Risk: People Want to Help the Vulnerable by Involving the Government in Healthcare. Political Psychology. [PDF, Supplement]

    Panish, A. R. & Delton. A. W. (in press). Why Anxious People Lean to the Left on Economic Policy: Personality, Social Exclusion, and Redistribution. British Journal of Political Science. [PDF, Supplement] 

    Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. (2023). Who do you trust? Institutions that constrain leaders help people prevent disaster. Journal of Politics, 85, 64-75. [PDF, Supplement]

    Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. (2023). Is a rational politics of disaster possible? Making useful decisions for others in an experimental disaster game. Political Behavior, 45, 305-326. [PDF, Supplement]

    Delton, A. W., Jaeggi, A. V., Lim, J., Sznycer, D., Gurven, M., Robertson, T. E., Sugiyama, L., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2023). Cognitive foundations for helping and harming others: Making welfare tradeoffs in industrialized and small-scale societies. Evolution and Human Behavior, 44, 485-501. [PDF, Supplement]

    Andrews, T. M., Delton, A. W., & Kline, R. (2022). Anticipating moral hazard undermines climate mitigation in an experimental geoengineering game. Ecological Economics, 196, 107421. [PDF, Supplement]

    Delton, A. W., Kane, J. V., Petersen, M. B., Robertson, T. E., & Cosmides, L. (2022). Partisans use emotions as social pressure: Feeling anger and gratitude at exiters and recruits in political groups. Party Politics, 28, 845-853. [PDF, Supplement]

    Del Ponte, A., Delton, A. W., & DeScioli, P. (2021). Altruism and spite in politics: How the mind makes welfare tradeoffs about political parties. Political Behavior, 43, 1289-1310. [PDF, Supplement]

    DeScioli, P., Cho, B., Bokemper, S., & Delton, A. W. (2020). Selfish and cooperative voting: Can the majority restrain themselves? Political Behavior, 42, 261-283. [PDF, Supplement] 

    Delton, A. W., DeScioli, P., & Ryan, T. J. (2020). Moral obstinacy in political negotiations. Political Psychology, 41, 3-20. [PDF, Supplement]

  • Teaching

    Teaching

    Undergraduate:
    POL 201: Introduction to Statistical Methods in Political Science
    Graduate:
    POL 504: Research Design
    POL 610: Foundations II - Experimental Design
    POL 625: Ecological Rationality
    POL 678: Political Decision Making
  • News

    News