You Can't Lie in Science...

If you're good-looking,  try consulting, but don't go trying to fake your way through academia...
Eventually, you'll trip yourself up, even if you're good-looking, persuasive and think you will get away with it.
#LessonLearned

When Contact Changes Minds: Two Longitudinal Field Experiments on Transmission of Support for Gay Equality

(With Donald P. Green), Science.
Abstract: Can a single conversation change minds on divisive social issues, such as same-sex marriage? We report results from a randomized placebo-controlled trial assessing whether gay or straight messengers were effective at encouraging voters to support same-sex marriage and whether attitude change persisted and spread to others in voters’ social networks. The results, measured by an ostensibly unrelated panel survey, show that both gay and straight canvassers produced large effects initially, but only gay canvassers’ effects persisted in three-week, six-week, and nine-month follow-ups. We also find strong evidence of within-household transmission of opinion change, but only in the wake of conversations with gay canvassers. A follow-up experiment demonstrates that openly gay canvassers only affect support for same-sex marriage and ratings of gay people when the topic of conversation is gay equality. These findings suggest the theoretical importance of contact with minorities coupled with discussion of policy issues pertinent to them.

Faker.
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ADDED:  This last paragraph is also concerning...  Seems he persuaded liberal and conservative editors, alike.  Never underestimate the power of a good-looking man playing professor:

I am a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA.  I research political behavior, public opinion, and media; using experimentation, longitudinal panel surveys, and social network analysis to study the ways in which persuasive communications influence voters.  

My research has been published in Science and Political Communication, as well as featured in: This American Life, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post,  The Los Angeles Times, Science Friday, The Upshot, Bloomberg Politics, The Economist, USA Today, Vox, and HuffingtonPost.

“I am very impressed with this paper,” said Todd Rogers, an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a founding director of the Analyst Institute, a voter research group that helps Democratic candidates. Mr. Rogers, who was not involved in the research, said: “There’s a whole infrastructure across the political spectrum devoted to changing people’s attitude and beliefs on important topics, and this has obvious implications. You want a messenger for whom the issue is of personal relevance.”

And look at all those bullets under the Awards and Fellowships section... Impressive!