How our Tolerance for Ambiguity Shapes our Engagement with the World

Dannagal Young is a professor of Communication and Political Science at the University of Delaware. Her research interests include political media effects, media psychology, public opinion and the psychology of misinformation. She studies the intersection of entertainment and information, including the psychology of political satire. Her research explores how the psychology of liberals and conservatives shapes how they process information and their preferences for media genres and political aesthetics. Professor Young’s book, Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laugher in the U.S. examines satire and outrage as the logical extensions of the respective psychological profiles of liberals and conservatives. Her most recent book is Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive our Appetite for Misinformation.

Dr. Young's 2020 TED Talk explaining how our psychology shapes our politics, and how media exploit these relationships, has been viewed over 2 Million times. She publishes extensively in the popular press with essays and Op-eds in outlets including Vox.com, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She has appeared on CNN, PBS Newshour, ABC News, NPR, and various national and international podcasts.