Staff profile

Dr. Ditonto is an associate professor in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University. Her research interests include gender and politics, political psychology, American politics, and voting behaviour. Specifically, her work focuses on perceptions of female political candidates, the role of stereotypes and prejudice in voter decision-making, and the effects of information and cognition on political behaviour.

She received her BA from the University of Michigan (2004) and her PhD from Rutgers University - New Brunswick (2013). She previously worked as an assistant professor at Iowa State University before joining SGIA in 2019. 

• Gender and politics
• Women and politics
• Political psychology
• Political behaviour
• American Politics
• Quantitative Methods

Available for media contact about:

• Politics & Society: Women and politics
• Politics & Society: American Politics
• Politics & Society: Voting behaviour, candidate evaluation, partisanship

Chapter in book

• Ditonto, Tessa (Accepted). Voting and Gender. In The Sage Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender. Nadal, Kevin Sage.
• Ditonto, Tessa & Andersen, David (Published). Beyond the Presidency, 2016: Women Candidates in Down-Ballot Races. In Politicking While Female: The Political Lives of Women. Bauer, Nichole LSU Press. 115-136.
• Ditonto, Tessa & Lau, Richard R. (2018). (Working Toward) Affective Transfer in the Real World. In The Feeling, Thinking Citizen: Essays in Honor of Milton Lodge. Lavine, Howard & Taber, Charles Routledge.
• Ditonto, Tessa (2014). The 'Outsider' and the Presidency: Mediated Representations of Race and Gender in the 2008 Presidential Primaries. In Race and the Obama Phenomenon: The Vision of a More Perfect Multiracial Union. Daniel, G. Reginald & Williams, Hettie University of Mississippi Press.

Journal Article

• Andersen, David J & DiTonto, Tessa (2020). The Importance of Candidate Sex and Partisan Preference Over Time: A Multi-day Study of Voter Decision-Making. The Journal of Politics 82(4): 1337-1353.
• Ditonto, Tessa (2020). The Mediating Role of Information Search in the Relationship Between Prejudice and Voting Behavior. Political Psychology 41(1): 71-88.
• Ditonto, Tessa (2019). Direct and indirect effects of prejudice: sexism, information, and voting behavior in political campaigns. Politics, Groups, and Identities 7(3): 590.
• Peterson, David A. M., Biederman, Lori A., Andersen, David, Ditonto, Tessa M. & Roe, Kevin (2019). Mitigating gender bias in student evaluations of teaching. PLoS ONE 14(5): e0216241.
• Ditonto, Tessa & Mattes, Kyle (2018). Differences in Appearance-Based Trait Inferences for Male and Female Political Candidates. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 39(4): 430-450.
• Andersen, David J. & Ditonto, Tessa (2018). Information and its Presentation: Treatment Effects in Low-Information vs. High-Information Experiments. Political Analysis 26(4): 379-398.
• Ditonto, Tessa & Andersen, David J. (2018). Two’s a Crowd: Women Candidates in Concurrent Elections. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 39(3): 257-284.
• Ditonto, Tessa (2018). A face fit for office? Appearance-based competence inferences in high-information environments. Electoral Studies 54: 248-253.
• Lau, Richard R, Kleinberg, Mona S & Ditonto, Tessa M (2018). Measuring Voter Decision Strategies in Political Behavior and Public Opinion Research. Public Opinion Quarterly 82(S1): 911-936.
• Ditonto, Tessa (2017). A High Bar or a Double Standard? Gender, Competence, and Information in Political Campaigns. Political Behavior 39(2): 301-325.
• Lau, Richard R., Andersen, David J., Ditonto, Tessa M., Kleinberg, Mona S. & Redlawsk, David P. (2017). Effect of Media Environment Diversity and Advertising Tone on Information Search, Selective Exposure, and Affective Polarization. Political Behavior 39(1): 231-255.
• Ditonto, Tessa M., Hamilton, Allison J. & Redlawsk, David P. (2014). Gender Stereotypes, Information Search, and Voting Behavior in Political Campaigns. Political Behavior 36(2): 335-358.
• Ditonto, Tessa M., Lau, Richard R. & Sears, David O. (2013). AMPing Racial Attitudes: Comparing the Power of Explicit and Implicit Racism Measures in 2008. Political Psychology 34(4): 487-510.