John Hibbing

Foundation Regents University Professor of Political Science

Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1980.
Fields: American Politics, especially legislative politics and public opinion; Biology and Politics, especially evolutionary psychology.

Human behavior is the product of a fascinating interaction of environmental and genetic forces. In spite of this fact, political scientists have limited their attention almost exclusively to environmental variables. Hibbing’s current work, mostly with John Alford of Rice University, employs economic games, fMRIs, evolutionary theory, and behavioral genetics in order to identify the deeper biological causes of social and especially political behavior. Previously, he has edited the Legislative Studies Quarterly, served as President of the American Political Science Association’s Legislative Studies Section, received six National Science Foundation grants, co-authored Congress as Public Enemy and Stealth Democracy (with Elizabeth Theiss-Morse), won the Fenno Prize, and been a NATO Fellow in Science as well as a Senior Fulbright Fellow.