Welcome!

I am Xunchao Zhang. I am currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Political Science Department. My research interest lies in the political psychology of irrationality in the realm of international security. I study individual-level factors that lead to policy preferences and behaviors that potentially undermine national security. Specifically, I use experimental methods, text analysis, and large-N analysis to investigate how revenge, motivated reasoning, and expatriate national identity contribute to the escalation and persistence of international conflicts.