Research
You can read about some of my primary research themes below, including Trust, Immigration sentiments, Violent events, and Local economic context.

Trust
My primary research interest has been trust in strangers (known academically as “generalized social trust”)—a general belief about the trustworthiness of unknown others (essentially a baseline estimate of how trustworthy a given stranger is). This form of trust is immensely important in modern mass-scale societies because it furthers cooperation between strangers, which, under many circumstances, benefits both the individual as well as society more broadly.
Given its desirable consequences, we are interested in understanding how and when trust thrives or falters. A big debate in the literature concerns whether trust is founded early in life and subsequently remains a stable belief akin to (or perhaps a facet of) a personality trait or, alternatively, a belief that is continuously updated throughout life based on the experiences shaped a person has. My own position, based on my own research, is that while we tend to have a baseline level of trust when we enter adulthood, we continue to update our trust in others based on the experiences that we have with other people and institutions. This is important, not least for society, because it implies that trust is not set in stone and can therefore be build (but also eroded).
Looking at the specific sources of trust, I have primarily researched the role of immigration and institutional quality [insert link]. The role of Immigration vis-a-vis social trust is widely discussed—and contentious—because it encapsulates the fundamental question of whether social cohesion (as indicated by trust) is threatened by immigration and ensuing ethnic diversity. The answer to this question is not simple. One the one hand, I find that living among more immigrants—especially at close quarters—tend to slightly reduce trust of the native-born population. At the same time, immigrants from low-trust countries to a considerable extent catch up with the natives in terms of trust. The role of institutional quality speaks to the question of one potential lever for the state to build trust. Incorrupt states institutions—and concomitant trust in state institutions and politicians—are important in this regard.
Immigration Sentiments
What shapes reactions to immigration and immigrants among the native-born population? Answering this question is essential for understanding conflicts around immigration—and their potential solution—in increasingly ethnically diverse societies. In my work, I have—in the tradition of a large social science literature on intergroup relations—investigated various explanations for immigration sentiments among voters. One line of work on this topic focuses on how the native-born react to exposure to immigrants in their neighborhood. One interesting findings in this regard is that the outcome of this meeting depends on the characteristics (political sophistication or personality) of the native-born person.
I have also investigated reactions to immigrants among elites, specifically through their responsiveness of local politicians to immigrant constituents. We find that native-born Danish politicians are significantly and substantively less responsive to immigrants than to native-born Danes. However, this is matched by a corresponding lower responsiveness of ethnic minority politicians vis-a-vis native-born constituents, thereby indicating symmetric “ethnocentric” responsiveness.

Violent Events
Violent events such as terrorism or victimization to violent crime can be disruptive events that significant shape the well-being and political outlooks of both the directly affected victims as well as society more broadly.
One strand of my work examines the vicarious consequences terrorism for individual well-being. Terrorism obviously has adverse effects on the well-being of those directly affected, but the effects extend far beyond, even to people living in other countries. Demonstrating that, we found a significantly higher incidence of trauma- and stressor-related disorders in the Danish population after both the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001 and the Breivik attacks in Norway in 2011. Terrorism also has extended consequences for refugees fleeing conflict in their home countries. We found that refugees in Denmark are significantly more likely to use psychotropic drugs in years with higher levels of terrorism in their home countries. Sadly, “you can run, but you cannot hide”.
Terrorism also affects people’s political outlooks. In the aftermath of the 3/11 terrorist attack in Spain, we find a relatively short-lived increase in trust in societal institutions, thereby pointing to an extended “rallying effect”. Terrorism also makes people more willing to sacrifice civil liberties related to surveillance, and this is explained by an activation of ethnocentric predispositions.
Terrorism can also make supporters distance themselves from parties that are associated with violence. After the January 6, 2021 insurrection, we find that supporters of the Republican Party and Donald Trump de-identified en masse as indicated by dropping terms from their Twitter bios with no indication of immediate re-identification in the weeks that followed.
Beyond violent events that affect society as a whole, I have also studied the consequences of personally experiencing violent crime for political participation. We find that such experiences increases voter turnout in local elections.
Local Economic Context And Political Outlooks And Behaviors
How do people form impressions of the performance of the sitting government on which to base their vote? One source of information—that i have studied in my work—is the local residential context. In short, the neighborhood provides cues about the well-being of society that people use to make inferences about how the national economy is doing as well as to evaluate the sitting government.
In a similar vein, people also use economic inequality in their neighborhood when forming opinions about redistribution. More specifically, we find that rich people become less supportive of redistribution when they live among more poor individuals, which challenges the idea of the “self-correcting” qualities of (local) inequality (i.e., the rich becoming more pro-redistribution when living among poor peers).