Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Aversive Emotional Reactions to Politics

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

This research asks a simple, important question: Why do so many Americans not vote? The opportunity to participate is extended to the overwhelming majority of adult citizens. Yet even presidential elections, the most high-stimulus of contests, fail to bring nearly half of the eligible electorate to the polls. How should this fact be interpreted? Are people nonvoters due to contented apathy, or is it possible that many nonvoters are disgusted with politics? To be sure, the time and attention required to register, learn about the candidates, and get to the polls dissuade many from voting. But the second possibility drives this project: can some nonvoting be attributed to negative emotional reactions to the political system? A related question regards whether aversive emotions such as disgust diminish information-seeking during electoral campaigns. To address these questions, the researcher will conduct a national survey experiment. Subjects will be asked to read a randomly assigned mock news article designed to elicit one of four emotional reactions to the political system: disgust, anger, anxiety or enthusiasm. A control group will receive a fact-based article about politics intended to elicit no emotion. After reading the article, subjects will be introduced to a simulated campaign between fictional candidates, complete with the opportunity to learn more about the candidates' personal histories and issue stances. After accessing as much, or as little, information as they wish, subjects will be given the opportunity to vote for their favored candidate. The researcher expects that subjects made to feel disgusted will access fewer pieces of information and refuse to take part in the mock vote. Consistent with prior work in both psychology and political science, the researcher expects anger to be associated with diminished information seeking but increased participation. Anxiety, meanwhile, should lead to increased information seeking. This research will enhance understanding of political participation and political behavior. Political scientists usually define nonvoters in the negative sense?as lacking resources such as education, income and partisan affinity, which are believed to cause voting. These current explanations, however, fail to explain the presence of many nonvoters (perhaps about one-fourth) whose resources and interest should be sufficient to cast a ballot. This project also advances political psychologists' rapidly expanding inquiry into the effects of emotions on political behavior, extending it explicitly into the study of voter turnout. The project also makes several broader contributions. The health of a democratic system hinges on the openness of elections, and its representativeness is called into question when large groups of the population exclude themselves from the electoral process. Uncovering the emotional underpinnings of nonvoting advances understanding and suggests a way forward for policymakers' efforts to boost civic engagement. This project challenges the assumptions underlying more than a quarter century of political reforms and mobilization efforts aimed at increasing turnout by lowering the costs of voting, as in reformed registration laws.