Political Psychology – Lecture 11 [UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM]

There is an important role of emotion in voting. Furthermore, there is an important role of narratives in voting. This is reflected in the content of the message, the identity (i.e. of the groups) and the values. The parents (1), school (2), friends (3), media (4) and events (5) are important in forming political attitudes.

There is a genetic component to political attitudes. About 30% of political attitudes is explained by genes. About 16% is explained by the shared environment and the rest of the political attitudes is explained by unshared environment.

Socialization explains more variance in political attitudes than genes but both are important. There are short-term factors that are important in explaining one’s voting behaviour (i.e. issues and candidates). There are also long-term factors that are important in explaining one’s voting behaviour (i.e. group loyalty and party identity).

There are four groups of political sophistication:

1. Ideologues
   This group has knowledge of party views.
2. Group benefit
   This group has knowledge about the advantage of one’s group.
3. Nature of times
   This group has knowledge about whether the time is good for family (i.e. if the time is good, I vote for the same candidate).
4. No issue content
   This group has no political knowledge.

There are other groups of political activity:

1. Political sophisticates
   This group has active knowledge and interest in politics.
2. Majority
   This group has the ability but no interest in politics.
3. A-politics
   This group has no ability and no interest in politics.

First impressions are important in explaining voting behaviour. There are several trivial factors that form a first impression and tend to help explain voting behaviour (e.g. height; face).

Narratives and emotions are especially powerful in explaining voting behaviour when people have limited political knowledge. Leaders can elicit different emotions depending on party affiliation.

A feeling of fear and threat leads to higher approval ratings for strong leaders (e.g. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis). In times of trouble, there is more support for a strong leader. The popularity of strong leaders goes up.

The theory of affective intelligence states that people normally vote for their party (i.e. the party they affiliate with most in neutral circumstances). However, when a person experiences anxiety (e.g. due to issues with party plans; personal issues with candidate), people tend to scrutinize certain topics (e.g. party plans; personal qualities of the leader). This leads to reduced importance of the party. This, in turn, can lead to a person voting for another party. Voting intention can change as a result of anxiety and the resulting scrutinization of the party.

Enthusiasm is a good predictor of voting behaviour. People look for information when they experience anxiety. There is no moderating effect of anxiety for comparative personal quality (e.g. looking at different candidates). People tend to look for information and not necessarily look at personal qualities of the candidates when they are experiencing anxiety. They focus on the issue rather than personal qualities.

When people experience anxiety, they focus on the perceived relative quality of the policies and the perceived quality of the people does not matter. A surveillance system of emotion manages attention. It requires emotions that notify that conscious attention (e.g. anxiety; fear; uncertainty) is necessary.

The black sheep effect states that evaluations of attack advertisements and the sponsors of the advertisements are driven by a motivation to preserve a social identity. This means that when people see an in-group candidate engaging in unfavourable behaviour, this is perceived as violating group norms and threatening the positive image of the group. This leads voters to evaluate the candidate negatively. Issue-based attacks are seen as more acceptable than personal attack advertisements.

People tend to show voting intention to vote for own party when advertisements are in favour of the favourite candidate. Attack ads of the own candidate toward the opposing candidate lead to anxiety toward the opposing candidate. When people feel anxiety towards own candidate, they are more open to new information (i.e. heterogeneous conversation).

Advertisements in favour of one’s favourite candidate lead to more enthusiasm about that candidate. Advertisements of one’s favourite candidate opposing the other candidate lead to more anxiety about the opposing candidate. However, this also leads to more anxiety about one’s favourite candidate. Exposure to attack advertisements about the opposed candidate will strengthen the pre-existing attitudes toward the candidate.

Attack advertisements regarding the favourite candidate are often perceived as a direct attack toward the voter which elicits negative emotions. Voters are more likely to critically assess the criticism of the attack advertisement.

Advertisements of an opposing candidate toward an opposing candidate do not lead to more anxiety about either candidate. Furthermore, advertisements of an opposing candidate toward one’s favourite candidate do not lead to more anger toward the opposing candidate and it does not influence the enthusiasm about one’s favourite candidate. Lastly, the feelings of enthusiasm toward one’s favourite candidate are not associated with the frequency of homogeneous political conversation.

Anxiety about one’s favourite candidate leads to more heterogeneous political conversation. Anxiety and anger about the opposing candidate lead to more both heterogeneous but mostly to more homogeneous political conversation.

When people feel anxiety toward own candidate they are more open to new information and thus will engage in more heterogeneous conversation. Other emotions that are relevant for voting behaviour (e.g. surprise, confidence, shame) depend on group membership.