Flow,Diversity, Form,and Influence of Political Talk in Social‐Media‐Based Public Forums

By investigating social‐media‐based public forums and using network and content analyses, this study explores how political discussions flow, how diverse they are, and what forms of political discussions are influential. The results suggest that the flow of political discussions is not notably centralized and cliquish. Participants refer primarily to the remarks of like‐minded fellow citizens. Political discussions are more emotional than cognitive and express more anger than anxiety, but it appears that cognitive discussions are more influential than emotional ones. Among cognitive components, assertive and strong discussions have greater influence than analytical ones. These results have implications for the practice of citizenship and the theory of selective exposure as well as for future directions in political communication research.     

Politics, schadenfreude, and ingroup identification: The sometimes happy thing about a poor economy and death

Political campaigns are often characterized by the various events occurring that move the tide in favor of one candidate or another. Each event, depending on which candidate it favors or harms, produces either happiness or sadness for those who care about the outcome. This research examined whether such reactions would hold for events that are misfortunes for other people and even when they negatively affect society more broadly regardless of political party affiliation. Ingroup (i.e. political party) identification was examined as an important moderating variable. In four studies, undergraduate participants gave their emotional reactions to news articles describing misfortunes happening to others (e.g. poor economic news and house foreclosures). Party affiliation and the intensity of ingroup identification strongly predicted whether these events produced schadenfreude.     

Sleep quality in healthy and mood-disordered persons predicts daily life emotional reactivity

Disordered sleep has been linked to impaired emotional functioning in healthy and depressed individuals. Little is known, however, about how chronic sleep problems influence emotional reactivity in everyday life. Participants with major or minor unipolar depressive disorder (n?=?60) and healthy controls (n?=?35) reported on sleep and emotional responses to daily life events using a computerised Experience Sampling Method. We examined whether impaired sleep quality influenced emotional reactivity to daily events, and if this relationship was altered by unipolar mood disorders. Among healthy individuals, sleep difficulties were associated with enhanced negative affect (NA) to unpleasant events and a dulled response to neutral events. However, among mood-disordered persons, sleep difficulties were associated with higher NA across all types of everyday life events. Impaired sleep quality differentially affects daily life emotional reactions as a function of depression.     

Political accountability,public constitution of recent past and the collective memory of socio‐political events: A discursive analysis

This paper presents a discursive analysis of a political news interview as a site for the interactional organization of the public constitution of recent past. In a context of commemoration and finding out the truth about the past, the focus is on how the collective memory of socio‐political events and political accountability is managed and what discursive practices representatives of nation‐states draw upon to understand and construct ideological representations of socio‐political events, namely the Romanian ‘revolution’ of 1989. The analysis shows how the possibility versus the actuality of knowing the truth about the events, (political) accountability and stake for actions are discussed, framed and given significance by constituting the ‘events’ of 1989 as ‘revolution’. The analysis further reveals how this ascribed categorial meaning is used by the interviewee as background for delegitimizing critical voices and sidestepping responsibility for past actions and knowing the truth. Social and community psychologists can learn more about how individuals and communities construct ideological versions of socio‐political events by considering the interplay between questions of political accountability and arguments over the meaning of political categories, and engaging with the accounting practices in which the meaning of socio‐political events is being negotiated by members of society Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Conservatives Anticipate and Experience Stronger Emotional Reactions to Negative Outcomes

The present work examined whether conservatives and liberals differ in their anticipation of their own emotional reactions to negative events. In two studies, participants imagined experiencing positive or negative outcomes in domains that do not directly concern politics. In Study 1, 190 American participants recruited online (64 male, M_age = 32 years) anticipated their emotional responses to romantic relationship outcomes. In Study 2, 97 Canadian undergraduate students (26 male, M_age = 21 years) reported on their anticipated and experienced emotional responses to academic outcomes. In both studies, more conservative participants predicted they would feel stronger negative emotions following negative outcomes than did more liberal participants. Furthermore, a longitudinal follow‐up of Study 2 participants revealed that more conservative participants actually felt worse than more liberal participants after receiving a lower‐than‐desired exam grade. These effects remained even when controlling for the Big Five traits, prevention focus, and attachment style (Study 1), and optimism (Study 2). We discuss how the relationship between political orientation and anticipated affect likely contributes to differences between conservatives and liberals in styles of decision and policy choices.     

Emotions during the Covid-19 pandemic: Fear,anxiety, and anger as mediators between threats and policy support and political actions

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the lives of most people. It has been described as the most severe global health disaster of modern times by the United Nations. No doubt such a major crisis influences what citizens think of different policies, and how they become politically active, not to mention, the forceful emotional experiences that the Covid-19 pandemic brings. This study evaluates how emotions affect support for policies related to restricting the spread of the virus and economic assistance, and how emotions affect intentions to engage politically. In an experiment (N = 1,072), we manipulated emotional reactions to threat by highlighting different aspects of the pandemic. Our findings show that different experimental treatments elicit different emotions, and that fear, anxiety, and anger are all related to policy support and political action intentions, but in different ways. Fear and anger predict support for restrictive policies to limit the spread of the virus, while anxiety predicts support for economic policies. Anger and anxiety, but not fear, increase intentions to engage politically. Hence, we find support for a mechanism where different aspects of the Covid-19 crisis evoke different emotional reactions, which in turn affects policy support and political actions differently.     

The role of political skill in the stressor–outcome relationship: Differential predictions for self- and other-reports of political skill

The beneficial role of political skill in stress reactions and performance evaluations has been demonstrated in a substantial amount of empirical research. Most of the research, however, has focused on self-perceptions of political skill. This study examines the differential moderating effects of self- vs. other-rated political skill in the conflict – emotional burnout and performance relationships, using two samples including non-academic staff employees of a large university (N = 839) and a variety of office and retail employees from an automotive organization (N = 142). We argue that self-reported political skill moderates the relationship between conflict and a self-reported strain-related outcome that is important to the individual (i.e., emotional burnout), but that supervisor-rated political skill does not moderate this relationship. Further, we argue that supervisor-rated political skill moderates the relationship between conflict and an outcome important to the supervisor and the organization (i.e., job performance), but that self-reported political skill does not moderate this relationship. Findings partially support our hypotheses as both self and supervisor-rated political skill neutralized the negative effects of conflict on burnout, but only supervisor-rated political skill neutralized the negative effects of conflict on performance. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

How Users Take Advantage of Different Forms of Interactivity on Online News Sites: Clicking,E‐Mailing,and Commenting

This study examines the uptake of multiple interactive features on news sites. It looks at the thematic composition of the most clicked, most e‐mailed, and most commented stories during periods of heightened and routine political activity. Results show that (a) during the former period, the most commented stories were more likely to be focused on political, economic, and international topics (or “public affairs” news) than the most clicked and most e‐mailed articles. (b) The 3 types of interactivity exhibited a greater presence of public affairs content during the period of heightened political activity than during its routine counterpart. (c) As the period of heightened political activity unfolded, consumers' propensity to click on, e‐mail, and comment about public affairs stories increased.     

Self‐esteem and anxious responses to partner feedback: Parsing anticipatory and consummatory anxiety

We hypothesized that people with lower self‐esteem (SE) may perceive feedback from romantic partners in threatening ways and display maladaptive reactions during these events. Although prior research suggests that SE is mostly unrelated to emotional reactions to partner feedback, we predicted that differences in anxious emotion exist, but emerge before the feedback is delivered, at anticipation. We evaluated these predictions through a series of studies in which participants received feedback from ongoing and ostensible dating partners. As in prior research, SE was unrelated to anxiety at feedback delivery. In contrast, and consistent with predictions, participants with lower SE anticipated feeling more anxious when receiving positive and negative feedback. These results are discussed in the context of broader relationship dynamics.     

Hate Welfare But Help the Poor: How the Attributional Content of Stereotypes Explains the Paradox of Reactions to the Destitute in America1

Social scientists have documented more negative reactions to the concept of welfare versus the concept of poor, despite the fact that both labels can be used almost interchangeably in current political discussions. We believe that the most proximal explanation rests in the different attributional information contained within the stereotypes of welfare recipients versus poor people. Three studies were conducted to test this idea. The results suggest that the attributional content within stereotypes of welfare recipients, particularly their greater responsibility for their impoverished state compared with poor people, most influences the public's more negative reaction to welfare. The results are discussed in terms of how the rhetoric of stereotypes may be exploited in the political domain.     

Forecasting the influence of customer-related micro-events on employees’ emotional,attitudinal and physiological responses

The affective events theory proposes that daily events elicit affective reactions on workers that, over time, influence affective and judgement-driven behaviours. It also suggests that this relation is moderated by dispositions and appraisals. On the other hand, the social interaction model argues that the impact of emotions is moderated by how individuals regulate them. This study aimed to: (1) investigate what customer-related events elicit affect; (2) test the moderating role of workers’ susceptibility for emotional contagion on the relation events-affect; and (3) explore whether affective states influence cardiovascular efficiency and turnover intentions. We conducted a longitudinal study in an inbound call centre by following 48 workers during 10 working days, gathering 267 events and 1,232 affective reactions. We combined diaries, questionnaires and physiological data. Data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. We extracted 13 event categories and, using artificial neural networks (ANN), found support for the moderating role of emotional contagion. At daily level, fear was the stronger predictor of cardiovascular efficiency, whereas anger was the stronger predictor of turnover. ANN models showed satisfactory predictive values (R²_Turnover = .51, p < .01; R²_{Cardiovascular efficiency} = .32, p < .01). The importance of results for theory and practice is discussed.     

Being Dismissed: The Politics of Emotional Expression

My intent is to bring a key group of critical terms associated with the emotions—bitterness, sentimentality, and emotionality—to greater feminist attention. These terms are used to characterize emoters on the basis of how we express ourselves, and they characterize us in ways that we need no longer be taken seriously. I analyze the ways in which these terms of emotional dismissal can be put to powerful political use.     

Stress reactions following acute situations involving moral challenges among health care professionals

Many health care professionals have to make morally difficult decisions during acute, stressful situations. The aim was to explore the applicability of an existing qualitatively developed model of individual reactions among professional first responders following such situations using a quantitative approach. According to the model, the interaction of antecedent individual and contextual characteristics affect the immediate emotional reactions to acute, stressful events involving a moral dilemma. Continuous coping efforts and the quality of social support will also affect the long‐term positive and negative reactions to the event. The participants (n = 204, about 50% response rate) represented three Swedish health care professions stationed at a university hospital and a regional hospital: Physicians (n = 50), nurses (n = 94) and “others” (n =60, mainly social welfare officers and assistant nurses). Except for the personality dimension emotional stability which was measured using an established instrument, all measurement scales were operationalizations of codes and categories from the qualitative study (ten scales altogether). Four multiple regression analyses were performed with long‐term positive and negative reactions in everyday acute and morally extremely taxing situations respectively as dependent variables. The outcome showed that long‐term positive reactions covaried with much use of the coping strategies Emotional distancing and Constructive emotional confrontation and a perception of a well‐functioning Formal social support. Regarding long‐term negative reactions, higher age and little use of Emotional distancing accounted for much of the variance. Immediate emotional reactions also contributed significantly. Conclusion: the results largely supported the model concepts and their assumed relationships.     

“Keep them out to save our inside:” discourses on immigration by the Spanish far right

Vox is a far-right, Spanish political party that has steadily grown to become the third main party in the national congress. Immigration is a major presence in Vox's political agenda. Through Critical Discourse Analysis, we analyze the party's public speeches and Twitter communications on immigration in the last 3 years, from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to the Ukraine-Russia war in 2022. These contexts have provided a fertile ground for Vox's concerns with the protection of national borders, the criminalization of African and irregular immigrants, and the Spanish Government's ineffectiveness to protect the Spaniards' homes. Vox's main discursive strategies entail constructions of migrants and migration based on dichotomous binaries, culture clash, exclusionary discourses of domopolitics, and fears of imminent social and cultural changes. These constructions are based on the unproblematized belief on essential and unchangeable values that forge the identity of the homeland, which is implicitly threatened by immigrants. Against the migratory invasion, Vox constitutes itself as the ethical protector of the Spanish society and nation, “out of care for the insiders and not out of hatred for outsiders.”     

How exposure to real conspiracy theories motivates collective action and political engagement? Τhe moderating role of primed victimhood and underlying emotional mechanisms in the case of 2018 bushfire in Attica

Conspiracy theories concern milestone events, mobilizing various explanations. However, there is still emerging research on how conspiracy beliefs mobilize normative and nonnormative collective action, as well as political engagement and what the emotional underpinnings of such effects are. We conducted two experimental studies (Study 1, N = 301 and Study 2, N = 328) on exploring the relationship between exposure to conspiracy theories and normative, nonnormative collective action and political engagement, moderated by primed victimhood and mediated by fear/anxiety and anger emotional indices. Results in Study 1 showed that exposure to conspiracy theories decreases normative collective action, but increases nonnormative collective action, negative emotions of anger and fear/anxiety and political engagement. In Study 2 we confirmed findings of Study 1, but these effects were moderated by primed victimhood. Study 2 also showed that anger index, but not fear/anxiety index, significantly mediated the moderating interaction effect between exposure to conspiracy theories and primed victimhood on the (non)normative collective action and political engagement. Results are discussed in light of the broader impact of circulation of conspiracy theories and their effective tackle amidst societal traumas.     

The bidirectional relation of emotion perception and social judgments: the effect of witness’ emotion expression on perceptions of moral behaviour and vice versa

The present research tested the notion that emotion expression and context perception are bidirectionally related. Specifically, in two studies focusing on moral violations (N?=?288) and positive moral deviations (N?=?245) respectively, we presented participants with short vignettes describing behaviours that were either (im)moral, (in)polite or unusual together with a picture of the emotional reaction of a person who supposedly had been a witness to the event. Participants rated both the emotional reactions observed and their own moral appraisal of the situation described. In both studies, we found that situational context influenced how emotional reactions to this context were rated and in turn, the emotional expression shown in reaction to a situation influenced the appraisal of the situation. That is, neither the moral events nor the emotion expressions were judged in an absolute fashion. Rather, the perception of one also depended on the other.     

Emotional expressivity in men and women: Stereotypes and self-perceptions

Three studies were conducted to assess prevalent stereotypes regarding men's and women's emotional expressivity as well as self-perceptions of their emotional behaviour. Emotion profiles were employed to assess both modal emotional reactions and secondary emotional reactions to hypothetical events and personal experiences. In Study 1 we asked how men and women in general would react to a series of hypothetical emotional events. In Study 2 we asked how participants themselves expected to react to these same situations and in Study 3 we asked participants to report a personal emotional event in narrative form. Two gender differences emerged across all three studies. Specifically, women were expected to be more likely to react with sadness to negative emotion-eliciting events in general. They also expected themselves to be more likely to react with sadness as well as to cry and to withdraw more when experiencing negative emotional events. Finally, women report more sadness when describing personal events. In contrast, men were expected to react with more happiness/serenity during negative emotional situations. Also, they expect themselves to react more frequently this way as well as to laugh and smile more and to be more relaxed in negative situations. Finally, men tend to report more happiness when describing negative personal events. In sum, the present study gives a more detailed portrayal of how men and women are expected and expect themselves to react to specific emotional situations and presents some evidence that these expectations may influence the way they reconstruct emotional events from their past.     

FANTASY,FICTION, AND FEELINGS

Abstract: The nature of fantasy has been little discussed, despite its importance in the arts. Its significance is brought out here in relation to the long‐standing debate on the alleged paradox of fiction—that we respond emotionally to characters and events known to be unreal. Examination of the paradox shows it to be ill founded once the nature of fantasy is appreciated. Moreover, a detailed consideration of fantasy shows that it can itself provide a plausible account of our emotional reactions to creative literature, an account that, after a review of some possible objections, is then contrasted with the leading contemporary theories.     

Testing Our Quasi‐Statistical Sense: News Use,Political Knowledge,and False Projection

Although widely studied, previous research of projection in the context of public opinion did not incorporate the distinction between adequate and false projection developed in the cognitive studies: Adequate projection contributes to accurate perceptions of public opinion while false projection impairs it. The analysis presented in this study includes the above distinction, building on two case studies: (1) a dataset comprised of 25 surveys conducted over a period of 10 years (N = 11,313) and (2) a panel study of the 2013 Israeli general election. Relying on the assumptions of the Bayesian model, we tested if frequent news exposure and factual political knowledge reduce false projection. We found that false projection is a highly persistent psychological tendency with little variance. Although news exposure and political knowledge did contribute to a more accurate perception of public opinion, they did not reduce false projection. Conversely, knowledge increased false projection among moderates and had no effect in this respect among proponents of a more extreme ideology. These findings align better with the motivated reasoning model than with the Bayesian model.     

Religion in the Nordic Countries: Between Private and Public

A new visibility of religion in public life can be observed in the Nordic countries. This visibility is not due to a popular claim for a return of religion in the public sphere. As research conducted at Uppsala University in Sweden indicates, the visibility of religion in the Nordic countries reflects several concurring factors: the state’s continued relationship with churches and other religions; the growth of new forms of social exclusion drawing religion into public discussions on ethical and social issues; growing religious pluralism prompting political and legal regulation; a spirituality relating to existential issues and issues related to quality of life. The results raise important questions about Nordic modernity. They suggest that religion becomes public in several ways and emerges as an arena that connects the private and the public beyond conventional distinctions.