Emotion,Sophistication and Political Behavior: Evidence From a Laboratory Experiment

The way emotions affect political behavior has been a central theme in politics since ancient times, but it is only in the past few decades that it has been the focus of rigorous empirical inquiry. Recent empirical research suggests that emotions may affect different groups of people in distinct ways, but experimental evidence remains scant. Through a double‐blind experiment, this article investigates the degree to which emotions (shame and anger) motivate people with different levels of political sophistication to be more politically active. The findings are two‐fold: (1) Once treated with shame, more sophisticated individuals are more likely to change their political behavior than less sophisticated ones; and (2) once treated with anger, it is people with low levels of prior political involvement who are more likely to report a change in their behavior. The findings highlight the potential of going beyond the existing investigations by adding shame in empirical analyses of how emotions affect behavioral change. The evidence here also shows that different emotions might display different patterns of interaction with sophistication. Practically, the findings point to an emotional venue for the mobilization of citizens who are generally difficult to engage in political life.