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

这项研究提出了一个简单而重要的问题：为什么这么多美国人不投票？参与的机会扩大到绝大多数成年公民。然而，即使是最具刺激性的总统选举，也未能让近一半的合格选民参加投票。这一事实应该如何解释？人们不投票是因为心满意足的冷漠，还是可能许多不投票的人厌恶政治？可以肯定的是，登记、了解候选人和前往投票站所需的时间和注意力会劝阻许多人投票。但第二种可能性推动了这个项目：一些没有投票的人是否可以归因于对政治制度的负面情绪反应？一个相关的问题是，厌恶等厌恶情绪是否会减少竞选活动中的信息寻求。为了解决这些问题，研究人员将进行一项全国性的调查实验。受试者将被要求阅读一篇随机分配的模拟新闻文章，该文章旨在引发对政治制度的四种情绪反应之一：厌恶、愤怒、焦虑或热情。控制组将收到一篇基于事实的关于政治的文章，目的是不引起任何情绪。在阅读了这篇文章后，受试者将被介绍到虚构的候选人之间的模拟竞选活动，并有机会了解更多关于候选人的个人历史和问题立场。在获得尽可能多或尽可能少的信息后，受试者将有机会投票给他们喜欢的候选人。研究人员预计，让受试者感到厌恶的人会获得更少的信息，并拒绝参加模拟投票。与心理学和政治学之前的研究一致，研究人员预计愤怒与寻求信息的减少但参与的增加有关。与此同时，焦虑应该会导致更多的信息寻求。本研究将增进对政治参与和政治行为的理解。政治学家通常在负面意义上将不投票定义为缺乏教育、收入和党派亲和力等资源，这被认为是导致投票的原因。然而，这些目前的解释无法解释为什么会有许多不投票的人(可能约占四分之一)，他们的资源和兴趣应该足以投票。这个项目还推动了政治心理学家对情绪对政治行为影响的研究的迅速扩大，明确地将其扩展到选民投票率的研究中。该项目还做出了几个更广泛的贡献。民主制度的健康与否取决于选举的公开性，当大批民众将自己排除在选举进程之外时，民主制度的代表性就会受到质疑。揭示无投票权的情感基础有助于加深理解，并为政策制定者努力促进公民参与提供了一条前进的道路。这个项目挑战了四分之一多世纪以来旨在通过降低投票成本来提高投票率的政治改革和动员努力所依据的假设，就像改革后的登记法一样。

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.