Social emotions and the experience of politics in everyday life. Towards an interactionist theory of political behaviour and an empirical approach to study it

大量文献研究政治行为的变化，如投票，示威或讨论政治。虽然我们对这些行为的相关性了解很多，但真正激励人们参与其中的微观动力仍然是一个黑匣子。该项目的主要目标是推进我们对这方面的理论理解。它通过发展一种理论来做到这一点，在这种理论中，表达政治偏好的动机来自世俗微观层面互动（或“仪式”）中的情感动力。第二个目标是探讨这种观点是否提供了经验性的附加值。其核心（也是新颖的）思想是，社会互动的情境质量对政治偏好--以及将其转化为政治行动的动机--具有独立的因果影响。从理论上讲，该项目将提出一个关系的角度，建立在兰德尔柯林斯的高度影响力的微观社会学。生物学和心理学的有力证据支持的核心直觉是，认知（如政治态度）的动力来自积极的情绪，而积极的情绪只能在成功的互动中产生。这种“仪式”被理论化为任何认知因素对政治行为的相对重要性的关键关系机制。这解决了现有理论中的一个重要空白，这些理论几乎没有告诉我们选民如何驾驭可能影响他们行为的众多价值观，利益或身份。通过阐明一个统一的动机基础，仪式理论可以将现有的论点整合成一个更普遍、更完整的因果链。这种理论简化是克服现有方法的碎片化的重要贡献。该项目超越了应用柯林斯的观点，以政治理论如何政治仪式是嵌入在社会话语和意识形态。因此，它将提供一个原创的理论，使正义的情景微观动态以及对宏观层面的影响。从经验上讲，该项目在定性方法（旨在深入理解政治仪式中的情感动态）和以宽容为导向的测试之间取得了创新的平衡，测试了互动质量对偏好表达的影响。它通过使用焦点小组作为定性观察、定量测量和实验性操纵政治仪式的场所来做到这一点。焦点小组的政治讨论将为定性观察提供丰富的材料，但也将产生记录和录像，从中可以得出互动质量的非语言指标。这些指标反过来又允许对理论的预测进行定量测试。最后，通过随机改变焦点小组的组成，仪式成功的机会可以通过实验来操纵，以提供更强大的测试。

A large literature studies variation in political behaviour, such as voting, demonstrating, or discussing politics. While we know a lot about the correlates of these behaviours, the micro-dynamics that actually motivate people to engage in them remain a black box. The primary goal of the project is to advance our theoretical understanding of precisely this aspect. It does so by developing a theory in which the motivation to express political preferences derives from emotional dynamics in mundane micro-level interactions (or ‘rituals’). The second goal is to explore whether such a perspective provides empirical added value. The core (and novel) idea is that the situational quality of social interactions has an independent causal influence on political preference - as well as on the motivation to translate them into political actions. Theoretically, the project will propose a relational perspective that builds on Randall Collins’s highly influential micro sociology. The central intuition, which is supported by robust evidence from biology and psychology, is that cognitions, such as political attitudes, derive their motivational force from positive emotions that can only be generated in successful interactions. Such ‘rituals’ are theorized as the key relational mechanism underlying the relative importance of any cognitive factor for political behaviour. This addresses an important gap in existing theories, which tell us little about how voters navigate the multitude of values, interests, or identities that could influence their behaviour. Through explicating a unified motivational basis, ritual theory can integrate existing arguments into a more general and complete causal chain. This theory reduction is an important contribution to overcoming the fragmentation of existing approaches. The project goes beyond applying Collins’s perspective to politics by theorizing how political rituals are embedded in societal discourses and ideologies. As a result, it will deliver an original theory that gives justice to situational micro dynamics as well as to influences on the macro level.Empirically, the project strikes an innovative balance between a qualitative approach (that aims at a deep understanding of the emotional dynamics in political rituals) and a causality-oriented test of the effect of interaction quality on the expression of preferences. It does so by using focus groups as sites for qualitative observation, quantitative measurement and experimental manipulation of political rituals. The political discussion in focus groups will provide rich material for qualitative observation, but it will also produce transcripts and footage from which para-linguistic indicators of interaction quality can be derived. The indicators, in turn, allow for a quantitative test of the theory’s prediction. Finally, by randomly varying the composition of the focus groups, the chances for ritual success can be manipulated experimentally to provide an even stronger test.