1. Emotions Mediate Perception of Candidates in Presidential Debates
Ira J. Roseman, Rutgers University, Brian M. Johnston, City University of New York
Sean Garguilo, Ohio State University, James L. Floman, University of British Columbia,
Andrew D. Bryant, Ian R. Frazier, Gabriel Johnston, and Melanee K. Nugent, Rutgers University
When political candidates debate, are viewers' perceptions mediated by emotions the candidates have made them feel? In this study, undergraduates (1) watched portions of the 2008 Presidential debates; (2) answered questions about (a) candidates' qualities, (b) outcomes they would cause, and (c) emotions toward the candidates; and (3) evaluated the candidates on feeling thermometer scales found to correlate with voting preferences. Hope and anger mediated effects on thermometer evaluations of both candidates. In addition, contempt mediated effects on evaluations of Obama.
Introduction
Recent theoretical analyses assert the primacy of emotion over cognition in determining political evaluations and voting behavior (e.g., Westen, 2007). If emotion is dominant, might it also mediate relationships between viewers’ perceptions and their evaluations of the candidates in presidential debates? If emotion mediates effects on candidate evaluations, do particular viewer emotions such as hope, anger, and contempt have distinct effects?
Method
In group and individual sessions run from November 2008 to May 2011,134 Rutgers-Camden undergraduates (44% female) watched portions of the first and third 2008 presidential debates between Barack Obama and John McCain. Self-reported political party identification in this sample was 46% Democrat, 12% Republican, 13% Independent, 4% other party, 20% no party preference, and 7% don't know.
Following the video, viewers’ perceptions were assessed by asking whether (while watching) they thought each candidate had important desirable and undesirable qualities, and would cause important desirable and undesirable outcomes if elected President (strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree). Emotions were measured by asking how often, if ever, each candidate had made them feel afraid, hopeful, angry, proud, contemptuous (scornful), and admiring (very often, fairly often, occasionally, rarely, or not ever). Candidate evaluations were feeling thermometer ratings from very cold or unfavorable feeling (0°) to very warm or favorable feeling (100°). Prior research has found such ratings highly correlated with voting behavior (Brody & Page, 1973). Emotion, candidate evaluation, and party ID questions were taken from the 2004 American National Election Studies (ANES) pre-election questionnaire, updated for the 2008 candidates. Questions on admiration and contempt were added to the ANES emotions.
Results
Bivariate correlations showed perceptions and emotions were related to evaluations as expected. Desirable candidate qualities, and candidate-caused positive outcomes and positive emotions were all directly associated with favorability toward a candidate. Undesirable qualities, and negative outcomes and emotions, were inversely associated with favorability (all ps < .0001).
Bootstrap mediation analyses (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) examined the effects of viewers' perceptions on candidate evaluations, comparing the unique effects of the various emotions as potential mediators. Indirect effects were estimated within a bias corrected 95% confidence interval using 5,000 bootstrap samples.
Yet other investigators have also found hope and anger to be especially potent political emotions. For example, Miller (2011) found hope was the strongest emotion predictor of voting for Republican as well as Democratic candidates in ANES data from Fear was a stronger predictor of voting against Republican candidates than anger, but anger was a somewhat stronger predictor of voting against Democrats. Hope may be politically powerful because it links the electoral process to future goals and transformative outcomes. Anger may be potent because it is associated with blaming others for problems and with perceived control potential (Roseman, in press), which may give voters a sense of control over important events.
We also found contempt a significant mediator of evaluations of Obama (beyond the effects of anger)--but not of McCain. This could be because the McCain campaign employed contempt (e.g., portraying Obama as an empty celebrity, comparable to Britney Spears) more than the Obama campaign (which referred to McCain as an American hero, albeit one who advocated "failed policies“). These findings suggest that public opinion researchers devote more attention to this understudied emotion.
The mediational nature of our findings also merits comment. Rather than merely accounting for variance beyond that which is due to perceptions of a candidate's traits, our analyses suggest emotions might help explain effects of viewers' perceptions on candidate evaluations (and correlated voting). For example, perceiving that a candidate has desirable qualities might increase favorability in part because it gives one hope (e.g., that change is possible, or that the next four years will be better than the last four have been). Our finding of partial mediation indicates that hope, anger, and contempt may account for some but not all of the effects of perceptions of candidates' qualities.
We must also acknowledge a number of important limitations of this research. Our data are correlational, so we cannot be sure about the direction of causality. Our sample of convenience included only undergraduates from one university, which limits generalizability. Most of our data were gathered after the election, and so may not reflect the processes leading to voting decisions. Studies are needed that manipulate perceptions of political candidates (e.g., through exposure to campaign ads) and measure emotions as intervening variables that might account in part for the effects of perceptions on favorability and voting.
References
Brody, R. A., & Page, B. I. (1973). Indifference, alienation, and rational decisions. Public Choice, 15, 1-17.
Finn, C., & Glaser, J. (2010). Voter affect and the 2008 U.S. presidential election: Hope and race mattered. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 10,
Fischer, A. H., & Roseman, I. J. (2007). Beat them or ban them: The characteristics and social functions of anger and contempt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93,
Miller, P. R. (2011). The emotional citizen: Emotion as a function of political sophistication. Political Psychology, 32,
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40,
Roseman, I. J. (in press). Appraisal in the emotion system: Coherence in strategies for coping. Emotion Review.
Westen, D. (2007). The political brain: The role of emotion in
deciding the fate of the nation. New York: Public Affairs Books.
Figure 1. Mediation models of viewers’ perceptions predicting favorability to each candidate, with positive and negative emotion mediators. All regression coefficients shown here are standardized. Coefficients in parentheses represent the total effects of the predictor (e.g., the perception that Obama has desirable qualities) on favorability (e.g., favorability to Obama) without emotion mediators (e.g., hope, admiration, and pride) in the model. Coefficients to the left of the parentheses represent the direct effects when including the emotion mediators in the model. Broken lines indicate nonsignificant effects. The adj R2 refers to each overall model including viewers’ perceptions and emotion estimates, for which F test results are as follows: Model A: F(4, 118) = 24.64, p < .001; B: F(4, 101) = 24.95, p < .001; C: F(4, 115) = 37.18, p < .001; D: F(4, 111) = 21.18, p < †p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.
Panel A shows that when all positive emotions were included in a model relating perceived desirable qualities to evaluations of Obama, only hope significantly predicted favorability. Moreover, bootstrap estimates indicated significant mediation by hope (Boot = 6.28, 95% CI [2.81, 10.91]), but not admiration (Boot = 1.33, 95% CI [-0.34, 4.16]) or pride (Boot = 0.88, 95% CI [-0.97, 3.36]).
Panel B shows comparable findings for McCain. As with Obama, only hope significantly predicted favorability, and partially mediated the effects of McCain's desirable qualities. Bootstrap estimates indicated a significant indirect effect for hope (Boot = 2.53, 95% CI [0.89, 4.63]), but not admiration (Boot = 1.20, 95% CI [-0.88, 3.49]) or pride (Boot = 0.84, 95% CI [-0.65, 2.99]).
As shown in Panel C, when all negative emotions were included in a model relating perceived undesirable qualities to evaluations of Obama, both anger and contempt were associated with decreased favorability and were partial mediators. Bootstrap estimates indicated significant indirect effects for anger (Boot =
-3.50, 95% CI [-7.73, -0.30]) and contempt (Boot = -1.82, 95% CI [-5.05, -0.30]), but not fear (Boot = -0.01, 95% CI [-1.24, 2.03]).
Panel D shows that--in contrast to the findings for Obama--anger was the only negative emotion that significantly predicted decreased favorability to McCain, and partially mediated the effects of his perceived undesirable qualities. Bootstrap estimates indicated significant indirect effects of anger (Boot =
-4.62, 95% CI [-7.75, -2.38]), but not contempt (Boot = 1.01, 95% CI [-0.81, 3.15]) or fear (Boot = -0.71, 95% CI [-2.28, 0.95]).
Discussion
In this study, we found distinct effects of particular positive and negative emotions. Hope--but not admiration or pride--partially mediated the relationship between debate viewers' perceptions of desirable qualities and their favorability to both Obama and McCain. Among negative emotions, anger--but not fear--partially mediated the relationship between perceptions of undesirable qualities and favorability ratings.
Some of these results are consistent with findings of other investigators. Finn and Glaser (2010) studied a much larger sample using the ANES questions about hope, pride, fear, and anger to predict self-reported voting in They too found hope to be a stronger predictor of voting for Obama than pride. But Finn and Glaser (2010) found pride, rather than hope, a stronger predictor of voting for McCain; and fear a stronger predictor than anger of voting against Obama and McCain.
Our different findings could be due to differing participants. For example, compared with the ANES sample (designed to be representative of U.S. eligible voters), our undergraduate sample was younger and less diverse. Its youthfulness may have reduced the power of fear relative to anger in affecting candidate evaluations, and increased the influence of hope relative to pride (even for McCain). This suggests that future research might examine whether different emotions are more politically important for different ages (and other demographic groups).