Angry and Alerted,Happy and Informed? An Experience Sampling Study on the Relationship Between Sentiment,Affect,and Attention Toward Campaign Communication

Abstract

This study examines how emotional reactions to campaign communication relate to attentional processes and, ultimately, to general interest in a political campaign. Drawing on appraisal theories of emotion and the broaden-and-build theory, we argue that emotional responses to political communication play a central role in shaping different forms of attention and elaboration. Specifically, emotions may foster a narrow attentional focus directed at the stimulus itself or a broader attentional orientation characterized by a willingness to seek additional information. To test these assumptions, we conducted a mobile experience sampling study during the 40 days preceding the 2021 German federal election. Participants repeatedly reported the perceived sentiment of campaign communication, their emotional reactions while encountering it, and their attentional focus toward political information immediately after exposure to campaign communication. Between-person analyses indicate that both negative affect (particularly anger) and positive affect are associated with attentional processes, while happiness is specifically linked to a broadened attentional focus. At the within-person level, both negative and positive emotions predicted momentary attentional focus. Campaign interest, however, was related to (situational) attention rather than to affective processes. We conclude by discussing the role of positivity and positive affect in research on political media effects.

Keywords

campaign communication negativity positivity emotion attention elaboration

Introduction

Political campaigns can be emotional times for citizens. Politicians and parties use personalization, emotional appeals, negative campaigning, and even rude and uncivil language to make citizens enthusiastic for their candidate, angry at the opponent, as well as fearful or hopeful about a particular political issue (Brader, 2006; Haselmayer, 2019; Ridout & Searles, 2011). But journalists also cover campaigns using emotional frames, game frames, or horse-race journalism to spark emotional involvement of recipients.

These affective reactions to campaign communication are related to different crucial concepts in communication research, for example, persuasive effects, learning from political campaigns, as well as participation and voting just to name a few concepts. Within this paper, we are interested in the relationship between different emotions sparked by campaign communication and attentional processes. More precisely, we investigate the effects of different negative and positive emotions on attention to and interest in political campaign messages. To clarify the complex relationship between affective responses to campaign messages, we apply concepts from different emotion theories, for example, the broaden-and-build theory or distinct emotions. We distinguish narrow attention referring to a focused, limited processing, often triggered by negative emotions like anger from broad attention, associated with positive emotions, which expand one’s awareness, encouraging a wider perspective and openness to new experiences. This broadening of attention helps individuals build resources, general interest in a subject and learning (Fredrickson, 2001; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005). To test the assumption, we conducted a mobile experience sampling study during the 2021 German national election campaign. This design allows us to capture immediate and fast-lived reactions toward campaign communication (i.e., affect and attention) and to capture the relationship between campaign communication, positive and negative affect, and interest in campaigns and politics.

We expand the existing literature in several ways: (1) Putting different discrete negative and positive emotions instead of focusing on negative affect (Lecheler et al., 2015; Marcus et al., 2011). Until now, the distinction between anger and fear dominated the literature in communication research and a recent meta-analysis found that research on specific positive emotions and cognitive processes is “largely lacking” (Graf et al., 2024). (2) Second, we expand the literature on campaigning effects to a situative level and are, hence, able to investigate within-person, fast-lived processes (see Otto & Kruikemeier, 2023; Schnauber-Stockmann et al., 2025). (3) Finally, we are amongst the first to apply emotions theories, such as the broaden-and-build approach outside of a lab setting and within a media and communication context (C. Nickerson, 2007).

Campaign Communication, Emotion, and Attention

Emotions have long been recognized as a central component of political communication, particularly during election campaigns, which are designed to mobilize, persuade, and orient citizens under conditions of uncertainty and competition. Political campaigns can spark emotions for various reasons. On the one hand, politicians address issues that tap into deeply held values, beliefs, and ideological commitments, thereby eliciting affective responses that shape how citizens perceive and respond to campaign communication (Brader, 2006). On the other hand, campaign messages are often strategically crafted to evoke specific emotional reactions, such as enthusiasm, fear, or anger, to influence political behavior and information processing. A substantial body of communication research demonstrates that these emotions have distinct consequences for political participation (Valentino et al., 2008, 2011), political learning and information acquisition (Graf et al., 2024), as well as persuasion and opinion change (Brader, 2006), and, similar to this paper, focus on emotions and attentional focus and media selection (Schemer, 2012). The present paper focuses on the relationship between different emotions experienced during election campaigns and their effects on attentional processes. Specifically, it examines how discrete emotions shape citizens’ allocation of attention to campaign stimuli and how these attentional dynamics, in turn, relate to higher-order outcomes such as sustained interest in politics (see Figure 1 for an overview).

Figure 1.

Conceptual model of campaign sentiment, affect, attention, and campaign interest.

Amongst other media characteristics, the tone of political messaging—whether positive or negative—plays a crucial role in influencing these emotional reactions. Negative communication tends to evoke strong emotions such as anger or fear, whether through heated political debates (Valentino et al., 2011; Vogel & Otto, 2017), attack ads in campaigns (Nai & Walter, 2015), or media negativity (Lecheler et al., 2015; Lengauer et al., 2012; Otto, 2018). This type of communication often includes criticism, accusations, and a focus on political failures or crises, sometimes employing harsh rhetoric to amplify its impact. Very often, citizens perceive campaigns and media coverage of elections as negative, even when the characteristics of a campaign message are not negative in a scientific sense (Lipsitz & Geer, 2017; Nai et al., 2025). However, most emotion theories suggest that perceptions of negative events, that is, crises, scandals, rising taxes, or political failures, are directly linked to negative emotions (Nabi, 2010). What precisely triggers perceptions of negativity—whether specific threats or situations in which individuals feel compelled to act against their will—is an important question, but not the focus of the present study. We are rather interested in the question of how different emotional states, in reaction to campaign content, affect attentional focus and campaign interest.

Hence, the first hypothesis lays the groundwork for emotional and attentional processing and describes the well-established relationship between negative campaign communication and emotional arousal:

H1a: Negative perception of campaign communication is related to negative emotions such as anger and fear.

On the other side of the coin, positive political communication—such as discussions about problem-solving, coalition-building, electoral victories, or favorable poll results—is expected to evoke emotions such as contentment, hope, or happiness (Adriaansen et al., 2010; Lecheler et al., 2013; Lount, 2010). Unlike negative messaging, which narrows attention and fosters skepticism or disengagement, positive communication has the potential to broaden citizens’ perspectives, increase political efficacy, and enhance trust in political institutions. We assume that positive perceptions of campaign messages, for example, depicting possible solutions, a victory for the preferred party, or a loss for the opponents, lead to positive emotional reactions:

H1b: Perceived positivity of campaign communication content is related to positive emotions such as happiness and contentment.

Emotion and Attention

The idea that positive and negative campaign messages elicit positive and negative affect, however, is only the first step. Many communication researchers are interested in the effects that different discrete emotions might have for persuasion, participation, or, in our case, attention and elaboration (Graf et al., 2024; Nabi, 2010; Schemer, 2012). Emotions are immediate, discrete affective responses triggered by an individual’s appraisal of the message content and characteristics (Nabi, 2010; Scherer, 1999), guiding their attention, interpretation, and subsequent behavioral readiness (Frijda et al., 1989).

Discrete emotions refer to qualitatively distinct emotional states that are characterized by unique subjective experiences, physiological patterns, expressive behaviors, and cognitive appraisals (Scherer, 1999). Theories of discrete emotions claim that affective reactions have a distinct origin, that is, are shaped through primary and secondary appraisal. However, and most important for this study, discrete emotions are not only shaped differently, but have distinct outcomes, for example, on elaboration and learning (Graf et al., 2024; Nabi, 2003). Unlike dimensional approaches that view emotions as varying along continuous axes such as valence (positive–negative) or arousal (high–low), discrete emotion theories argue that each emotion serves a specific function and is triggered by specific types of environmental appraisals, for example, certain message characteristics or individual predispositions (Nabi, 1999, 2010).

At this point, many emotion theories assume a direct relationship between affect and attention (Compton, 2003). Attention, in a broader sense, refers to the selective focus on certain stimuli while ignoring others (Lang, 1990). Affect influences both by directing attention toward emotionally salient stimuli and modulating how deeply and thoroughly information is processed (Marcus et al., 2011). Different approaches, such as appraisal models of emotion (Frijda, 2000; Nabi, 2010) and the broaden-and-build theory (BABT; Conway et al., 2013; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005), suggest that emotional states differ in their relationship with attention. This can be explained by the idea that emotions provide informational cues about the (social) environment, for example, by signaling potential threats and mobilizing resources for context-appropriate responses (Marcus et al., 2011).

These theories argue that each emotion entails a specific action tendency, preparing individuals for distinct behavioral responses. For example, fear is associated with avoidance and withdrawal, while disgust prompts an urge to expel or reject (Frederickson & Cohn, 2008; Frijda, 2000; Nabi, 2002). In that sense, fear may lead to an avoidance motive, resulting in reduced attention and information processing rather than deep elaboration (Epstein, 1972). Accordingly, some forms of negative affect can be associated with lower levels of attention to information, a finding supported by research in political communication as well (Otto et al., 2020). For positive affect, appraisal theories tend to be less differentiated, especially regarding assumptions about its relationship with attention and learning (Nabi, 1999).

The broaden-and-build theory (BABT) expands these considerations by emphasizing that (a) not all (positive) emotions influence attention in the same way, and (b) attention itself can vary in scope—ranging from narrow to broad focus—with important consequences for higher-order outcomes such as elaboration, learning, interest, and even well-being and resilience (Cohn et al., 2009; Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002). Like appraisal models, BABT assumes that distinct emotions trigger certain action tendencies that influence attentional scope. Negative emotions such as anger tend to narrow attention, directing cognitive resources to the immediate (often threatening) stimulus and encouraging fast, simple, and sometimes risky decision-making (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Gadarian, 2010). Such narrowing reduces cognitive flexibility and inhibits creative or integrative thinking. In contrast, positive emotions are theorized to broaden attention, facilitating cognitive expansion, exploratory behavior, and long-term resource-building. As such, they promote adaptability, deeper information processing, and social connection—essential factors for resilience and personal growth. These claims have been tested in experimental research (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005).¹

Building on the assumptions of the BABT, we claim that negative campaign messages and anger are related to narrow attentional focus:

H2: Negative campaign communication is related to narrow attention

H3a: Anger is positively related to narrow attention.

H3b: Anger is negatively related to broadened attention.

For the emotion of fear (or anxiety), the assumptions are not as clear as for anger. While the BABT and some research on discrete emotions claim that fear is associated with a narrow attentional focus (Finucane, 2011; Harmon-Jones et al., 2013), others argue that this finding may be due to the experimental, forced-laboratory setting of these studies. In natural settings, rather than paying more attention to threatening information, the avoidance motive becomes relevant. Hence, one could argue that fear only leads to increased narrow attention when avoidance is impossible (Koster et al., 2004; Otto et al., 2020); this is especially true for mildly threatening stimuli (Wilson & MacLeod, 2003). Hence, since our study takes place in a natural, real-world setting, we assume that fear leads to avoidance rather than higher attentional focus:

H4a: Fear is negatively related to narrow attention.

H4b: Fear is negatively related to broadened attention.

Concerning positive affect, the BABT is more nuanced and assumes that especially high-arousal, positive emotions, such as happiness, joy, and excitement, should broaden the scope of attention. Low-arousal positive emotions, such as contentment, might lead to generally lower attentional focus since they promote reflection and savoring rather than action (Fredrickson, 2001), while high-arousal positive emotions such as happiness or joy facilitate engagement with a topic or message and lead to information seeking and learning through broadened attentional scope (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Johnson et al., 2010). Hence, we distinguish the low-arousal positive emotion contentment from the high-arousal positive emotion happiness and claim that:

H5: Positive campaign communication leads to broadened attention.

H6a: Contentment is negatively related to narrow attention.

H6b: Contentment is negatively related to broadened attention.

H7a: Happiness is negatively related to narrow attention.

H7b: Happiness is positively related to broadened attention

Emotion, Attention, and Campaign Interest

Beyond the “broaden-hypothesis” that explains short-term reactions to positive and negative affect, BABT also includes the “build hypothesis”; it goes beyond the immediate relationship between affect and attention and claims that especially broadened attentional focus, leads to higher-order outcomes such as psychological well-being (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002), mental health (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005), or resilience (Cohn et al., 2009). Most important for our purposes, the theory explicitly assumes a dynamic relationship between positive emotions, attention, and (willingness to) learn or seek additional information (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002; Low et al., 2016).

Within this study, we would like to transfer the “build hypothesis” to the campaigning context and investigate whether positive emotions lead to broadened attention, increased interest in the campaign, and a willingness to seek information, while negative communication and negative affect do not have such effects. The idea is that positive interaction with and about politics activates personal resources, a growth- and learning-oriented mindset, and leads to interest, engagement, and learning that goes beyond the communication situation (Fredrickson, 2001; Fredrickson & Losada, 2005; Moeller et al., 2018; Moeller & de Vreese, 2019). In contrast, according to BABT, negative content, negative affect, and subsequent narrow attentional focus should not be related to willingness to elaborate on campaign communication or to learn more about politics. Following these assumptions based on the second part of the broaden-and-build approach, we formulate two additional hypotheses on the relationship between different forms of attention and (broader) interest in the election campaign:

H8a: Broad attentional focus is related to higher interest in the campaign

H8b: Narrow attentional focus is related to lower interest in the campaign ²

While many of our assumptions, hypotheses, and research questions rely on the BABT, especially when it comes to positive affect and broad and narrow attention, we aim to apply the model to another domain: political communication research and media effects. Secondly, we address some of the critiques aimed at the approach, namely that the BABT claims a process over time but rarely uses longitudinal designs to test its assumptions (C. Nickerson, 2007; C. A. Nickerson, 2018). Furthermore, it remains unclear whether the mechanism that Fredrickson (2013) put forward is a between-person process (i.e., individuals with more positive emotions also have broader attention and establish well-being, learning, and resilience) or a within-person process (experiencing positive emotions leads to broader attentional focus and growth processes). By distinguishing these processes, we also add to the theoretical clarity of the BABT.

Method

Sample and Procedure

Since we are interested in direct responses to campaign communication, that is, emotional and attentional processes and their dynamics, the traditional retrospective self-report has some weaknesses to test the hypothesis presented above: The relevant emotional reactions have, by definition, a clear trigger and asking for attention retrospectively could be hard and we would derive at biased measures of emotion and attention. Experimental designs would be able to measure direct reactions to campaign communication, but, of course, have limitations when it comes to real-world campaign material and interest in a real campaign would be hard to investigate in an experimental setting. Mobile experience sampling designs, that is, measuring the variable of interest multiple times per day in or directly after the communication situation via smartphone, are able to capture immediate reactions and are also well suited to capture fast-lived communication dynamics (Hamaker & Wichers, 2017; Thomas et al., 2021; Valkenburg et al., 2021). This allows us to test immediate reactions and processes (affect and attention) as well as higher-order effects (campaign interest) in a real-world setting. To test the relationships among emotions, broad and narrow attention, and campaign interest, we conducted an event-based mobile experience sampling (mESM) study during the German federal election of 2021. A sample of N = 576 participants was recruited from the respondent pool of the market research company dynata using population margins representative of the German population. (53% female, 47% male, 0.4% other; age: M = 48; SD = 13.4; 44% high school degree or higher; see Supplemental Appendix B for further information). Participants were asked to complete a short questionnaire each time they received information about the campaign prior to the German election in September 2021, whether through the media (online or offline) or by talking to someone about the campaign (mediated or face-to-face). Forty-days before the election, participants completed a questionnaire on their campaign communication up to five times a day (see Supplemental Appendix A for instructions).

This large experience-sampling study yielded a total of N = 26,448 measurement points across all participants and days. Participants, in total, reported 2,313 reactions to print newspaper or magazines, 5,153 reactions to television news, 2,400 radio news reactions, 6,108 reactions to online news, 4,565 face-to-face conversations about the campaign, 1,267 conversations on the election via text messages, email, or other messengers, and 4,659 occasions of campaign communication (e.g., posters, ads on television and online, street campaigning etc.). Directly after indicating which kind of communication the participants received, we asked them whether they rated the content as rather negative or positive, the emotions they felt during that communication situation, and how much attention they paid in the communication situation. Campaign interest was also measured via mobile surveys conducted eight times in the evening during the campaign period.

Measures

Perceived Communication Negativity/Positivity

After each relevant communication situation, be it on- or offline news and media consumption, mediated or non-mediated interpersonal communication, participants were asked to rate the sentiment or overall negativity/positivity of the communication (1—negative; 5—positive; M = 3.52; SD = 1.16; Now please tell us, how you perceived the (article/show/poster/ad/message/conversation) you just saw. Was it negative, positive or rather neutral or balanced on a scale from “−2” to “+2,” which we recoded to 1–5.).

Emotions

We first asked participants which emotion they felt while receiving this information in the media, on social media, or online, and how they felt during the conversation about the campaign. More specifically, we asked participants to rate the degree of anger (M = 2.08, SD = 1.33), fear (M = 1.69, SD = 1.09), happiness (M = 2.11, SD = 1.24), and contentment (M = 2.46, SD = 1.31) on a five-point scale.

Attention

To ask for more narrow forms of attentional focus, we asked participants on a five-point scale whether they were “focused and concentrated” (M = 4.13, SD = 1.39) while receiving the information on the campaign or whether they were “distracted from time to time” (M = 4.11, SD = 1.39, reverse coded) from the communication. These items were highly correlated (r = .54; p < .001). The items capture the traditional attentional focus aspect of cognitive processes (e.g., in reading research, see Appel et al., 2002). Second, to measure a “broadened” form of attention, we also asked whether participants would “search for additional information on the topic” (M = 2.12, SD = 1.39). This item was based on earlier work on broadened attention (Fredrickson et al., 2003; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004).

Campaign Interest

Besides the mobile questions that were asked directly after the communication situation, there was a mobile questionnaire in the evening, every fourth day during the field period, asking for campaign interest: “How much are you interested in the current campaign for the federal election” (1—not at all; 5—very much). Interest in the campaign was, on average, relatively high with M = 3.95, SD = 1.02.

Since campaign interest was not measured as frequently as the emotional reactions and attentional focus, which were measured directly after the campaign communication, we had to aggregate emotion and attention to test the relation to campaign interest. We aggregated all emotional reactions and attention-scores preceding each of the campaign interest measures by calculating their respective means. In other words, we used all emotion and attention scores before a campaign interest measure to analyze the relationship between the constructs.

Analysis

We conducted a multilevel path-analysis to distinguish within-person from between-person effects. The within-person effects represent deviations from the participants’ means, that is, fluctuations in emotion, attention, and interest within an individual; the between-person models show differences between individuals for the respective variables, regardless of fluctuations over time.

On a methodological level, not distinguishing these components might lead to spurious results and even incorrect conclusions when dealing with longitudinal data. There have been multiple papers and model comparisons showing that mixing within- and between-person processes or, in other words, models of stability and change can lead to spurious results (Bainter & Howard, 2016; Curran et al., 2014; Thomas et al., 2021). Only by distinguishing these processes can we decide whether the broaden-and-build process is an intra- or an inter-individual phenomenon.

On a theoretical level, we can show whether the processes we present here are rather differences between citizens, that is, citizens that expose themselves to certain campaign communication and, hence, are more prone to different outcomes concerning attention, campaign interest—a line of reasoning that might well connect to notions of polarization and information gaps. However, while these between-person effects provide valuable insights, one could argue that they do not reflect a real process and therefore do not capture the (within-person) development that the theories we present above, especially the BABT, entail. The within-person process examines how momentary fluctuations in emotions relate to attention within an individual over time. The between-person process examines whether individual differences in emotions (e.g., a generally happy person vs. a generally angry person) are associated with individual differences in attention across people. This ML-path model allows us to disentangle the dynamic, situational relationships between emotions and attention within each person from the stable, individual differences between people.

Results

After the descriptive analysis of the data, we will present results on the relationship between perceived negativity, emotional reactions, and different forms of attention to political information during the campaign. Afterward, we will present the full model with relations among emotional reactions, attentional focus, and campaign interest.³

Descriptives

Since this unique dataset provides a detailed overview of perceptions during the campaign, we report descriptive statistics on participants’ political communication environment, their perceived negativity toward the campaign, and the emotions they felt in different communication situations.

As Table 1 shows, no form of campaign communication stands out as particularly emotional or negative. It becomes apparent that participants evaluated the campaign communication in general as rather positive. All emotions, but fear, circled around the scale mean, indicating that the campaign was not perceived as overly emotional; still, participants used the whole scale, and we cannot report floor- or ceiling effects. Since no form of communication stands out as particularly negative or emotional, this also means that very different communication situations can be compared with respect to negativity and emotional reactions. It is also interesting that, in principle, campaign communication via different channels, media, or situations, is not evaluated as particularly negative.

Table 1.

Descriptives of Perceived Sentiment and Affect for Different Communication Situations.

Communication situation, mean (SD)	Sentiment	Anger (min 1; max 5)	Fear (min 1; max 5)	Contentment (min 1; max 5)	Happiness (min 1; max 5)
Print	3.56 (1.16)	1.94 (1.37)	1.58 (1.03)	2.46 (1.29)	2.05 (1.19)
TV	3.56 (1.18)	2.24 (1.43)	1.83 (1.17)	2.49 (1.32)	2.11 (1.23)
Radio	3.51 (1.09)	2.27 (1.43)	1.87 (1.18)	2.58 (1.33)	2.21 (1.23)
Online news	3.51 (1.20)	2.14 (1.41)	1.57 (1.01)	2.34 (1.26)	1.97 (1.24)
Interpersonal communication	3.64 (1.09)	2.33 (1.38)	1.88 (1.14)	2.71 (1.26)	2.33 (1.28)
Mediated IP communication	3.56 (1.07)	2.30 (1.38)	1.98 (1.22)	2.74 (1.31)	2.50 (1.24)
Campaign material	3.37 (1.17)	1.70 (1.21)	1.42 (0.89)	2.17 (1.27)	1.94 (1.18)

The Relationship Between Perceived Negativity, Affect, and Different Forms of Attention

To test the relationship between perceived sentiment of the campaign material, the emotional reactions toward this communication and the two forms of attention, we conducted a multilevel path analysis using lavaan (Rosseel, 2012).

As mentioned above, the participants evaluated their campaign communication as rather positive. This perception had significant effects on emotional reactions and attention. Supporting H1, perceived negativity or positivity of the campaign was related to the emotion felt during communication. Positivity perceptions are related to the positive emotions happiness (b = 0.51, p < .001) and contentment (b = 0.64, p < .001), and negatively related to the emotions anger (b = −0.37, p < .001) and fear (b = −0.16, p = .005). However, when looking at the relationship between perceived sentiment and attention, H2 must be (partly) rejected. Broadened and narrow attention are associated with positive evaluations of campaign communication, whereas negative campaign communication increases narrow forms of attention—both on the within- and between-person levels (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

ML-path analysis of perceived sentiment, emotional reactions and attentional scope.

The Relationship Between Emotional States and Attention

Within-Person Effects

While the results of the within-person model suggest that emotional processes are generally important for attention, they do not support our hypotheses. Basically, all emotional states are related to both forms of attention (see Figure 2). Thus, based on the within-person processes, all emotions are related to attentional focus. This analysis focuses on understanding how emotions and attention co-vary over time within the same person, that is, how broad or narrow attention changes when a person feels happier, angrier, or more content on a given day and in a given reception situation. Effect sizes for this analysis are rather small but significant, due to the higher power of the within-person analysis.

Between-Person Effects

This level examines how stable differences in people’s emotions relate to stable differences in their attention. For example, does a person who is typically happier over time have better overall attention compared to someone who is typically less happy? Results on the between-person level are as follows:

Anger (b = 0.35, p < .001) and fear (b = −0.47, p < .001) are significantly related to narrow forms of attention, confirming H3a and H4a. Anger, however, is also related to broadened attention (b = 0.25, p < .001). While the effect size is smaller than for narrow attention, we still have to reject H3b and the assumptions made by BABT. For fear, the between-person effects show a negative effect on narrow attentional focus, hence confirming hypothesis H4a, but are unrelated to broadened forms of attention. That means a generally more fearful person avoids paying close attention to negative, potentially threatening stimuli during the campaign.

Between-subjects effects also partly confirm the assumptions on positive emotion: Happiness is positively related to broadened attention (b = 0.29, p = .004), but not significantly related to narrow forms of attention (b = −0.21, p = .54), confirming H7a and H7b. The low-arousal emotion contentment is weakly related to broad attentional focus (b = 0.21, p = .044) and narrow attentional focus (b = 0.24, p < .043). This can be interpreted as meaning that generally happier people are also more attentive to campaign messages. Happy participants, as the BABT would suggest, show more broadened attention and a greater willingness to seek additional information. It is also worth noticing that both forms of attention are only weakly related, indicating that they indeed carry different facets of information processing.

Emotion, Attention, and Interest in the Campaign

It is important to note that the path model, including campaign interest, relies on different variables for emotion and attention. Since campaign interest was not measured in-situ and at lower frequency, we aggregated earlier measures of emotion and attention to model their effects on the “higher order outcome” of campaign interest. The path-model results show that narrow (b = 0.48, SE = 0.07. p < .001) and broadened (b = 0.32, SE = 0.06. p < .001) attention are related to campaign interest on the between-person level. In contrast, there is no significant relationship between individual emotional reactions and campaign interest in general (see Supplemental Appendix Table B2). There are no significant effects of emotions or attention on campaign interest on the within-person level (see also Supplemental Appendix Table C2). Hence, at the between-person level, we could confirm hypothesis H8a, but not H8b, since both forms of attentional focus relate to campaign interest (Table 2).

Table 2.

Effects of Attention, Sentiment, and Affect on Campaign Interest.

Variable	Estimate	SE	p
Within-person effects
Attention broadened	0.039	0.030	.193
Attention narrow	0.067	0.039	.090
Anger	−0.008	0.033	.813
Fear	−0.025	0.041	.536
Contentment	0.020	0.039	.611
Happiness	−0.025	0.043	.564
Perceived sentiment	−0.004	0.037	.904
Between-person effects
Attention broadened	0.323	0.067	<.001
Attention narrow	0.477	0.072	<.001
Anger	−0.096	0.096	.315
Fear	0.126	0.103	.219
Contentment	−0.022	0.141	.874
Happiness	0.078	0.130	.550
Perceived sentiment	0.133	0.096	.167

Note. Aggregated scores for affect, sentiment, and attention.

Discussion and Conclusion

To clarify the relationships among perceived negativity in campaign communication, emotional reactions, and different forms of attention to campaign communication, we conducted a mobile experience sampling study 40 days before the 2021 German national election. We asked participants to indicate their perceived negativity and positivity of media communication, campaign communication, and interpersonal communication about the campaign, emotional reactions to that communication (anger, fear, happiness, contentment), and their attention toward the communication and willingness to seek additional information. The goal was to (1) clarify different effects of positive and negative affect on elaboration and learning, (2) to apply theories of discrete emotions and the BABT in an intensive-longitudinal design clearly distinguishing within- and between-person processes, and (3) to transfer the broaden-and-build idea to a political communication context. We will discuss these contributions point by point.

First, the results indicate that the strong focus on negativity (bias), negative campaign communication, and negative affect is not well justified. It seems that positive experiences lead to greater attentional focus—both for narrow and broad attentional scopes. This confirms assumptions about citizens’ dislike of negativity and might even foster deep elaboration during positive communication experiences. However, since we have not yet fully investigated the longitudinal aspect, it may also be that citizens would rather seek positive political communication experiences (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). In addition to the effects of positive affect, we were able to unpack the complex relationship between different emotional states and attentional focus. For anger, the well-established relationship could be confirmed; however, for both forms of attentional scope—narrow and broad attention. Furthermore, we were able to confirm results on avoiding negative information for fearful participants. This confirms earlier assumptions about the avoidance motive, rather than the hypothesis that fear is related to increased narrow attention. At this point, the study design could explain differences in the emotion of fear: fear seems to lead to increased attention in forced, experimental settings, where avoidance is impossible, whereas in natural settings people avoid (mildly) threatening stimuli.

Our results also confirm the differences between the two negative emotions, which appear to be well-established (Nabi, 2003, 2010). However, the assumptions of the BABT arguing that anger is only related to narrow forms of attention could not be confirmed in this study. Reasons for this could be manifold: research on the broaden-and-build hypothesis has mainly been conducted in an experimental setting. Within these settings, broadened attention was mostly not measured via self-report, but, for instance, through global-local processing tasks (Conway et al., 2013; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005). Likely, our measure of broadened attention was not capturing the construct properly. However, it carries the connotation of information seeking, which is an essential facet of broadened attention.

As for the positive emotions, we partly confirmed the BABT’s assumptions and rejected the idea that all positive emotions are negatively related to attention and learning. On the contrary, while happiness seems to be positively related to information seeking, it is negatively associated with narrower forms of attention. However, the positive emotion of contentment also seems to be related to broader forms of attention, partly confirming the broaden-and-build hypothesis and questioning earlier notions of the primacy of negative affect in political information seeking (Schemer, 2012).

Besides results on different positive and negative emotions, we were able to transfer the BABT into an intensive longitudinal design and clearly distinguish within-person from between-person processes. When examining within-person processes of emotion and attention, it appears that emotions matter across the board. In contrast to notions of some emotions being negatively related to attentional processes, these results rather reflect, for example, within the limited-capacity model of mediated processing (A. Lang, 1990; A. Lang, 2000). Similar to emotional news stories and other political messages, emotions seem to increase all forms of attention.

It is also important to note that, while the BABT primarily implies a within-person process (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001), the distinction between intra- and inter-individual processes is rarely made in the broaden-and-build literature. Hence, we put this within-person process to the test and could not confirm the assumptions, which have so far been measured at the between-person level.

While we attempted to bring more nuance to the question of whether mediated messages, emotion, and attention are related, we were unable to confirm the assumptions within the BABT and instead need to consider different approaches to explain how citizens process political campaigns. The different results for the within-person and between-person processes could also reflect theoretical differences on whether all emotions are crucial on an intra-individual level, but emotional effects on cognitive processing are different on a inter-individual level as claimed by the BABT or theories of discrete emotions (e.g., Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Nabi, 2003). However, this needs further scrutiny in more controlled settings. While the effect sizes for the within-person processes are small but significant, they rather reflect what we had in mind when investigating campaign dynamics and smaller fluctuations over time.

Despite these contributions and the nuanced discussion of emotional and attentional processes during the reception of campaign communication, the study has several limitations. First, the measures of both negativity and the scope of attention are short and do not follow the complex operationalizations from the negativity or broaden-and-build literature. Negativity is mostly operationalized in a multi-dimensional manner, and single questions about sentiment do not fully grasp the academic understanding of the concept. However, perceived negativity might come closer to recipients’ experience than complex theoretical considerations (Sigelman & Kugler, 2003).

Moreover, it is important to note that the path and our conceptual models do not convey causal relationships. The relationship between sentiment, emotions, and attentional focus is measured simultaneously, and it is empirically and theoretically difficult to establish causality. While some researchers claim a “primacy of affect” (Cassino & Lodge, 2007) when disentangling emotional and attentional processes, we would rather speak of their co-occurrence (Lai et al., 2012).

Finally, the assumptions underlying the BABT need to be scrutinized. Some aspects of the BABT are criticized, such as specific ratios of positive and negative affect that we did not investigate in this study (C. A. Nickerson, 2018). Furthermore, the causal and longitudinal aspects that underlie the broaden-and-build perspective have been only partially investigated, which is necessary, in particular, to test the “growth dynamic” described by the build hypothesis (C. Nickerson, 2007).

While the experience sampling design we propose here is especially useful for testing immediate reactions to political messages in a real-world setting, beyond one-shot, between-subjects experiments, the design, of course, has its limitations. It is almost trivial to note that experience sampling studies rarely reach the sample sizes of large-scale surveys, particularly when it comes to statistical power on the between-person level. Following this, it becomes harder to assess moderators, for example, of the emotion-attention dynamic that would have been worthwhile to investigate here. Second, experience sampling designs place a high burden on participants, fostering self-selection and, in turn, further biased samples; a problem we might be able to address with sophisticated incentive plans and high-quality samples (Otto & Kruikemeier, 2023). Finally, ESM might be particularly problematic for investigating attentional processes, since we do not use a forced-choice paradigm as we would in an experimental design. Since participants themselves had to remember the instructions and fill out a questionnaire on the campaign messages, there is, of course, a bias in the selection of messages or situations. If a campaign message had not sparked the participant’s attention, they would not remember to complete the mobile questionnaire, which includes questions on negativity, emotional reactions, and attention. Thus, it is consequential to believe that we are dealing with a floor effect, as the messages were crucial enough to be chosen and remembered by our participants.

In terms of measurement, this study suffers from limitations similar to those of other intensive-longitudinal studies that aim to balance participant burden and reliable measurement: we used one-item measures for emotions and negativity/positivity perceptions, which are not without problems and are prone to measurement error (Dejonckheere et al., 2022). However, especially for narrow concepts such as discrete emotions, one-item measures can still be seen as valid measures (Wolfers & Baumgartner, 2025).

Despite these limitations, the present study offers distinct methodological, empirical, and theoretical contributions. Theoretically, it integrates perspectives from emotion psychology, media psychology, and positive psychology and examines their joint implications beyond controlled experimental settings. To our knowledge, this study is the first to transfer the BABT to a political media effects context using an intensive longitudinal design. The findings also underscore the relevance of positive affect for political communication research. We argue that positive aspects of communication—particularly processes related to attention, learning, and political interest—deserve consideration alongside the dominant focus on negative affect, negative campaigning, and concepts such as polarization and cynicism. While the emphasis on negativity may reflect cultural and political contexts (e.g., a strong US-centric research tradition; Walter, 2014) or theoretical developments in affective intelligence research (Marcus et al., 2011), studies of communication effects and emotion should also incorporate insights from decades of research on positivity. Methodologically, by examining positive affect and associated processes such as learning, psychological growth, and resilience within real-world campaign contexts and contemporary empirical designs, this study contributes to a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of today’s campaigning environment.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-crx-10.1177_00936502261443864 – Supplemental material for Angry and Alerted, Happy and Informed? An Experience Sampling Study on the Relationship Between Sentiment, Affect, and Attention Toward Campaign Communication

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-crx-10.1177_00936502261443864 for Angry and Alerted, Happy and Informed? An Experience Sampling Study on the Relationship Between Sentiment, Affect, and Attention Toward Campaign Communication by Lukas P. Otto, Fabian Thomas and Michaela Maier in Communication Research

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Lukas P. Otto

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The work of this paper was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) project “Tracking the effects of negative political communication during election campaigns in on- and offline communication environments” led by Michaela Maier, Sebastian Stier and Lukas Otto (MA 2244/10-1; STI 731/3-1).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Open Practices

The data necessary to replicate the results are stored at:

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biographies

Lukas P. Otto is a senior researcher and team leader at the Computational Social Science department, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. His research interests include effects of political communication, emotions, negativity, and (mobile) methods of communication research.

Fabian Thomas, PhD (RPTU Kaiserslauter-Landau), is a postdoctoral researcher at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau. His research focuses on dynamic processes of communication research and statistical modeling of these processes.

Michaela Maier, PhD (University of Jena), is professor for applied communication psychology at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU). Her research focuses on political communication, science communication, and organizational communication.

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