An Analysis of Prototypical Emotions,Religious Affiliation,and Politics in a Presidential Primary Campaign Commercial

Abstract

The authors examine a prominent political advertisement from the 2012 Republican primaries in two studies. In the first study, we frame the advertisement using Witte’s definition of a fear appeal to find out if respondents report truly feeling fear after viewing the advertisement. Results of the first study show respondents rate fear rather low on the list of emotions they experience after viewing the advertisement, while respondents rate disgust and anger much higher. In the second study, we focus on the emotion of disgust as it relates to the same political advertisement and the demographic variables of political party identification and religious affiliation to determine if either or both of these variables play a role in types and levels of disgust respondents report. Findings indicate both political party identification and religious affiliation influence reported levels of disgust. Limitations of the study and areas for future research are discussed.