Over the past decade, political scientists have with increasing frequency demonstrated that emotions strongly influence mass political behavior. One shortcoming of this research has been the failure to distinguish between fundamentally different sources of emotional response. In this article, I draw on theories of emotional response developed in social psychology to argue that emotional reactions to presidential candidates are partly rooted in what people know about the political world (cognitively mediated emotion) and partly independent of political cognition (gut-level emotion). Using data from the 1984 and 1988 National Election Studies, I develop instruments of gut-level positivity and negativity and show that these factors strongly influence the presidential vote.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abelson, Robert P., Donald R. Kinder, Mark D. Peters, and Susan T. Fiske.1982. Affective and semantic components in political person perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology42:619-30.
2.
Achen, Christopher H.1983. Toward theories of data: The state of political methodology. In Political science: The state of the discipline, edited by Ada Finifter. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association .
3.
Conover, Pamela Johnston, and Stanley Feldman.1986. Emotional reactions to the economy: I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. American Journal of Political Science30:50-78.
4.
Conover, Pamela Johnston, Stanley Feldman, and Kathleen Knight.1986. Judging inflation and unemployment: The origins of retrospective evaluations. Journal of Politics48:565-88.
5.
Converse, Philip E.1964. The nature of belief systems in mass publics. In Ideology and discontent, edited by David Apter.New York: Free Press.
6.
Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Scott Keeter.1993. Measuring political knowledge: Putting first things first. American Journal of Political Science37:1179-206.
7.
Dobson, Douglas, and Douglas St. Angelo.1975. Party identification and the floating vote. Some dynamicsAmerican Political Science Review69:481-90.
8.
Dreyer, Edward C.1973. Change and stability in party identification. Journal of Politics35:712-22.
9.
Epstein, Seymour.1984. Controversial issues in emotion theory. In Review of personality and social psychology 5, edited by Philip Shaver.Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
10.
Fiorina, Morris.1981. Retrospective voting in American national elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
11.
Fiske, Susan T., Steven L. Neuberg, Ann E. Beattie, and Sandra J. Milberg.1987. Category-based and attribute-based reactions to others: Some informational conditions of stereotyping and individuating processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology23:399-427.
12.
Fiske, Susan T., and Mark A. Pavelchak.1985. Category-based versus piecemeal-based affective responses: Developments in schema-triggered affect. In Handbook of motivation and cognition, edited by Richard M. Sorrentino and E. Tory Higgins.New York: Guilford.
13.
Fiske, Susan T., and Shelley E. Taylor.1991. Social cognition. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill .
14.
Franklin, Charles H., and John E. Jackson.1983. The dynamics of party identification. American Political Science Review77:957-73.
15.
Green, Donald Philip, and Bradley Palmquist.1990. Of artifacts and partisan instability. American Journal of Political Science34:872-902.
16.
Hagle, Timothy M., and Glenn E. Mitchell.1992. Goodness-of-fit measures for probit and logit. American Journal of Political Science36:762-84.
17.
Hanson, Russell L., and George E. Marcus.1993. Introduction: The practice of democratic theory. In Reconsidering the Democratic public , edited by George E. Marcus and Russell L. Hanson.University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
18.
Holbrook, Thomas, and James C. Garand.1996. Homo economus? Economic information and economic voting. Political Research Quarterly49:351-76.
19.
Howell, Susan E.1981. Short term forces and changing partisanship. Political Behavior3:163-80.
20.
Jacoby, William G.1995. The structure of ideological thinking in the American electorate. American Journal of Political Science39:314-35.
21.
Kiewiet, D. Roderick.1983. Macroeconomics & micropolitics: The electoral effects of economic issues . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
22.
Kinder, Donald R., Gordon S. Adams, and Paul W. Gronke.1989. Economics and politics in the 1984 American presidential election. American Journal of Political Science33:491-515.
23.
Kmenta, Jan.1986. Elements of econometrics. 2d ed. New York : Macmillan.
24.
Krosnick, Jon A.1990. Expertise and political psychology. Social Cognition8:1-8.
25.
Kuklinski, James H., Ellen Riggle, Victor Ottati, Norbert Schwarz, and Robert S. Wyer, Jr.1991. The cognitive and affective bases of political tolerance judgments. American Journal of Political Science35:1-27.
26.
Lazarus, Richard S.1982. Thoughts on the relations between emotion and cognition. American Psychologist37:1019-24.
27.
—. 1984. On the primacy of cognition. American Psychologist39:124-29.
28.
Lodge, Milton, Kathleen M. McGraw, and Patrick Stroh.1989. An impression-driven model of candidate evaluation. American Political Science Review83:399-419.
29.
Lodge, Milton, and Marco R. Steenbergen, with Shawn Brau.1995. The responsive voter: Campaign information and the dynamics of candidate evaluation. American Political Science Review89:309-26.
30.
Luskin, Robert C.1987. Measuring political sophistication. American Journal of Political Science31:856-99.
31.
Mandler, George.1975. Mind and emotion. New York: Wiley.
32.
Marcus, George E.1988. The structure of emotional response: 1984 presidential candidates. American Political Science Review82:737-61.
33.
—. 1991. Emotions and politics: Hot cognitions and the rediscovery of passion. Social Science Information30:195-232.
34.
Marcus, George E., and Michael B. MacKuen.1993. Anxiety, enthusiasm, and the vote: The emotional underpinnings of learning and involvement during presidential campaigns. Amen-can Political Science Review87:672-85.
35.
Markus, Gregory B.1982. Political attitudes during an election year: A report on the 1980 NES panel study. American Political Science Review76:538-60.
36.
Markus, Gregory B., and Philip E. Converse.1979. A dynamic simultaneous equation model of electoral choice. American Political Science Review73:1055-70.
37.
McGraw, Kathleen M., Milton Lodge, and Patrick Stroh.1990. On-line processing in candidate evaluation: The effects of issue order, issue importance, and sophistication. Political Behavior12:41-58.
38.
Moreland, Richard L., and Robert B. Zajonc.1977. Is stimulus recognition a necessary condition for the occurrence of exposure effects?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology35:191-9.
39.
—. 1982. Exposure effects in person perception: Familiarity, similarity, and attraction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology18:395-415.
40.
Murphy, Sheila T., and Robert B. Zajonc.1993. Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology64:723-39.
41.
Mutz, Diana C.1993. Direct and indirect routes to politicizing personal experience: Does knowledge make a difference?Public Opinion Quarterly57:483-502.
42.
Neuman, W. Russell.1986. The paradox of mass politics: Knowledge and opinion in the American public. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
43.
Ragsdale, Lyn.1991. Strong feelings: Emotional responses to presidents. Political Behavior13:33-65.
44.
Rahn, Wendy M., John H. Aldrich , Eugene Borgida, and John L. Sullivan.1990. A social-cognitive model of candidate appraisal. In Information and democratic processes, edited by John A. Ferejohn and James H. Kuklinski.Urbana : University of Illinois Press.
45.
Roseman, Ira.1984. Cognitive determinants of emotion: A structural theory. In Review of Personality and Social Psychology 5, edited by Philip Shaver.Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
46.
Sniderman, Paul M., Richard A. Brody, and Philip Tetlock.1991. Reasoning and choice: Explorations in political psychology . New York: Cambridge University Press.
47.
Srull, Thomas K., and Robert S. Wyer.1989. Person memory and judgment. Psychological Review96:58-83.
48.
Stimson, James A.1975. Belief systems: Constraint, complexity, and the 1972 electionAmerican Journal of Political Science19:393-417.
49.
Sullivan, Denis G., and Roger D. Masters.1988. Happy warriors: Leaders' facial displays, viewers' emotions, and political support. American Journal of Political Science32:345-68.
50.
—. 1993. Nonverbal behavior, emotions, and democratic leadership . In Reconsidering the Democratic public, edited by George E. Marcus and Russell L. Hanson.University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
51.
Sullivan, John L., James Piereson, and George E. Marcus.1982. Political tolerance and American democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
52.
Theiss-Morse, Elizabeth, George E. Marcus, and John L. Sullivan.1993. Deliberation, tolerance, and democracy . In Reconsidering the Democratic public, edited by George E. Marcus and Russell L. Hanson.University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
53.
Wyer, Robert S., and Thomas K. Srull.1986. Human cognition in its social context. Psychological Review93:322-59.
54.
Zajonc, Robert B.1968. Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology9:1-27.
55.
—. 1980. Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist35:151-75.
56.
—. 1984. On the primacy of affect. American Psychologist39:117-23.
