Department of Political Science

TY - JOUR

T1 - Partisans use emotions as social pressure

T2 - Feeling anger and gratitude at exiters and recruits in political groups

AU - Delton, Andrew W.

AU - Kane, John V.

AU - Petersen, Michael Bang

AU - Robertson, Theresa E.

AU - Cosmides, Leda

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2021.

PY - 2022/9

Y1 - 2022/9

N2 - Political collective action requires assembling and motivating supporters. Many theories view emotions as functional tools for managing relationships, including within groups. We study what leads citizens to use the emotions anger and gratitude as social pressure. Specifically, we test what determines the use of these emotions to prevent potential exiters from leaving a political group and to encourage potential recruits to join. Because parties are enduring social affiliations (compared to transient or issue-focused groups), we predicted that partisans would express stronger emotions. We tested this proposition in two separate studies—one an observational study featuring a representative sample of US adults and one an experimental study conducted in Denmark. As predicted, people with a partisan mindset, whether naturally occurring or experimentally manipulated, felt more anger and gratitude at potential exiters and recruits. Citizens strive to fortify and expand their ingroups and sometimes use emotions as social pressure to do so.

AB - Political collective action requires assembling and motivating supporters. Many theories view emotions as functional tools for managing relationships, including within groups. We study what leads citizens to use the emotions anger and gratitude as social pressure. Specifically, we test what determines the use of these emotions to prevent potential exiters from leaving a political group and to encourage potential recruits to join. Because parties are enduring social affiliations (compared to transient or issue-focused groups), we predicted that partisans would express stronger emotions. We tested this proposition in two separate studies—one an observational study featuring a representative sample of US adults and one an experimental study conducted in Denmark. As predicted, people with a partisan mindset, whether naturally occurring or experimentally manipulated, felt more anger and gratitude at potential exiters and recruits. Citizens strive to fortify and expand their ingroups and sometimes use emotions as social pressure to do so.

KW - emotions

KW - partisanship

KW - political psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85107293433&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/13540688211018796

DO - 10.1177/13540688211018796

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85107293433

VL - 28

SP - 845

EP - 853

JO - Party Politics

JF - Party Politics

SN - 1354-0688

IS - 5

ER -