Emotion and Political Judgment

When are citizens willing to put political party allegiances aside in order to think more deeply and even handedly regarding salient policy issues? Through their collaborative research, University of Minnesota political science professor Howard Lavine, Duke University professor Christopher D. Johnston, and University of Missouri-Kansas City professor Benjamin Woodson, seek to answer this question. Their research examines which factors prompt citizens to switch from a partisan judgment strategy, one in which they reflexively side with their political parties regarding policy and electoral contests, to a more thoughtful one, in which they pay more attention to the details. 

Previous studies have suggested individuals are likely to think objectively and pay more attention to the details under the discrete emotion of anxiety. Lavine and his colleagues overturned this claim through a broader evaluation concerning two ideals that citizens commonly use to make political judgements or decisions: reflexive partisanship and reflective deliberation. The former refers to the easy-to-use judgement strategy that emphasizes efficiency over accuracy. The latter refers to thinking more deeply and even handedly about one's political options. In Lavine’s words, "when people experience an internal conflict, which is what we call partisan ambivalence, it increases the extent to which people will rely on real, factual information and reduces the extent to which people rely on partisan bias."

In their pursuit to determine who, when, and why citizens use one strategy over the other, Lavine, Johnston, and Woodson contested two separate models against each other. The first model, Affective Intelligence Theory, is where anxiety is believed to be the influential component causing a shift from a reflexive partisan to a reflective deliberator. The second model, Expectancy Violation Theory, is where they argue that the motivating factor is not about any specific emotion; rather, it is how that emotion lines up with one’s partisanship. 

After testing the two models against each other, their results indicated that if an emotion or thought was consistent with one’s partisanship, it would lead an individual to think in a more bias, heuristic way. Conversely, if that emotion or thought was in conflict with or contradictory to one’s partisanship, it would lead an individual to think more carefully and deeply about a policy or issue.  With respect to real-world implications, Lavine concludes by stating “what drives whether individuals feel conflicted is the performance of their party…when their party is performing poorly, individuals won’t rely on their party identification nearly as much, which on average, will make for a better political judgement."