Bethany Albertson

Ambivalence as Internal Conflict

Political scientists and psychologists recognize the presence of ambivalence in our attitudes, but conceptions of ambivalence are widely varied. Is ambivalence common or rare? Is it a subjective feeling that can only be measured by asking the individual, or is it an objective property of an attitude that can be measured without the respondent’s knowledge? Answers to this question may depend on the way ambivalence is defined. In the discussion that follows, we compare some of the various definitions of ambivalence that have been offered by scholars in the past. We argue that the concept has been employed too loosely in earlier research, and suggest a number of ways in which it can be defined in a more precise and productive manner. Specifically, we argue that “ambivalence” should be restricted to instances of strong internalized conflict which lead to increased response variability that cannot be reconciled as a function of additional information.

Hearts or minds? Identifying persuasive messages on climate change

This article sheds light on what kinds of appeals persuade the US public on climate change. Using an experimental design, we assign a diverse sample of 330 participants to one of four conditions: an economic self-interest appeal, a moral appeal, a mixed appeal combining self-interest and morality and a control condition with no persuasive appeal.1 Participants were then asked a series of questions about their willingness to support advocacy efforts, including such actions as writing a letter to Congress, signing a petition and joining an organization. We hypothesized that for issues like climate change where it is expensive to address the problem, arguments based on self-interest are more likely to be persuasive than moral appeals. Our experiment yielded some surprising results. Knowledge was an important moderator of people’s attitudes on climate change in response to the persuasive messages. We found that among respondents who were more knowledgeable about climate change that the economic frame was most the persuasive in terms of a subject’s willingness to take actions to support the cause. However, among low knowledge respondents, the control condition without messaging yielded the most concern.

Anxiety Over Terrorism Advantages Hillary Clinton

Whether the threat is terrorism, immigration, infectious disease, or the economy, American political life is often frightening, and 2016 is no exception. Recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the ...

Anxious Politics: Anxiety in Democratic Life

Passion is a sort of fever of the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us. William Penn (1909), Fruits of Solitude Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity. T. S. Elliot Emotions matter in politics – enthusiastic supporters return politicians to office, angry citizens march in the streets, a fearful public demands protection from the government. Yet, in much of Western political thought, emotions are either ignored or derided as destructive to democracy. Until recently, scholarship in political science paid little sustained attention to how emotions such as anxiety affect political life, focusing instead on the cognitive and rational aspects of politics. We explore the emotional life of politics in this book, with particular emphasis on how political anxieties affect public life. When the world is scary, when politics is passionate, when the citizenry is anxious, does this politics resemble politics under more serene conditions? If politicians use threatening appeals to motivate and persuade citizens, how does the public respond? Throughout this book, we show that political anxiety triggers engagement in politics and that it does so in ways that are potentially both promising and damaging for democracy. Using four substantive policy areas (public health, immigration, terrorism, and climate change), we demonstrate that anxiety triggers learning, but it also prioritizes attention to threatening information. Anxiety can push citizens toward trusting the government in times of crisis, but this can leave people open to manipulation. We also find that political anxiety increases support for protective and potentially anti-democratic policies. Anxiety about politics triggers coping strategies in the political world, where these strategies are often shaped by partisan agendas. This book provides a fuller picture of anxiety in politics and gets us closer to reconciling the current normative appreciation of anxiety with the political uses of anxiety. Emotions like anxiety may benefit citizens by increasing attention and making political choices easier, but we doubt that political elites and the news media evoke fear in order to create better citizens. Democratic citizenship in an anxious world can be a deeper, more informed citizenship. Without a full spectrum of voices from partisan political elites, though, anxious citizens in search of protection from threats to their health and way of life may support charlatans or madmen who offer bodily protection while destroying the body politic.

Anxiety and Democratic Citizenship

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. Bertrand Russell Contemporary American political life abounds with crises and worry. Terrorist attacks, a warming planet, and flu pandemics all trigger the publics anxieties. Meanwhile, politicians use fears of economic downturns and cultural changes to evoke the publics worries about immigration. Given that politics often involves anxiety, in this book, we ask how and when is anxiety successful at causing citizens to engage with politics? In addition, we ask what is the substance of that political engagement? Political thinkers and democratic theorists express concern that anxiety may undercut citizens’ abilities to make rational political choices, yet recent research from political science and psychology paints a more hopeful picture of anxiety, suggesting that political fears may lead to more knowledgeable and trusting citizens. Our theoretical contribution reconciles the normatively attractive portrait of anxiety in recent political science literature with the uses of fear in contemporary politics. We use four policy areas to test how anxiety shapes citizens’ engagement with political information and political trust. Together, these components paint a fuller picture of the ways that anxiety shapes political life than accounts that either simply vilify or praise the role of emotion in politics. Anxiety does not preclude man or nation from acting or thinking sanely, but “under the influence of great fear” the public is likely to support protective policies that may undercut democracy. Throughout the course of the book, we find that political anxiety systematically shapes citizen engagement by encouraging attention to politics and increasing acceptance of leaders and policies framed as able to protect the public. Political anxiety leads citizens to learn more about politics, but anxious citizens are systematically drawn to threatening news. Political anxiety increases trust in political actors, but trust is confined to those actors seen as useful for handling the source of the anxiety. Political anxiety makes people more likely to take protective policy positions, and the dominant protective policies are shaped both by partisanship of individuals and the partisan politics around the issues. An anxious politics both helps citizens to reach a democratic ideal of an informed, interested polity and leaves the public open to manipulation. In this chapter, we consider what this book contributes to the study of political psychology and emotion in public life. We also reflect on when anxiety strengthens democracy and when it may undermine democracy.

Hearts or Minds? Persuasive Messages on Climate Change

What kinds of appeals does the public find persuasive for global causes? Are arguments that appeal to so-called rational self-interest more persuasive than those that appeal to morality? The causal mechanisms by which transnational advocacy movements are able to generate political support for their campaigns are poorly specified in the literature in international relations and public opinion. This paper explores the relative persuasiveness of advocacy appeals for two global issues, climate change and the AIDS crisis in the developing world. Using an experimental design, this paper reports the results of an experiment in which subjects were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, a control condition with no message appeal, an economic self-interest appeal, a secular moral appeal, and a mixed appeal combining self interest and morality. Subjects were then asked a series of questions about their willingness to support advocacy efforts. We hypothesized that for issues like climate change for which the costs of action are higher and for which there is a more direct cost to individuals or the country, arguments based on economic self-interest are more likely to be persuasive than moral appeals. Where the direct risks or costs to individuals or the country are lower (like the global AIDS crisis), moral messages are more likely to have appeal.