Shifting the Public's Focus: How Angry Rhetoric Changes Information Seeking

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Psychology

Abstract

Political elites routinely infuse their public speeches with emotions, including anger. However, little is known about how this rhetorical strategy influences the public that observes the angry speech. I argue that by infusing speech with anger politicians can focus the public’s attention on issues they want the public to focus on while ignoring other salient issues. Using an experimental design where a political elite’s rhetoric on specific issue is manipulated to either be angry or unemotional coupled with a dynamic process tracing information board, I show that angry speech elevates the perceived importance of a topic while shifting the type of information that individuals seek out after observing angry elite rhetoric. These results speak to an important, yet understudied, role for emotions in American political life.

Author

• Carey Stapleton, University of Colorado-Boulder