The Effect of Emotions on Deliberative Attitudes

• In Event: Media Effects

Abstract

Employing an experimental design with 66 subjects this project seeks to understand how people's physiological responses to threat and positive emotions might moderate deliberative attitudes. This paper is an attempt to address the empirical and operational gaps in deliberative research contributing in two ways. First, I explore the role that emotions and their interaction play on a deliberative exercise. The second contribution is the development of an index of deliberative attitudes, a measure that captures in a questionnaire the main elements of deliberation (participation, argumentation, respect, sincerity, disposition to be persuaded by the better argument and ability to think in the common good), permitting a quantitative analysis about how prone individuals are to participate in a deliberative discussion.

Author

• Margarita Orozco, University of Wisconsin Madison