The Biological Dynamics of Political Attitudes and Their Measurement

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

While the literature on political attitudes and behaviour had traditionally been cognition-centred, recent scholarship has begun to uncover broader bodily processes and mechanisms that can channel or even override cognition. Key drivers of this development have not only been theoretical advancements but also an increasing incorporation of measurement strategies from the life sciences. Direct measures of bodily processes allow new insights because they circumvent existing social desirability biases involved in self-assessments and additionally tap into subconscious as well as affective processes. The present panel aims to push our understanding of the bodily dynamics of political attitudes further by drawing on all of these methodological benefits. The paper of Friesen, Warren, and Gothreau uses electrodermal response data to uncover sexist patterns in the evaluation of political candidates. Especially given the existence of a strong social desirability norm against sexism among Democrats, the pattern would have hardly been detected in survey-based work. The paper of Aarøe, Pawłowski, and Petersen uses data on the strength of individuals’ immune systems to study whether the former, via its impact on disgust sensitivity, channels personality and political ideology. As such, their paper investigates foundations to political attitudes that the individuals’ holding these attitudes are mostly unconscious of. The papers of Bakker and Arceneaux and Klingelhöfer use physiological measurements to study the determinants of emotional experiences. Similar to Aarøe et al., Bakker and Arceneaux take an adaptationist approach and test whether issues become more emotionalized once they are connected to evolutionary relevant frames and what the consequences for expressed policy positions are. Klingelhöfer’s paper disaggregates the effect of partisan campaign communications and traces the patterns in citizens’ emotional reactions by partisan allegiance. By bringing together scholars working on the biological dynamics of political attitudes from American and Comparative Politics, the panel additionally attempts to spark cross-fertilization and advance common theorizing: Discussing the papers in conjunction will sensitize us to take seriously the different way in which common biological dynamics materialize depending on the immediate cultural and political contexts.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Association for Politics and the Life Sciences

Individual Presentations

• The Biological Roots of Disgust Sensitivity and Political Cognition - Lene Aarøe, Aarhus University; Boguslaw Pawlowski, University of Wroclaw; Michael Bang Petersen, University of Aarhus

• What Makes Us Hot? The Physiological Underpinnings of Political Attitudes - Bert Bakker, University of Amsterdam; Kevin Arceneaux, Temple University

• Not Quite Woke: Physiological Data Reveals Democrats’ Sexist Leader Evaluations - Amanda Friesen, IUPUI; Clarisse Warren, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Claire Gothreau, Temple University

• Partisan Emotion Work: Parties’ Appeals and Citizens’ Reactions - Tristan Klingelhöfer, Johns Hopkins University

Chair

• Anthony C. Lopez Washington State University, Vancouver

Discussant

• Anthony C. Lopez Washington State University, Vancouver