Emotions, Personality, and Americans’ Attitudes Toward Government

• In Event: Pluralism in Attitudes Toward American Government

Abstract

Scholars have long been interested in understanding the factors that shape Americans' attitudes toward their governing institutions. In this study, I argue that anger -- a phenomenon that is experienced across the political spectrum -- can powerfully alter Americans' views of the government. Drawing on a survey experiment on over 3,000 people, I find that emotional manipulations of anger cause Americans to believe that the government is corrupt. However, these results are dependent upon an individual's trait-based measure of anger: those whose personality predisposes them towards anger are more likely to be influenced by these emotional manipulations. I also find that emotional manipulations of anger are more effective at lowering evaluations of government when individuals have a high degree of trait-based anxiety. These results, then, suggest that the valence matters more than the discrete emotion for shaping Americans’ attitudes toward the government.

Author

• Steven W. Webster, Indiana University