Political Engagement and Susceptibility to Anxiety

• In Event: Exploring the Experience of Anxiety in American Politics

Abstract

When experiencing political anxiety over issues (e.g., immigration) or events (e.g., 9/11) people seek out more political information, particularly information that is threatening and relevant to the source of anxiety. But is this anxiety felt by everyone in the same way and does it lead to the same types of political behaviors in different types of people? In this paper, I argue that personal traits determine whether an individual experiences anxiety over politics and if that experience of political anxiety leads to a change in political behaviors. The personal traits I focus on are levels of political interest and trait anxiety (i.e. inherent levels of anxiety, regardless the context or relevance to politics) because they operate through attention, a necessary component for experiencing political anxiety. Individuals who are higher in these traits should experience anxiety more often and at higher levels. Once an individual experiences political anxiety, they should be more likely to seek out general political information and participate in politics than individuals who do not experience political anxiety. I run two experiments, a traditional randomized experiment and a selection experiment. The latter allows me to test the role of these personal traits in experiencing anxiety over politics and information seeking behavior. Within these experiments, I also test how experiencing anxiety influences political behaviors (i.e. contacting politicians) that stem from information seeking.

Author

• Melissa Baker, University of Toronto