Emotions and Affective Polarization: How Enthusiasm and Anxiety About Presidential Candidates Affect Interparty Attitudes

• Date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X19891423
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X19891423

American Politics Research

2020, Vol. 48(2) 308 –316

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X19891423

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Article

By most accounts, polarization is the problem in American

politics today. More specifically, recent scholarship has

focused on affective polarization, meaning the increasing lev-

els of social distance between the political parties (Iyengar

et al., 2012; Iyengar & Westwood, 2015; Mason, 2016).

Partisans are increasingly likely to hold negative feelings

about the opposing party (Garrett et al., 2014; Miller &

Conover, 2015), to engage in uncivil or even hostile actions

(Suhay et al., 2015), and to be unwilling to engage in reason-

able dialogue with the opposing side (Strickler, 2017). Given

this context, it naturally makes sense to consider how affec-

tive polarization might be reduced. Levendusky (2018) sug-

gests that strategies that can disrupt partisan identification

might alleviate affective polarization. However, more work is

necessary to fully probe whether there are ways to diminish

partisan identification and, thus, help mitigate affective polar-

ization. To this end, this article considers how the emotions

partisans feel toward the in-group and out-group presidential

candidates (i.e., enthusiasm and anxiety) heighten or diminish

affective polarization. It may not just be anxiety about the in-

group leaders that disrupts partisanship, but also positive

emotions about out-group leaders. The extent to which a par-

ticular emotion reinforces or diminishes partisan commit-

ments should depend on who or what causes the emotional

reaction, not just the type of emotion (Johnston et al., 2015).

Because presidents and presidential candidates are the

symbolic figureheads for their parties (Lobo & Curtice,

2014), emotional reactions to presidential candidates can

impact overall attitudes about the political parties. When

these emotions are consistent with partisan predispositions,

they should serve to reinforce polarization. Conversely, if

partisans experience contradictory emotions, it may create

cognitive dissonance (see Festinger, 1957). To restore internal

consistency, these partisans may need to subsequently adjust

their attitudes about the political parties. We expect that when

partisans experience enthusiasm for their party’s presidential

candidate or anxiety about the opposing party’s candidate,

affective polarization should increase. However, when parti-

sans experience enthusiasm for the opposing party’s candi-

date or anxiety about their party’s candidate, affective

polarization should decrease. We test these expectations using

891423APRXXX10.1177/1532673X19891423American Politics ResearchMcLaughlin et al.

research-article2019

1Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA

2The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA

3Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX, USA

4University of Louisville, KY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Bryan McLaughlin, College of Media & Communication, Texas Tech

University, Box 43082, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA.

Email: bryan.mclaughlin@ttu.edu

Emotions and Affective Polarization:

How Enthusiasm and Anxiety About

Presidential Candidates Affect Interparty

Attitudes

Bryan McLaughlin1, Derrick Holland2,

Bailey A. Thompson3, and Abby Koenig4

Abstract

In the context of an increasingly divided populace, this article considered how the emotions (enthusiasm and anxiety)

partisans feel toward U.S. presidential candidates may heighten or diminish affective polarization. In Study 1 (American

National Election Studies [ANES] 2008–2009 panel data), we found that enthusiasm for the in-group candidate and anxiety

about the out-group candidate were related to higher levels of affective polarization, whereas enthusiasm for the out-

group candidate was related to lower levels of affective polarization. In Study 2 (2016 panel data), we found that in-group

enthusiasm was related to higher levels of affective polarization and out-group enthusiasm was related to lower levels of

affective polarization, but neither in-group nor out-group anxiety was significantly related to affective polarization. These

findings highlight that enthusiasm about out-group candidates may have a unique ability to disrupt affective polarization and

that it is important to consider the source of an emotion response, not just the type of emotion.

Keywords

emotions, enthusiasm, affective polarization, presidential candidates, partisanship, social identity theory