Anger (Mis)Management? Racial Differences in the Emotional Foundations of Political Action.

Messaging that communicates policy threats—signals of developments in the political environment that will restrict or deny a valued political good—are a constant element of American discourse. Extant scholarship asserts such messaging propels people to greater political action by making them angry over the prospect of loss. Although this notion makes intuitive sense and has empirical backing, I argue policy threat cues do not effectively stimulate political action across all groups. Existing work exploring the linkage of emotion and behavior has not fully contended with the influence of race in determining individuals’ responses to cues of policy threat. This project aims to fill what I argue is a gap in the literature. I use affective intelligence and cognitive appraisal theories as frameworks for understanding how receipt of varying cues can engender distinct affective and behavioral responses. Integrating this literature with the work on black attitudes, I theorize that the respective interpretative lenses employed by blacks and whites to inform their broader perceptions of the political system—and their respective roles within it—systematically constrain their emotional responses to policy threat cues. The ideological narratives shaping blacks’ general worldview breed an overarching resignation regarding the political system’s responsiveness to blacks’ collective demands. This resignation can either inhibit the arousal of anger among blacks receiving policy threat cues, or it can override the mobilizing effects of anger by signaling to the threat cue recipient the ineffectiveness of his potential action. Whether anger’s emergence is inhibited among blacks, or anger’s positive effect on action after emergence is disrupted, the subsequent effect is the same. African Americans will not take up greater action in response to the policy threat, creating a critical participation disparity relative to whites. Two empirical studies, examining nationally representative survey data and a locally conducted survey experiment, suggest multiples pathways through which race constrains the translation of anger to political action in response to policy threat cues. These studies aid the construction of a theory of racialized emotional and behavioral responses to policy cues. This theory advances scholarly and practical understanding of race, emotion, communication and participation.PHDPublic Policy and Political ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111543/1/dphoenix_1.pd

Black Hope Floats: Racial Emotion Regulation and the Uniquely Motivating Effects of Hope on Black Political Participation

Drawing upon theories of group based emotion, group based efficacy and appraisal, I propose a model of racial emotion regulation to explain variations in how Black and White Americans respond emotionally and behaviorally to policy opportunity cues. I test the major claims of this model with data from an original experiment and national survey. Findings from the studies indicate that expressions of hope carry a strong and consistent mobilizing effect on the political participation of African Americans, while producing null effects on White participation. I discuss the implications of this model for our understanding of the potential of hope to shape appraisals and perceptions of efficacy among socially marginalized groups, opening up a distinct pathway through which they can be mobilized for political engagement

Race, Religion, and Anti‐Poverty Policy Attitudes

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134142/1/jssr12258.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134142/2/jssr12258_am.pd

Cognition and Political Ideology in Aging.

ObjectiveThe impact of cognitive function and decline on political ideology is unknown. We studied the relationship between cognition and both political orientation and political policy choices in a population of older persons.DesignLongitudinal investigation.SettingA retirement community and its surroundings in Southern California.Participants151 members of a longitudinal investigation of aging and dementia in the oldest-old (the 90+ Study), mean age 95 years.MeasurementsParticipants self-reported their political ideology (7-point scale from extremely liberal to extremely conservative) and policy preferences for federal spending on public schooling, aid to the poor, and protecting the environment, as well as on preferences on immigration rates, death penalty, and university admission. The same political survey was mailed to participants twice: at time one and 6-months later. Cognitive function based on neurological examination and cognitive testing was classified as normal (55%), cognitive impairment/not dementia (CIND) (33%), or dementia (12%). We calculated rank correlations between ideology and policy choices, stratified by cognitive status, and agreement between Surveys 1 and 2.ResultsPolitical ideology/orientation was highly consistent over a six-month period (84% agreement) among the 122 who returned the second survey, with no significant relationship to cognitive status. Among cognitively impaired (CIND and dementia), however, there was significant loss of consistency between an individual's political orientation and their policy choices. Level of political engagement was high for participants, with more than 90% voting in the 2016 presidential election.ConclusionIn this population of older persons, political identification on the liberal-conservative spectrum was resilient despite cognitive decline, but its meaning and function were changed. For the cognitively impaired it remained a self-defining label, but no longer operated as a higher order framework for orienting specific policy preferences. There appeared to be loss of coherence between the political orientation and political policy choices of cognitively impaired individuals. Given the high level of political engagement of these individuals, these results have substantial public policy implications