Seeing Red: Anger Increases How Much Republican Identification Predicts Partisan Attitudes and Perceived Polarization
Open accessAbstract
We examined the effects of incidental anger on perceived and actual polarization between Democrats and Republicans in the context of two national tragedies, Hurricane Katrina (Study 1) and the mass shooting that targeted Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona (Study 2). We hypothesized that because of its relevance to intergroup conflict, incidental anger exacerbates the political polarization effects of issue partisanship (the correlation between partisan identification and partisan attitudes), and, separately, the correlation between conservative partisan identification and perceived polarization between Democrats and Republicans. We further hypothesized that these effects would be strongest for Republican identification because Republican leaders were targets of public criticism in both tragedies and because conservative (Republican) ideology tends to be more sensitive to threat. In the studies, participants first completed an emotion induction procedure by recalling autobiographical events that made them angry (Studies 1 & 2), sad (Studies 1 & 2), or that involved recalling emotionally neutral events (Study 2). Participants later reported their attitudes regarding the two tragedies, their perceptions of the typical Democrat's and Republican's attitudes on those issues, and their identification with the Democratic and Republican parties. Compared with incidental sadness (Studies 1 and 2) and a neutral condition (Study 2), incidental anger exacerbated the associations between Republican identification and partisan attitudes, and, separately between Republican identification and perceived polarization between the attitudes of Democrats and Republicans. We discuss implications for anger's influence on political attitude formation and perceptions of group differences in political attitudes.
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Other intervention strategies focus on correcting misperceptions, encouraging more complex thinking, and reducing anger and competitive feelings.
“Other intervention strategies focus on correcting misperceptions, encouraging more complex thinking, and reducing anger and competitive feelings26,131,132.”
From Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts (2022) · cites this paper as [131]
The Introduction’s “Incidental Anger” section links anger to intergroup conflict, and the General Discussion says anger inductions might increase actual and perceived partisan differences. This supports the rationale for addressing anger, but the paper does not describe an intervention that reduces anger or competitive feelings. It also does not address correcting misperceptions or encouraging more complex thinking. (LLM, conf=0.80)
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References 53 · Cited by 31
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- Authors
- Huber, M., Van Boven, L., Park, B., & Pizzi, W. T.
- Affiliations
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Corresponding author
- Huber, Michaela
- ORCID
- Park, Bernadette
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2015-09-25
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- e0139193
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4583401
- OpenAlex
- W2184666151
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 53
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 7.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eYLS (Yale Law School) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Colorado Law Scholarly Commons (University of Colorado Colorado Springs) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0555137, 0552120)
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Technische Universität Dresden
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Keywords
- political polarization, party identification, perceived polarization, emotion induction, Hurricane Katrina, conservatism, threat sensitivity, political attitudes, intergroup conflict
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anger, Attitude, Disasters, Female, Homicide, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Politics, Social Identification, United States, Mass Casualty Incidents, Cyclonic Storms
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