Not All Negative Affect is Created Equal: The Consequences of Fear and Anger for Out-Group Hostility Across Five Contexts

High levels of affective polarisation [AP] are assumed detrimental, as excessive hostility threatens to undermine democratic norms of compromise, co-operation and deliberation, perhaps even paving the way to political violence. On the other hand, some suggest that lower levels of affective polarisation might be beneficial in terms of encouraging participation and piquing interest in democratic processes. Although AP is rising in a number of democracies, empirical evidence concerning its consequences remains limited at best. We argue that the concept of affective polarisation needs to be further unpacked, both theoretically and empirically, in order to better understand its consequences. In particular, discrete emotive attitudes — such as anger and fear — are presumed to have differential effects on attitudes and behaviours, which the current conceptualisation overlooks. Our expectations are (currently) as follows. Citizens reporting higher levels of fear will show greater support for the suppression of their out-group’s rights, such as placing limitations on campaigning or public speaking. Secondly, anger — known to encourage risk-taking behaviours and promote confrontation in response to threat — might make citizens more privy to accept, or even condone, norm transgressions and political violence. In addition, fear might reduce some citizens’ interest in engaging with politics, whilst anger might facilitate greater participation. The present study thus builds on theories of emotion and intergroup threat to move beyond generalised affect towards political out-groups. Our expectations are tested using a unique cross-national survey experiment that includes a stimulus designed to exogenously activate or dampen AP. We expose participants to messages from in-group members which contain affective evaluations of their out-group. This stimulus functions as a means to isolate the downstream effects of the (thus activated) discrete emotions, which we assess using a measurement instrument designed for these purposes (see Rhodes-Purdy et al., 2020). Downstream effects of the emotive attitudes are measured through several batteries that include participatory intentions, support for different democratic norms and procedures, acceptance of elite transgressions, and support for political violence. Our survey experiment will be fielded in the spring, and although case selection is still being finalised, we will select five nations with sufficient variation in the political systems represented to test our assumptions across contexts. Our study thus allows to directly observe how the way in which citizens react to political out-groups moderates the impact of affective polarisation.