How citizens’ emotion regulation strategies predict emotions and citizen participation

Citizen participation is a deeply emotional affair because it commonly involves deeply felt concerns and beliefs, and interaction between individuals (e.g. Verhoeven and Duyvendak 2015). Although attention to the affective dimension of citizen participation is increasing (e.g. Eshuis et al 2014; Van ‘t Wout et al 2010; Weber 2012), citizens’ emotions in participatory processes are still understudied; knowledge lacks on how citizens deal with emotions and how that effects participation. Literature on citizen participation is dominated by a rationalist approach in which emotions are often neglected. This research aims to explain how citizens deal with emotions, and how this impacts citizen participation. The study uses a survey among citizens in 4 cases of real estate development (in the USA and the Netherlands) that feature various forms of citizen participation such as deliberative meetings, petitions, and direct contact between individual citizens and politicians. The cases have aroused negative emotions among residents, who for example fear more car traffic. The research addresses whether citizens who are successful in regulating their emotions, have less strong emotions, which in turn diminishes their motivation to engage and ultimately results in lower levels of citizen participation. Studies have shown that emotion regulation through cognitive reappraisal decreases negative emotions, while expression suppression decreases positive and increases negative emotion experience (Gross et al 2013). Ford et al (2019) have shown that successful cognitive reappraisal of emotions, leads to less intense emotions and in turn decreases political participation. Barnes (2008) explains that suppression of emotions inhibits engagement with the emotional content of what is discussed, and this inhibits deliberation and citizens’ engagement. Reappraisal helps people to reflect and engage emotionally with a topic, and this facilitates deliberation (Davies et al 2006). The survey measures emotion regulation through acceptance, reappraisal, suppression and situation selection. We measure citizen participation through an index including resource intensive and resource extensive forms of participation (compare Brady et al 1995)