Anxiety activates citizens’ political consciousness while enthusiasm engages their hearts

Evidence

However, they also rely on their internal emotional states to signal when to abandon their predispositions and begin conscious political choice. Emotionality thus empowers voters to confront their circumstances and react efficiently and appropriately. In the absence of anxiety, voters safely rely on preexisting partisan dispositions and the greater enthusiasm generated by the favored candidate; however, when disturbed by their emotional signals, voters pay more attention to the issues and no longer defer to established dispositions. Rather than being antagonistic or detrimental to citizenship, emotion enhances the ability of voters to perform their citizenly duties. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1745

We here propose a dynamic model of political learning that combines trait and state explanations to produce a richer view of how citizens inform their electoral choice. In states of anxiety, citizens activate their political consciousness; in states of enthusiasm, they engage their hearts in political affairs. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1743

Categorization

• DEFINE: Contrasts the two routes to voting: ‘standing decisions’ via enthusiasm vs. conscious choice via anxiety.
• XREF: Parallels the two-systems reasoning of Kahneman-style dual process models, applied here to democratic citizenship. — connects to: Unconscious fear anticipates historical catastrophe before political judgment does; Media portrayals amplify activist passion while muffling their reasoning — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1418; Positive campaigns suppress deliberation while anxiety-inducing ones promote it. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 1747 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1745; John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1743