People learn about politics only when negative events disrupt complacency and trigger attention.

Evidence

Experiments in cognitive psychology demonstrate that negative events increase attention and that emotional reactions are crucial to the stimulation of attention (Derryberry, 1991; Pratto & John, 1991). Thus, current work in psychology and in neurophysiology supports a theoretical view about how people come to learn about politics: they abandon complacency and start to pay attention when the world signals that something is not right. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1668

Categorization

• XREF: Aligns with negativity bias research and amygdala processing of threat; also echoes the ‘monitor’ function of anxiety in political engagement literature. — connects to: Political ignorance reflects lack of opportunity for unhurried reasoning, not low intelligence. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1095