Political psychophysiology

Settle, Jaime E.; Hibbing, Matthew V.; Anspach, Nicolas M.; Carlson, Taylor N.; Coe, Chelsea M.; Hernandez, Edward; Peterson, Johnathan C.; Stuart, John; Arceneaux, Kevin

doi:10.1017/pls.2020.5

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…The lab protocol followed the recommendations for psychophysiological research articulated by Settle et al (2020). First, electrodes were attached to the index and middle fingers of the participants' nondominant hand.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Afraid of whom?

Anspach

2022

Polit. life sci.

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Taking insights from the fields of psychology and biology, a growing body of scholarship considers the psychophysiological foundations of political attitudes. Subconscious emotional reactions to threat, for example, have been shown to predict socially conservative attitudes toward out-groups. However, many of these studies fail to consider different sources of perceived threat. Using a combination of survey and physiological data, I distinguish between fear of others and fear of authority, finding that threat sensitivity predicts divergent political attitudes depending on the strength of each. Those who are more sensitive to threat from others tend to hold socially conservative attitudes, while those who fear authority generally take more libertarian positions. As sensitivity to threat is at least partially inherited, these findings highlight the genetic role of political predispositions.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 3 I measure EDA using skin conductance level (SCL) to determine the skin conductance response (SCR), both measured in microsiemens (µS). For more information on SCL, SCR, and EDA measurement, see Braithwaite et al (2013) and Settle et al (2020). …”

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confidence: 99%

Afraid of whom?

Anspach

2022

Polit. life sci.

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“…Physiological data are challenging to collect, and sometimes sensors do not have a clear enough connection to reliably receive a signal from the participant (Potter & Bolls, 2012;Settle et al, 2020). Therefore, it was necessary to code the skin conductance signals for quality, which we did following the method employed by Soroka, Fournier, Nir, and Hibbing (2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physiological threat sensitivity predicts anti-immigrant attitudes

et al. 2021

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Research finds that the perception that immigrants are culturally and economically threatening is associated with negative attitudes toward immigration. In a largely separate body of work, psychophysiological predispositions toward threat sensitivity are connected to a range of political attitudes, including immigration. This article draws together these two literatures, using a lab experiment to explore psychophysiological threat sensitivity and immigration attitudes in the United States. Respondents with higher threat sensitivity, as measured by skin conductance responses to threatening images, tend to be less supportive of immigration. This finding builds on our understanding of the sources of anti-immigrant attitudes.

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“…But that should not lead us to disregard the method all together. Skin conductance has been a well-validated measure of the activation of arousal (Settle et al, 2020). Using skin conductance as an indicator of arousal to politically relevant stimuli (political parties, politicians, the news, campaign ads, etc.…”

Section: Skin Conductancementioning

confidence: 99%

Using measures of psychophysiological and neural activity to advance understanding of psychological processes in politics

Bakker¹,

Schumacher²

2023

Preprint

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Innovation implies successful introduction. Measures of psychophysiological and neural activity have been introduced to political science but the fact they are still rarely used, particularly in mainstream political science, indicates that this introduction has not been successful. Instead, the status quo in political science is to rely on self-reported measures of feelings, beliefs, and opinions. A recent review of research on ``emotion and politics'' in the Annual Review of Political Science underlines this point as it contains very few references to work using measures of psychophysiological and neural activity. We identify three problems with this status quo. First, unconscious (or preconscious) affective processes cannot be measured with self-reports because we are mostly unaware of these processes. Second, the complex interplay between affective and cognitive processes at the neural level cannot be characterized by relying on typical (survey) experimental outcome measures. Third, on socially sensitive topics, people may be motivated to self-report in socially desirable ways. As such, self-reports may even be misleading. In sum, political psychology largely concentrates on more conscious reflections at the expense of potentially relevant preconscious or unconscious explanations or mechanisms. The goal of this chapter is to inspire the next generation of political psychology research to move beyond self-reports and adopt theories and methods that help us to better characterize the affective-cognitive processes of political decision-making. To this end we provide an overview of work using psychophysiological measures (skin conductance, heart rate variability, and facial electromyography (fEMG)), eye-tracking, and neuroimaging measures (electroencephalography (EEG), functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging).

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Political psychophysiology

Cited by 11 publications

References 50 publications

Afraid of whom?

Afraid of whom?

Physiological threat sensitivity predicts anti-immigrant attitudes

Using measures of psychophysiological and neural activity to advance understanding of psychological processes in politics

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