The effect of mass shootings on daily emotions is limited by time, geographic proximity, and political affiliation

Abstract

Media coverage in the aftermath of mass shootings frequently documents expressions of sadness and outrage shared by millions of Americans. This type of collective emotion can be a powerful force in establishing shared objectives and motivating political actions. Yet, the rise in mass shootings has not translated into widespread legislative progress toward gun control across the nation. This study is designed to shed light on this puzzle by generating causal evidence on the temporal and geographic scale of collective emotional responses to mass shootings. Using a unique continuous survey on Americans’ daily emotions without reference to specific events, our empirical strategy compares the daily emotions of residents interviewed after to those interviewed before 31 mass shootings within the same city or state where the event occurred. We found that the emotional impact of mass shootings is substantial, but it is local, short-lived, and politicized. These results suggest that if policy reform efforts are to draw on collective emotional responses to these events, they will likely have to start at the local level in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting.

Say Their Names: Resurgence in the collective attention toward Black victims of fatal police violence following the death of George Floyd

“…This drop in happiness was unique not only in its intensity, but also its duration. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all decreases in happiness caused by tragedies-like other police violence events, mass shootings, and celebrity deaths-have lasted only about a single day before returning to "normal" levels 4 [38]. It is difficult to gauge a "normal" level of happiness expressed on Twitter, but the happiness expressed in June 2020 did not reach a level of 5.9 or greater again until June 21st (Father's Day).…”

The Impact of Mass Shootings on Attitudes toward Gun Restrictions

“…To examine whether mass shootings have an immediate impact on attitudes toward gun permits, this study combines GSS survey data with information on deadly mass shootings in the United States since 1982 involving four or more victims killed, collected by three organizations: (1) the nonprofit magazine Mother Jones (Mother Jones 2020), ( 2) the nonprofit research center The Violence Project (The Violence Project 2021), and (3) the Stanford Geospatial Center's Mass Shootings in America project (Stanford Geospatial Center and Stanford Libraries 2020). Following the triangulation strategy of Sharkey and Shen (2021), our independent variable includes only those mass shootings that were listed in all three databases. 1 We follow this strategy because there is some subjectivity in defining incidents as mass shootings, and we suggest that using those incidents recorded in each data repository yields a more valid measure of mass shootings than using any one data source.…”

“…Although there has been an intense amount of empirical scrutiny of the causes of mass shootings, typically defined as incidents involving four or more victims killed (Mother Jones 2020; Sharkey and Shen 2021), attention dedicated to the consequences has been relatively limited and has tended to focus more, for instance, on the impact on gun purchases than on attitudes and policy preferences related to gun control (Callcut et al 2019; Liu and Wiebe 2019; Porfiri et al 2019; Studdert et al 2017). Accordingly, in this study we ask, Do mass shootings alter public opinion related to guns and gun control, even if fleetingly?…”

“…If so, for whom do opinions change, and are some shootings more salient than others when it comes to influencing attitudes? Even temporary shifts in public opinion about gun control are worthy of scholarly attention because they may yield a rare “window of opportunity” for advancing policy change (Birkland 1998; Kingdon 1995; Semenza and Bernau forthcoming; Sharkey and Shen 2021; Zahariadis 1999). The renewed attention to gun violence in the wake of mass shootings combined with collective grief and the collective feeling of threat may crystallize shared policy objectives related to gun control (Semenza and Bernau 2020).…”

Distressed Democrats and relaxed Republicans? Partisanship and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Regardless of the specific mechanisms, the data consistently demonstrate a political gap in mental health, whereby political liberals on average are more predisposed to have worse subjective wellbeing than political conservatives. And it appears that politicized stressors, such as mass shootings, can widen partisan gaps in wellbeing by having greater negative impacts on the emotional well-being of Democrats [ 33 ]. In light of politicized responses to the pandemic—where Democrats are more likely to see the pandemic as a threat, more likely to socially distance, and presumably more likely to face a perfect storm of threats to mental health (e.g., existential insecurity, social disconnectedness, and disrupted routine)—did this predisposition lead to higher levels of distress among Democrats in 2020?…”