Using Implicit Testing to Identify Key Emotions within and across Political Party

HANOVER, N.H. July 30, 2019 As Democrats prepare for the second round of Presidential debates, an insightful national study of voters’ feelings about the two parties suggests that Independents are furious and disassociated with both Democrats and Republicans. If any of the Democrats are to make inroads with Swing Voters in the debates, they need to think about how to defuse this angry bunch and address emotional distress about the party's direction. 

This innovative study of voters' emotional reactions to political parties, conducted by Bellwether Citizen Response, shows Independents as the most volatile segment of the electorate, Republicans as the most satisfied, and Democrats as feeling mostly positive towards their party, but also greater ambivalence. 

The study was designed to elicit emotional reactions in keeping with research showing that emotion is a much more powerful driving force in voting behavior than reason. With 42 percent of American voters declaring as Independent, Bellwether's Emotion Polling study affirms the image of the unaligned electorate as "frustrated and angry" at politics as usual. Shaping their emotional response to candidates and platforms is the key to winning at the ballot box. 

Conducted online over a two-week period, June 12-June 24, 2019, prior to the first Democratic debates, the nationally representative study employed a methodological procedure known as PIAT, or "Pictorial Implicit Association Test," combining both image selection and the speed in which the image was selected to assess both choice and the conviction or strength of that choice. This combination of explicit choice and implicit response time allows for a rank ordering of emotional imagery that is much more granular in nature than explicit image selection alone. Bellwether’s proprietary PIAT uses a series of over 2000 photos that have been validated to represent 32 discrete, highly specific responses that span the spectrum of human emotions. 

The study included data from 914 United States citizens [Democrat n=358, Republican n=344, Independent n=212] who voted in the 2016 Presidential Election and who report intent to vote in the 2020 Presidential Election. The researchers also identified key emotions felt by Independents toward other political parties, which differed fundamentally from both traditional red and blue party constituents.?

Significant differences were shown in emotions felt both in and across party lines. The emotional temperature of Independents toward traditional political party affiliations are negative and based on anger and disenfranchisement. In a finding favorable for Democrats, the study showed the Independents possessed 50% more negative feelings towards Republicans than Democrats.

Independents are not ambivalent and show strong emotions about what the traditional political parties represent, and those emotions are negative. Independents report "anger," "confusion," and "frustration" toward both parties, but more so toward the Republican Party. They also feel intense "restriction " and "disgust" for Republicans.

Republicans were shown to have focused and strong emotions towards their party, all positive without ambivalence while demonstrating less negative views of the Democratic Party than Democrats or Independents feel towards the Republicans. Republicans registered a net PIAT emotion rating of +53.8 towards their own party and -94.5 towards the Democrats.

Democrats demonstrate many emotions toward their own party, mostly positive, but not as intense or focused as Republicans. Democrats registered a net PIAT emotion rating of +68.5 towards their own party, 15 points higher than Republicans toward theirs and a -111.2 rating towards Republicans, over 30 points more negative than the GOP feels about their party.

Independents registered a -79.7 score towards Democrats and -124.2 towards Republicans, suggesting even greater anger towards the GOP.

Democrats express twice the number of strong emotions toward their party as do Republicans towards theirs, and while most comparable and positive, feelings of "astonishment" and "tenacity" are present.

The data highlight the importance of communicating more centrist messaging in current campaign strategy to better resonate with the emotional responses of Independents and not play to the extremes that leave swing voters alienated.