ABSTRACT

We examine the role that emotion plays in understanding people’s reactions to the presidential candidates during two of the three general election debates between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. To measure the impact of emotions on people’s attitudes toward the candidates, we run studies at two large public universities. We are able to measure changes in attitudes and responses to the candidates after exposure to each debate. In addition, we explore real-time reaction to the candidates by employing facial expression software to assess people’s emotional responses during the debate. We show that people who watched the first and third presidential debate are much more likely to change their evaluations of the presidential rivals, compared to people who did not view these debates. We also show that people’s displays of emotion are related to their willingness to change their views of the candidates. For example, when people are displaying anger and joy, they are less likely to change their evaluations of the presidential candidates during the course of the debate. Furthermore, we find that when people show fear and sadness, their views of the candidates become less polarized over the length of the debates. These results show how different emotions influence the candidate evaluation process.

摘要

在共和党人唐纳德特朗普和民主党人希拉里克林顿之间的三场大选辩论中的两场辩论中，我们研究了情绪在理解人们对总统候选人的反应方面所扮演的角色。为了衡量情绪对人们对候选人态度的影响，我们在两所大型公立大学进行了研究。我们能够衡量在参加每次辩论后对候选人的态度和反应的变化。此外，我们通过使用面部表情软件来评估人们在辩论期间的情绪反应，从而探索对候选人的实时反应。我们表明，与没有观看这些辩论的人相比，观看了第一次和第三次总统辩论的人更有可能改变他们对总统竞争对手的评价。我们还表明，人们的情绪表现与他们愿意改变对候选人的看法有关。例如，当人们表现出愤怒和喜悦时，他们不太可能在辩论过程中改变对总统候选人的评价。此外，我们发现，当人们表现出恐惧和悲伤时，他们对候选人的看法随着辩论的持续时间而变得不那么两极化。这些结果显示了不同的情绪如何影响候选人评估过程。随着辩论的持续进行，他们对候选人的看法变得不那么两极化了。这些结果显示了不同的情绪如何影响候选人评估过程。随着辩论的持续进行，他们对候选人的看法变得不那么两极化了。这些结果显示了不同的情绪如何影响候选人评估过程。