Robin Stryker, Bethany A. Conway, Shawn Bauldry, Vasundhara Kaul
{"title":"Emotional Markers of Disrespect: A Fourth Dimension of Perceived Political Incivility?","authors":"Robin Stryker, Bethany A. Conway, Shawn Bauldry, Vasundhara Kaul","doi":"10.1177/00936502231221926","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Research has investigated emotional responses to perceived political incivility but not whether aspects of emotionality may be perceived as uncivil. When politicians display or evoke anger, they may increase democratic participation; however, because manifesting or evoking some negative emotions suggests disrespect—a central component of extant conceptualizations of political incivility—displaying anger and evoking fear and anger may be perceived as aspects of incivility. We test this using confirmatory factor analysis on a national sample of over 2,000 Americans. We find an overarching construct of perceived political incivility including not only three previously identified dimensions but also a fourth dimension reflecting negative emotions including fear and anger. Despite heterogeneity in perceived incivility, about 70% or more of respondents view behaviors including trolling and intentionally evoking anger and fear as mostly or very uncivil.","PeriodicalId":48323,"journal":{"name":"Communication Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Communication Research","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00936502231221926","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Research has investigated emotional responses to perceived political incivility but not whether aspects of emotionality may be perceived as uncivil. When politicians display or evoke anger, they may increase democratic participation; however, because manifesting or evoking some negative emotions suggests disrespect—a central component of extant conceptualizations of political incivility—displaying anger and evoking fear and anger may be perceived as aspects of incivility. We test this using confirmatory factor analysis on a national sample of over 2,000 Americans. We find an overarching construct of perceived political incivility including not only three previously identified dimensions but also a fourth dimension reflecting negative emotions including fear and anger. Despite heterogeneity in perceived incivility, about 70% or more of respondents view behaviors including trolling and intentionally evoking anger and fear as mostly or very uncivil.
期刊介绍:
Empirical research in communication began in the 20th century, and there are more researchers pursuing answers to communication questions today than at any other time. The editorial goal of Communication Research is to offer a special opportunity for reflection and change in the new millennium. To qualify for publication, research should, first, be explicitly tied to some form of communication; second, be theoretically driven with results that inform theory; third, use the most rigorous empirical methods; and fourth, be directly linked to the most important problems and issues facing humankind. Critieria do not privilege any particular context; indeed, we believe that the key problems facing humankind occur in close relationships, groups, organiations, and cultures.