Cherie Maestas - US grants

This project submitted under the Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) program investigates how the citizens use media interpretations of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to help them develop a framework with which to attribute blame and interpret policy relevant information. By examining three different frameworks, the researchers will study how these lead to different interpretations of the effectiveness of the government's response to this crisis. In addition, this project will allow the researchers to examine how these frameworks shape citizens' preferences for future policies such as the role of FEMA, the role of national, state, and local government in disaster response, etc.

This research is being conducted by prominent researchers at Florida State University and the University of New Mexico through a national phone survey using the facilities at Texas Tech University.

With respect to the second review criterion of the National Science Foundation, broader applicability to societal needs, the research gathers fundamental data on how different frameworks impact citizens' interpretations of natural disasters and governmental responses to the same. Accordingly, it addresses the larger question of citizens' views of the capacity and effectiveness of the government to deal with crisis. The results should be applicable to a wide variety of crises including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and technological disasters.

Overview and Broader Impacts
Transitions of power in democracies from one party to another create unique political contexts. The prospect of substantial and sometimes unexpected changes in economic, social, or foreign policy stimulates heated debate and strong emotions in the public. This evolving context allows for scholars to assess how emotion regulation shapes political behavior and attitudes. The activation of emotion in the face of unexpected events may manifest in a number of forms: posting on social media, attending town hall meetings, contacting elected officials, signing petitions, and/or participating in social movements. This knowledge helps to explain when and why emotions fuel broad-scale political participation and competition. The data generated from this project enables the investigators to assess theories about the influence of emotion regulation on political participation, i.e. how different types of emotion regulation strategies lead to different types of political behavior. The project will also provide valuable data for the social science community more broadly. In particular, the study will produce the first multi-wave panel survey tracking how individual attitudes and behavior change over time in response to political events during the first year of a party transition in the United States. The survey is the first in political science to study how emotion regulation habits vary across individuals in society and considers whether, over time, these habits lead to more consensus or greater polarization. The study utilizes established practices from psychology to measure emotion regulation habits in political contexts. The project also trains graduate and undergraduate students in machine learning, automated text coding, and text-analytics of open-ended survey responses. These are emerging as critical skills in the field of survey research as computing power opens new opportunities for understanding public attitudes through more free-form, naturalistic responses compared to traditional surveys.

Scientific Merit
This study contributes to a growing body of research exploring the importance of socio-political emotions in fueling public attitudes and behavior. We develop new theory to explain how individual-level emotion regulation habits a) moderate the affective processing of information and b) influence expressive and social political behavior. Pilot tests indicate individuals adept at regulating their emotions through reappraising emotion-provoking stimuli were more likely to become politically active compared to those who use suppressive or avoidance regulation habits. Reappraisers are more likely to transmit their views to others, thus serving as a source of social contagion. This project uses a three-wave panel survey design to conduct a broader test of how emotion regulation shapes issue engagement, changes in perceptions of political responsibility, and changes in levels and forms of political participation. We draw our panel sample from a pool of respondents to a large online national survey conducted just prior to the 2016 elections to obtain pre-election baseline opinions on key policy topics like healthcare, the environment, tax reform, and military use. Subsequent waves of the panel study are timed to survey respondents during critical moments of policy change, or will follow an unexpected extraordinary event, should one arise. The design permits the investigators to observe individual-level change in the use of emotion regulation habits over time, and to test whether different emotion regulation habits make individuals more prone to reexamine their beliefs. If that is the case, these individuals could potentially change beliefs, or reject new information and maintain rigidity in attitudes. The research also allows the investigators to examine how emotion regulation influences or hinders political activism in response to emotionally provocative moments in society.