scholarly journals The cost of a divided America: an experimental study into destructive behavior

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wladislaw Mill ◽  
John Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Destructive Behavior ◽  
Dysfunctional Behavior ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Cost

AbstractDoes political polarization lead to dysfunctional behavior? To study this question, we investigate the attitudes of supporters of Donald Trump and of Hillary Clinton towards each other and how these attitudes affect spiteful behavior. We find that both Trump and Clinton supporters display less positive attitudes towards the opposing supporters compared to coinciding supporters. More importantly, we show that significantly more wealth is destroyed if the opponent is an opposing voter. This effect is mainly driven by Clinton voters. This provides the first experimental evidence that political polarization leads to destructive behavior.

scholarly journals Trump and Muslims: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Islamophobic Rhetoric in Donald Trump’s Selected Tweets

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824402110041
Author(s):  
Mohsin Hassan Khan ◽  
Farwa Qazalbash ◽  
Hamedi Mohd Adnan ◽  
Lalu Nurul Yaqin ◽  
Rashid Ali Khuhro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Political Sphere

The emergence of Donald Trump as an anti-Muslim-Islam presidential candidate and victory over Hillary Clinton is an issue of debate and division in the United States’ political sphere. Many commentators and political pundits criticize Trump for his disparaging rhetoric on Twitter and present him as an example of how Twitter can be an effective tool for the construction and extension of political polarization. The current study analyzes the selected tweets by Donald Trump posted on Twitter to unmask how he uses language to construct Islamophobic discourse structures and attempts to form his ideological structures along with. The researchers hypothesize that Islamophobia is a marked feature of Trump’s political career realized by specific rhetorical and discursive devices. Therefore, the study purposively takes 40 most controversial tweets of Donald Trump against Islam and Muslims and carried out a critical discourse analysis with the help of macro-strategies of the discourse given by Wodak and Meyer and van Dijk’s referential strategies of political discourse. The findings reveal that Trump uses language rhetorically to exclude people of different ethnic identities, especially Muslims, through demagogic language to create a difference of “us” vs. “them” and making in this way “America Great Again”.

scholarly journals Playing the Trump Card: Masculinity Threat and the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 237802311774069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily K. Carian ◽  
Tagart Cain Sobotka
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Potential Mechanism ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The Status ◽  
Masculinity Threat ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Differential Support

Using an experimental study fielded before the U.S. 2016 presidential election, we test one potential mechanism to explain the outcome of the election: threatened gender identity. Building on masculine overcompensation literature, we test whether threat to masculinity can explain differential support for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton among men, and adjudicate between two mediators: desire for a male president and desire for a masculine president. As predicted, we find that masculinity threat increases desire for a masculine president (but not desire for a male president), which in turn increases support for Trump and decreases support for Clinton among men. This study empirically documents the role masculinity threat may have played in the 2016 presidential election and politics more generally. This study also contributes to theory by providing evidence that masculine overcompensation works symbolically to reassert the status of masculinity over femininity rather than to simply emphasize maleness over femaleness.

Political Fans and Cheerleaders

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Penney
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Viral Marketing ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Cultural Engagement

Drawing on stories of citizens who voluntarily participate in the viral marketing of electoral candidates, as well as developments from the 2016 Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders campaigns, this chapter explores the complex intersection between traditional top-down electioneering and grassroots political promotion that emerges from popular culture. It considers how a fanlike cultural engagement with modern political brands fosters participatory forms of candidate promotion that extend far beyond a campaign’s official digital media outreach. Here, citizen marketers take on the role of cheerleaders for their political “teams,” seeking to model enthusiasm and rally their like-minded peers. This dynamic is becoming particularly important for outsider and insurgent candidates who depend on groundswells of grassroots momentum on social media and elsewhere to achieve electoral success. However, these practices also risk furthering the dynamics of political polarization and partisanship that threaten to divide the polity into self-enclosed and opposing camps.

The Divided States of America: How the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Shaped Perceived Levels of Gender Equality

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Does ◽  
Seval Gündemir ◽  
Margaret Shih
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Experimental Study ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black American ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Practical Implications

When Barack Obama became the first Black American to be elected president of the United States, many claimed that a “postracial” society had been achieved. Analogously, we predicted that the election of a first woman president—that is, a Hillary Clinton victory—would increase perceptions of gender equality in the United States. In contrast, we predicted that a Donald Trump victory would decrease perceived gender equality. Pre- and postelection data revealed that perceived gender equality indeed decreased immediately after Election Day, but only for those who preferred Clinton over Trump—thus increasing polarization between Trump and Clinton supporters on gender-related issues. In an experimental study using a fictitious election, we found that both the winner’s gender and sexism of the man candidate contributed, independently, to perceived gender inequality. These two studies demonstrate how prominent events, such as political elections, can shape people’s perceived levels of systemic inequality. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Engendering support: Hostile sexism predicts voting for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 578-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate A. Ratliff ◽  
Liz Redford ◽  
John Conway ◽  
Colin Tucker Smith
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
The United States ◽  
Benevolent Sexism ◽  
Hostile Sexism ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Positive Attitudes

This research investigated the role of gender attitudes in the United States 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The results of three studies (combined N = 2,816) showed that, as expected, Trump voters were higher in hostile and benevolent sexism than were Clinton voters. Even after controlling for political ideology and gender (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and minority group attitudes (Study 3), greater hostile sexism predicted more positive attitudes toward Trump, less positive attitudes toward Clinton, and retrospective reports of having voted for Trump over Clinton (Studies 2 and 3). Benevolent sexism did not predict additional variation in voting behavior beyond political ideology and hostile sexism. These results suggest that political behavior is based on more than political ideology; even among those with otherwise progressive views, overtly antagonistic views of women could be a liability to women—and an asset to men—running for office.

Motivational underpinnings of support for radical political leaders

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Grzymala-Moszczynska ◽  
Katarzyna Jasko ◽  
Marta Maj ◽  
Marta Szastok ◽  
Arie W. Kruglanski
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Personal Significance ◽  
Political Candidate ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Willingness To Engage

In three studies conducted over the course of 2016 US presidential campaign we examined the relationship between radicalism of a political candidate and willingness to engage in actions for that candidate. Drawing on significance quest theory (Kruglanski et al., 2018), we predicted that people would be more willing to make large sacrifices for radical (vs. moderate) candidates because the cause of radical candidates would be more personally important and engagement on behalf it would be more psychologically rewarding. We tested these predictions among supporters of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders. Our findings were in line with these predictions, as the more followers perceived their candidates as radical, the more they viewed leaders’ ideas as personally important, gained more personal significance from those ideas, and intended to sacrifice more for the leader.

Making Americans Feel Great Again? Personal Significance Predicts Political Intentions of Losers and Winners of the 2016 US Election

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Jasko ◽  
Joanna Grzymala-Moszczynska ◽  
Marta Maj ◽  
Marta Szastok ◽  
Arie W. Kruglanski
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Transition ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Personal Significance ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Times

Reactions of losers and winners of political elections have important consequences for the political system during the times of power transition. In four studies conducted immediately before and after the 2016 US presidential elections we investigated how personal significance induced by success or failure of one’s candidate is related to hostile vs. benevolent intentions toward political adversaries. We found that the less significant supporters of Hillary Clinton and supporters of Donald Trump felt after an imagined (Study 1A) or actual (Study 2) electoral failure the more they were willing to engage in peaceful actions against the elected president and the less they were willing to accept the results of the elections. However, while significance gain due to an imagined or actual electoral success was related to more benevolent intentions among Clinton supporters (Study 1B), it was related to more hostile intentions among Trump supporters (Studies 1B, 2, and 3).

The Language of New Terrorism: Differences in Psychological Dimensions of Communication in Dabiq and Inspire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Vergani ◽  
Ana-Maria Bliuc
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
English Language ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Psychological Dimensions ◽  
New Terrorism

We investigate differences in the psychological aspects underpinning Western mobilisation of two terrorist groups by analysing their English-language propaganda. Based on a computerized analysis of the language used in two English-language online magazines circulated by ISIS and al-Qaeda (i.e., Dabiq and Inspire), we found significant differences in their language - the ISIS’ language being higher in authoritarianism and its level of religiousness. In a follow-up experimental study, we found that being high in religiousness and authoritarianism predicts more positive attitudes towards the language used by ISIS, but not towards the language used by al-Qaeda. The results suggest that ISIS’ propaganda may be more effective in mobilising individuals who are more authoritarian and more focused on religion than that of al-Qaeda. These findings are consistent with the behaviour observed in recent homegrown terrorist attacks in the USA and Europe.

Cost- und Monitoring-Projekt: Zwei neue forstliche Meinungsumfragen im Vergleich | The Cost- and Monitoring-Projects: A Comparison of Two New Forestry Opinion Polls

2000 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Wild-Eck ◽  
Willi Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Forest Policy ◽  
Forest Economics ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Federal Institute ◽  
Swiss Confederation ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Opinion Polls

Two large-scale surveys looking at attitudes towards forests, forestry and forest policy in the second half ofthe nineties have been carried out. This work was done on behalf of the Swiss Confederation by the Chair of Forest Policy and Forest Economics of the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Not only did the two studies use very different methods, but the results also varied greatly as far as infrastructure and basic conditions were concerned. One of the main differences between the two studies was the fact that the first dealt only with mountainous areas, whereas the second was carried out on the whole Swiss population. The results of the studies reflect these differences:each produced its own specific findings. Where the same (or similar) questions were asked, the answers highlight not only how the attitudes of those questioned differ, but also views that they hold in common. Both surveys showed positive attitudes towards forests in general, as well as a deep-seated appreciation ofthe forest as a recreational area, and a positive approach to tending. Detailed results of the two surveys will be available in the near future.

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