The effect of attitudes on emotional reactions to expressive displays of political leaders

One hundred subjects participated in an experiment to assess emotional reactions to the expressive displays of political leaders. Attitudes were assessed through questionnaire items, and facial EMG, heart rate, and skin conductance were recorded while subjects watched silent expressive displays of intense happiness/reassurance, mild happiness/reassurance, and anger/threat by President Reagan and Senator Hart. Half of the subjects reported their global affective reaction during each display, and all subjects reported discrete emotional reactions following each display. For Reagan, main effects were found for display type and for prior attitude in the self-report scales and in facial EMG, although significant Prior Attitude X Display interactions indicated that the intense happiness/reassurance displays most strongly differentiated supporters from opponents. Main effects were found for Hart's displays on the self-report scales and on facial EMG, and post hoc analyses revealed attitude effects. These results support previous research concerning affective reactions to dynamic expressive displays of emotion, but they also show the possible influence of prior attitude toward the expressor on both somatic and subjective measures of emotional response.This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant SES 83-10176 and the Lincoln Filene Endowment to Dartmouth College and was part of a collaborative project involving Professors Roger D. Masters and Denis G. Sullivan of the Government Department at Dartmouth College. The authors thank Alice Feola for her assistance in preparing the stimulus videotapes. Lauren Bush is now at the Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. John Lanzetta, our friend and colleague, who contributed so much to this project, died in October 1989 after a year-long illness.