Role of emotions; values, life-styles; motivations, needs.

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Ing. Jiří Šnajdar 2014

Emotions

It is well-established today that the psychological barrier is one of the most prominent factors operating against efforts to promote peace.

However, most studies along these lines have concentrated on the cognitive barriers and neglected the emotional ones.

Hence, the main goal is to create a deeper understanding of how emotions (e.g., fear, anger, and hatred) directed toward an adversary serve as a barrier to potential public support for peaceful resolution of a conflict.

Emotions

The role of emotion in public opinion, first discussing how emotion has been understood and theorized by various scholars.

Next, it views the present research on the consequences of emotion for political behaviour and public opinion.

The study of public opinion and emotion is a new but fast-growing field, one which promises to make huge contributions to the understanding of politics.

Emotions

We can measure the emotional content of online discussions in three dimensions (valence, arousal and dominance), paying special attention to deviation around average values, which we use as a proxy for disagreement and polarisation.

We can also show that this measurement provides a deeper understanding of the individual mechanisms that drive aggregated shifts in public opinion.

Emotions

When individuals form opinions about social welfare, a primary concern is whether welfare recipients deserve the benefits they receive.

In deciding whether recipients deserve welfare, individuals pay attention principally to the recipients’ efforts in alleviating their own need.

Emotions

If welfare recipients are seen as able to work, but preferring not to (i.e., they are “lazy”), they are perceived as undeserving and welfare is opposed.

In contrast, if welfare recipients are seen as unlucky victims of external circumstances, they are perceived as deserving and welfare is supported.

While strong evidence has been produced that establishes an empirical link between welfare opinions and judgments of recipients’ effort, extant research lacks empirically well-supported explanations for why and how these judgments so strongly color welfare opinions (cf. Oorschot, 2006;

Petersen, 2012).

Emotions

Here we can explore the implications of

(1) the hypothesis that the social emotions of anger and compassion were designed by natural selection, in part, to regulate whether and to what extent we want to help a needy person, and

(2) the hypothesis that these emotion programs are embedded in a system of cognitive mechanisms that collectively implement a logic of social exchange that evolved to advantageously manage mutual assistance among our ancestors in small-scale foraging groups.

Emotions

From this theoretical framework, we argue that the pervasive effect of perceptions of welfare recipients’ effort regarding work on support for welfare arises because these perceptions fit the input systems (i.e., resemble the triggers) that the two social emotion programs, anger and compassion, are designed to monitor and respond to.

Values

Values are widely-admired social ideals such as equality, freedom, and humanitarianism. Few people actively disapprove of these notions, but individuals vary in how highly they prioritize them.

Values serve as abstract standards or criteria that are used to evaluate specific objects, individuals, and policies in the political world.

A person who strongly values individualism, for example, might very well disapprove of social welfare programs because he or she believes they undermine the work ethic.

Values

Conversely, a citizen who values humanitarianism would likely approve of the same policies, because he or she sees them as a way of providing for the needy and underprivileged (Feldman and Steenbergen 2001).

A study by Shen and Edwards (2005) exemplifies the paradigm. In their experiment, welfare reform was characterized as a conflict between humanitarian and individualist values. One frame emphasized the importance of humanitarianism by stressing the human costs of welfare cuts, while the later emphasized individualism by stressing how unlimited welfare payments undermine the work ethic.

Values

In a political struggle, where interest groups compete for public support, groups tailor their message for maximum appeal among their natural allies.

“Allies” can be defined in various ways – by party, religious orientation, occupation, race, and so on. Value orientations can also define allies, as values represent stable aspects of an individual’s political identity.

The persuader therefore will try to tailor messages so as to appeal to natural allies as defined by value-based political identities. (Goren, Federico, and Kittilson 2009; Nelson and Garst 2005).

Values

The ambiguity and abstractness of values suggest that, when political interests compete over ownership of the same consensus value, they must spend a good deal of effort framing the value as well as the issue.

The issue and the prospective value must be brought into conformity with each other, so that the applicability of the value and its importance will be self-evident.

Values

The political landscape is replete with issues in which the competing sides battle over the right to claim ownership of the same consensus value.

Both supporters and opponents of affirmative action and gay rights, for example, will frame their positions as expressions of equality (Brewer 2003).

The United States periodically becomes embroiled in controversy over whether the burning of the American flag should be made illegal. Both supporters and opponents of these flag burning prohibitions cloak themselves in the mantle of patriotic pride.

Values

The leaders in Western Europe and United States, as their countries have witnessed rising levels of immigration from culturally dissimilar regions to their south (North Africa in the case of Europe; Mexico and Central America in the case of the US).

Naturally, many of the same values are engaged by this controversy, including free expression, humanitarianism, and social order.

The rise of strident anti-immigrant speech, however, has inspired reflection on the meaning and depth of a nation's commitment to democratic values in an increasingly interconnected world.

Values

In summary, past investigations of value have focused on situations of value conflict, in which one frame references one of the competing values, and the opposing frame references the other.

Framing- formulate effects in such situations are typically moderated by the participants’ long-term general value priorities.

life-styles

The Pew Research Center’s report on political polarization in America found that the right and left have very different ideas about aspects of life beyond day-to day politics, such as the ideal features of a community and the types of people they would welcome into their families.

The typology study also demonstrates wide ideological differences in feelings of patriotism, views about the country’s future, religious beliefs and practices, and even leisure activities and daily habits. The typology groups also vary widely by demographics.

life-styles

Feelings of pride in being American – and a belief that honor and duty are core values – are much more widespread among the two conservative groups than the other typology groups.

There are greater differences in people’s perception of whether they are religious and spiritual.

Overall, 46% say they are “religious,” while slightly more (52%) say they are “spiritual.”

life-styles

The highly religious typology groups – Steadfast - strong Conservatives, Business Conservatives and the Faith and Family Left – are most likely to say both of these descriptions apply to them.

In general, there is little difference between the percentage of people who see themselves as religious and those who say they are spiritual.

life-styles

Most Americans (59%) say they are generally upbeat and optimistic, but this is not a majority view across all typology groups.

Only about half of the Hard-Pressed Skeptics (48%) and the Faith and Family Left (50%) – who have the lowest family incomes of the typology groups – say the phrase “upbeat and optimistic” describes them well.

life-styles

The financial challenges facing the Hard-Pressed Skeptics, who have the lowest family incomes of the main typology groups, are shown by the large majority (67%) who say: “I often don’t have enough money to make ends meet.”

That is by far the highest percentage of any typology group; even among the young struggling Bystanders, fewer (56%) say they routinely face financial shortfalls.

life-styles

Notably, typology groups on both the right and left feel relatively comfortable financially.

Nearly eight-in-ten Business Conservatives (77%) and 64% of Steadfast Conservatives, as well as large majorities of the Next Generation Left (70%) and Solid Liberals (69%), say “paying the bills is generally not a problem for me.

Leisure Activities

A majority of Americans (57%) say the phrase “outdoor person” describes them well, and this is true across six of the seven major typology groups;

Solid Liberals (44%) are less likely than the other groups to say this description fits them well. And just 12% of Solid Liberals say the phrase “hunter, fisher or sportsman” describes them well. That also is the lowest percentage among typology groups. On the other hand, while 53% of Solid Liberals say they are focused on health and fitness, only about a third of Steadfast Conservatives (34%) are focused on health and fitness.

Leisure Activities

Interest in sports and video games also differs across typology groups. Business Conservatives (44%) and Young Outsiders (41%) are more likely than Hard-Pressed Skeptics (30%) or Solid Liberals (32%) to say they are sports fans.

And Steadfast Conservatives – the oldest of the typology groups – are less likely than those in almost all of the other groups to say the phrase “computer and video gamer” describes them .

Leisure Activities

Use of Public Transportation; Recycling and Reusing.

Most Americans (78%) say that in a typical month, they never use public transportation; 11% say they use it at least once a week, while 10% say they use it once or twice a month.

Public transportation use is higher on the left than right.

Leisure Activities

Use of Public Transportation; Recycling and Reusing.

Nearly half of Americans (49%) say the phrase “recycle and reuse as a daily habit” describes them well; about as many (51%) say this does not describe them. Solid Liberals are the most likely to describe recycling and reuse as part of their daily habits, seven-in-ten (70%) do this, along with 58% of the Next Generation Left.

Leisure Activities

Use of Public Transportation; Recycling and Reusing.

Recycling is practiced less across most of the other typology groups. Only about four-in-ten Steadfast Conservatives (39%), Hard-Pressed Skeptics (39%) and the Faith and Family Left (42%) say they “recycle and reuse as a daily habit.”

motivations

Democracy provides people with the opportunity to be active citizens rather than passive subjects. However, the promise of participation comes with a number of challenges.

Citizens must evaluate a large number of political objects (such as candidates, parties, and platforms) and then aggregate these preferences in a way which allows them to be mapped onto a simple vote decision.

So, how are these challenges met?

Motivations

Political psychologists have often emphasized the role of ideology in the form of the bipolar distinction between "left" and "right" (Jost, 2006).

The successful learning and "use" of this ideological continuum allows individuals to adopt ideologically consistent positions toward different political objects and it contributes to the crystallization of opinions about particular political objects.

Motivations

Ideology is thought to do these things by bundling a large number of potential evaluative criteria together under the rubric of a single left-right dimension.

Once an individual understands the logic of this dimension and locates herself somewhere on it, the otherwise-overwhelming task of evaluating the multitude of objects encountered in the political world and mapping the resulting attitudes onto simple political choices is eased (Sniderman & Bullock, 2004).

Motivations

The research suggests that most individuals are not able to use ideology when forming and organizing their opinions.

This raises the question of what citizens need in order to make effective use of ideology. Information in the form of political expertise, or factual political knowledge, is the answer most frequently given (e.g.,

Converse, 2000).

In contrast, almost no attention has been devoted to the role of motivation - that is, needs, goals, and wants - in the use of ideology.

Motivations

Ideological Thinking in Mass Publics-and the Role of Expertise

One of the most significant and controversial conclusions of modern public opinion research is that a large portion of the public does not anchor its attitudes toward various political objects in terms of abstract ideological concepts.

In that case, what factors make it easier for individuals to "use" ideology in order to form and organize opinions?

Motivations

Ideological Thinking in Mass Publics-and the Role of Expertise

Work in this area suggests that experts are more likely to display constrained attitudes because they possess more well-developed political schemas, or organized clusters of information about politics in general and about the values, beliefs, and issue stances associated with a given position on the left-right continuum. (Fiske, Lau, & Smith, 1990).

Motivations

Ideological Thinking in Mass Publics-and the Role of Expertise

In turn, this knowledge provides citizens with a basis for adopting an informed ideological orientation based on a real comprehension of the content of different ideological positions (e.g., Stimson, 2004).

The resulting orientation can then be used to make evaluative judgments about a broader set of political objects.

Motivations

Motivational Influences on the Use of Ideology: Evaluation as a Goal

Given the wide range of evidence for the role of expertise, scholarship tends to depict the successful use of ideology as an informational problem: individuals will develop a substantively meaningful ideological orientation and ideologically organize their attitudes toward specific political objects if they have acquired enough information about the conceptual content of the left-right continuum.

Motivations

Motivational Influences on the Use of Ideology: Evaluation as a Goal

But what is the actual "motivational factor" behind the use of ideology? The critical process relates to the need to use expertise for evaluative purposes. In this vein, the use of ideology actually consists of two different processes: a first process in which expertise provides individuals an understanding of the left-right continuum, enabling them to meaningfully identify themselves with an ideological position; and a second process in which the resulting ideological predispositions are used for a specifically evaluative purpose, i.e., to judge various political objects as

"good" or "bad„.

Motivations

Motivational Influences on the Use of Ideology: Evaluation as a Goal

The actual application of ideology may depend not just on expertise but also on citizens being motivated to evaluate political objects as good or bad.

This suggests that it may be more appropriate to model the use of ideology as resulting from an interaction between expertise and the motivation to use predispositions rooted in expertise in an evaluative fashion.

needs

A need is something that is necessary for organisms to live a healthy life.

Needs are distinguished from wants because a deficiency would cause a clear negative outcome, such as disfunction or death.

Needs can be objective and physical, such as food, or they can be subjective and psychological, such as the need for self-esteem. On a social level, needs are sometimes controversial. Understanding needs and wants is an issue in the fields of politics, social science, and philosophy.

needs

To most psychologists, need is a psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a goal, giving purpose and direction to behavior.

The most widely known academic model of needs was proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow.

In his theory, he proposed that people have a hierarchy of psychological needs, which range from security to self-actualization.

Needs

One of the problems with a psychological theory of needs is that conceptions of "need" may vary radically between different cultures or different parts of the same society. One person's view of need may easily be seen as paternalistic by another.

Needs

How are such needs satisfied? Doyal and Gough point to eleven broad categories of "intermediate needs" that define how the need for physical health and personal autonomy are fulfilled:

1.Adequate nutritional food and water; 2.Adequate protective housing ; 3.A safe environment for working; 4.A supply of clothing; 5.A safe physical environment; 6. Appropriate health care; 7. Security in childhood; 8. Significant primary relationships with others; 9. Physical security; 10. Economic security; 11. Safe birth control and child-bearing; 12. Appropriate basic and cross-cultural education.

Needs

How are the details of needs satisfaction determined?

The authors point to rational identification of needs using the most up-to-date scientific knowledge; the use of the actual experience of individuals in their everyday lives; and democratic decision-making.

The satisfaction of human needs cannot be imposed "from above".

Needs

Professor György Márkus systematized Marx's ideas about needs as follows: humans are different from other animals because their vital activity, work, is mediated to the satisfaction of needs (an animal who manufactures tools to produce other tools or his/her satisfactors), which makes a human being a universal natural being capable to turn the whole nature into the subject of his/her needs and his/her activity, and develops his/her needs and abilities (essential human forces) and develops himself/herself, a historical-universal being.

Needs

Human beings are also free entities able to accomplish, during their lifetime, the objective possibilities generated by social evolution, on the basis of their conscious decisions.

Freedom should be understood both in a negative (freedom to decide and to establish relationships) and a positive sense (dominion over natural forces and development of human creativity, of the essential human forces.

Needs

The essential interrelated traits of human beings are:

a) work is their vital activity; b) human beings are conscious beings; c) human beings are social beings; d) human beings tend to universality, which manifests in the three previous traits and make human beings natural-historical-universal, social-universal and universal conscious entities, and e) human beings are free.

Needs

Rosenberg's model supports people developing awareness of feelings as indicators, of what needs are alive within them and others, moment by moment; to forefront needs, to make it more likely and possible for two or more people, to arrive at mutually agreed upon strategies to meet the needs of all parties.

Rosenberg diagrams this sequence in part like this: Feelings > Needs > Requests where identifying needs is most significant to the process.

Needs

People also talk about the needs of a community or organization. Such needs might include demand for a particular type of business, for a certain government program or entity, or for individuals with particular skills.