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The network-dominated era placed significant constraints on mass political information seeking, thereby reducing the potential for selective exposure. There is some concern, however, that the Internet fosters selectivity by allowing people to more easily filter out information they might disagree with. We suspect, however, that the flexibility of this information environment will facilitate selectivity under some circumstances but undermine it in others. In line with the seminal work in selective exposure presented by Sears and Freedman (1967), we predict that the web will be used to search for balanced political information when people are motivated to do so. This motivation comes from the interaction of two factors: individual differences and situational emotional triggers. In two separate experiments, we find that anxiety boosts balanced information seeking among those who are highly invested in politics (strong partisans) or those who perceive the information available to them to be useful. Non-partisans and those who do not perceive the information to be useful respond to anxiety by withdrawing from information they disagree with. These findings reaffirm Sears and Freedman's earlier insights, and demonstrate that the Internet is likely to have neither universally positive nor negative effects on political information seeking in contemporary society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of theoretical perspectives have been developed to account for perceptions of inter-group competition. In this paper, we seek to elaborate on, and test the empirical implications of, the group position theory of racial attitudes. Specifically, we examine the scope and determinants of perceptions of racial group competition utilizing the 2004-2005 National Politics Study (NPS), a broad national sample of Americans including Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Afro-Caribbeans. In addition to the group position model, we also test indicators of classical prejudice, group identity, and racial context. In general, we find that the group position perspective offers the most comprehensive explanation. In other respects, our findings diverge in important ways from other work in this literature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large and well-regarded literature in political science has established the important role that skills and resources play in explaining who participates and who does not in politics. However, understanding the motivation to act, to expend those resources in any given election has largely eluded scholars. Recent theoretical work in political psychology raises the possibility that emotions represent this missing piece in our theories of participation. To date, however, work on emotions has focused on how they condition the ways people think politically, and not as much on how they act politically. Here we make two fairly provocative claims, with implications for both the vast literature on participation and the more nascent literature on emotions in politics. First, we speculate that emotions generally provide the motivational spark by which resources are translated to political action. Second, drawing on theories of emotional appraisal developed in psychology, we predict that anger but not fear should provide this motivational impetus to utilize resources in order to participate in politics. Experimental evidence as well as data from the National Election Studies time series over the last 25 years provide strong evidence in support of our hypotheses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the impact of specific emotional states, such as anxiety, anger, and enthusiasm, on political interest, information seeking, and selective exposure. It was found that both anxiety and anger increased self-reported interest in the campaign, but all three emotions significantly reduced total time spent seeking out information online and also boosted selective exposure.

Abstract The Confederate battle emblem persists as a controversial issue in the South. The debate hinges on whether support for the flag is a result of racism or a sense of commitment to Southern heritage. We examine this question with an experimental design, embedded in a representative Internet survey, in the state of Georgia where, until recently, the state flag prominently featured the Rebel Cross. Specifically, we consider the effects of framing the debate in different ways---as a non-racial heritage issue, or as a racially infused conflict--- on support for Confederate symbols among White men and women. We hypothesize that support for the battle flag will decline among women when it is associated with racism. Men, on the other hand should be largely unaffected by such racial frames. Additionally, we examine the role that partisanship plays in support for the battle flag and the role of racial considerations in the partisan transformation of the South. We anticipate that Democratic women will be most likely to abandon support for the Confederate battle emblem when it is associated with racist hate groups. Further, framing this debate in terms of race should encourage White men, but not women, to abandon the Democratic Party. Lastly, we hypothesize that support for the battle flag is correlated with opposition to interracial marriage. Our results largely confirm each of these expectations. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that social ?compassion? issues, and not those directly linked to women’s interests, seem to drive the gender gap in presidential vote choice. Other evidence suggests that many of these compassion issues are associated with the plight of racial minorities in the media and in the minds of average citizens. Drawing on theories of the socialization of gender roles, we predict that traditional partisan appeals to address racial inequities may help to explain the gender gap. Specifically, we hypothesize that the gap emerges because women disproportionately utilize cues about candidates? compassion towards vulnerable social groups in making political decisions. In one experiment, we manipulate news information regarding George W. Bush’s commitment to blacks versus women. We find, as expected, that the gender gap is maximized when Bush takes the traditional Republican stance on race. The gap is significantly reduced when Bush espouses a more moderate position on race. Furthermore, the gender gap is unaffected when Bush takes conservative positions on women’s issues. In a second experiment, we find that the gender gap is produced only when traditional partisan appeals are implicitly racialized. Finally we show that exposure to the 2000 Republican National Convention, which emphasized racial tolerance, increased positive evaluations of Bush among women but not men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the distinct impact of anger and anxiety on electoral participation. In particular we are interested in the possibility that negative emotions will have different effects in different contexts. Anger at the opposing candidate might not hav ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]