Essays on the effect of emotions on the political decision and judgment

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2586136_(Table of contents)

This thesis is a combination of three studies on the relationship between emotions and political judgment and behavior. The overarching theme of the dissertation is the plurality in the emotional experience. In this regard, each substantive chapter will contemplate either the interaction of emotions with each other or emotions towards different objects/subjects in shaping political decisions and judgment. For this purpose, the first chapter analyzes the impact of interactions between different emotions on people’s perception on the frequency of facing fake news. The case of the chapter is the renewal of the İstanbul metropolitan municipality elections of Turkey in 2019. By using survey data, the scholarly attention is diverted to the arousal of anxiety, anger, and hope in response to the High Electoral Court of Turkey’s decision to renew the elections. The second chapter offers an experimental study assessing the effect of eliciting multiple emotions on the credibility of a frame. This chapter focuses on the impact of eliciting anger and compassion simultaneously on the credibility of the frame by using the issue of Syrian refugees in Turkey. The last chapter scrutinizes in what ways people’s emotions towards the parties alter their probability of strategic voting in the U.K’s context The results from these chapters provide varieties of evidence for plurality in emotional experience and its effects on different political decisions and judgments.