Feeling Different: Racial Group-Based Emotional Response to Political Events

Abstract

The racial divide in American politics is a large and enduring one. To be sure, attitudes about race can determine which policies, parties, and candidates get supported by American voters. Why do these racial divisions persist? Previous research on the racial divide has identified material interests, sympathy and resentment toward social groups, political principles and audience as sources of the racial divide (Kinder and Sanders 1996; Kinder and Winter 2001). But how do these factors get actualized? What are the causal mechanisms that link things like social group and self-interests to political evaluations? We attempt to address these questions in the current project by illustrating how emotions moderate the connection between race and politics.