The Impact of Emotional Responses to Public Service Announcements: The Case of Gun Violence in Schools

Kim Fridkin, Patrick Kenney, Manuel Gutiérrez, Ryan Deutsch

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

We examine how people’s emotional reactions to gun violence public service announcements (PSAs) influence information acquisition, policy preferences, and political engagement. Utilizing a non-student sample of more than 100 participants, we look people’s emotional reactions (i.e., anger, sadness, contempt, and fear) to two Sandy Hook Promise PSAs. We assess people’s emotional reactions by relying on two complimentary measures: the traditional self-report measures as well as facial expression analysis. We demonstrate that when people are feeling sad after watching the Sandy Hook Promise PSAs, they are significantly more likely to retain information from a news article about school violence. Furthermore, feelings of contempt and fear lead people to seek out additional information about gun violence. In addition, we find when people feel anger, contempt, and fear after watching the PSAs, they change their views of gun policies. Finally, fear and contempt increase people’s likelihood of becoming politically mobilized.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)347-358
Number of pages12
JournalAmerican Politics Research
Volume49
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2021

Keywords

  • emotions
  • gun policy
  • gun violence
  • political engagement

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Impact of Emotional Responses to Public Service Announcements: The Case of Gun Violence in Schools'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this