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Parsimony and Complexity

Developing and Testing Theories of Affective Intelligence

Bibliographic Data

ID6337751
AuthorsGeorge E Marcus (Williams College), Michael Mackuen (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), W Russell Neuman (0000-0002-4629-9509, University of Michigan)
Year2011
Volume32
Issue2
Pages323-336
Publication date2011-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-895X • E-ISSN: 1467-9221
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00806.x
OpenAlexW2111977271
LanguageEN
Citations received82
References cited24

The theory of affective intelligence posits that an individual's emotions help govern a reliance on political habits or, alternatively, deliberation and attention to new political information. Some of the evidence adduced draws on the fact that voters who are anxious about their own party's candidate do not rely blindly on their partisanship but instead consider policy and personality when they vote. In a provocative paper, Ladd and Lenz (2008) argue that emotions reflect an evaluative judgment, akin to likes and dislikes, that has little to say about attention and habit. Here we examine the ANES data from 1980 to 2004 and find that the affective intelligence theory's original findings remain statistically robust. On closer examination, we also learn that Ladd and Lenz reformulated the theoretical test by using a different operationalization of affect and a different dependent variable and found results at variance from ours. We find it an inappropriate test. In the end, we agree with Ladd and Lenz that cross-sectional data cannot crisply test the short-term impact of emotions on attention and habit and concur that ultimately experiments will move the debate forward. We further observe that Brader's (2005, 2006) powerful field experiments explicitly test the special effect of emotions on attention and judgment and support the affective intelligence model

Affect (linguistics · Cognitive psychology · Deliberation · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Habit · Operationalization · Personality · Political science · Politics · Test (biology · Variance (accounting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Media Influence and Politics · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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Unique citing works82
Citations per year5,47
Citation span2011 - 2026 (16)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 82
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