The Motivation to Experience (seemingly) Ideology-Congruent Emotions

Can people be motivated to experience an emotion solely due to the belief that this emotion reinforces their ideology? This study investigated whether people would be motivated to experience ideology-congruent and -incongruent emotions, if they believed these would reinforce their (left or right) ideology. A repeated-measures design showed that across ideologies, people were more motivated to experience fear when they believed it was ideology-reinforcing than when they had no such belief. Contrary to the hypothesis, for hope, the data suggested motivation to be high regardless of people’s beliefs about its usefulness for their ideology. This study also investigated potential differences between leftists and rightists in their motivation to experience ideology congruent and incongruent emotions. Whilst the data suggested rightists to be generally more motivated to experience both hope and fear, these results had to be disregarded, due to a great gender and age difference between the...Show moreCan people be motivated to experience an emotion solely due to the belief that this emotion reinforces their ideology? This study investigated whether people would be motivated to experience ideology-congruent and -incongruent emotions, if they believed these would reinforce their (left or right) ideology. A repeated-measures design showed that across ideologies, people were more motivated to experience fear when they believed it was ideology-reinforcing than when they had no such belief. Contrary to the hypothesis, for hope, the data suggested motivation to be high regardless of people’s beliefs about its usefulness for their ideology. This study also investigated potential differences between leftists and rightists in their motivation to experience ideology congruent and incongruent emotions. Whilst the data suggested rightists to be generally more motivated to experience both hope and fear, these results had to be disregarded, due to a great gender and age difference between the samples of the leftist and rightist supporters, which influenced the results. The significance and implications of the current findings are discussed.Show less

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The Motivation to Experience (seemingly) Ideology-Congruent Emotions