Not what’s been said, but who said it.: The Influence of Political Extremism and Source Congruency on Curiosity and Confusion

Within the western democratic political system, political extremism is always present. This extremism is often triggered by emotions of fear and uncertainty. This study examines the connections of the epistemic emotions curiosity and confusion, emotions derived from uncertainty, and political extremism, as well as source congruency (the alignment of article source with participants' political beliefs). By surveying 264 Dutch participants who voted in the last election, the research examined how matching article sources with participants' political beliefs influences their curiosity and confusion in contrary to mismatched sources. The hypothesis was that political extremists would show more curiosity and less confusion if an article had a congruent source. However, this study could not support that hypothesis. There has not been a significant interaction found between the chosen epistemic emotions and political extremism or source congruency. Nonetheless, other exploratory analyses...Show moreWithin the western democratic political system, political extremism is always present. This extremism is often triggered by emotions of fear and uncertainty. This study examines the connections of the epistemic emotions curiosity and confusion, emotions derived from uncertainty, and political extremism, as well as source congruency (the alignment of article source with participants' political beliefs). By surveying 264 Dutch participants who voted in the last election, the research examined how matching article sources with participants' political beliefs influences their curiosity and confusion in contrary to mismatched sources. The hypothesis was that political extremists would show more curiosity and less confusion if an article had a congruent source. However, this study could not support that hypothesis. There has not been a significant interaction found between the chosen epistemic emotions and political extremism or source congruency. Nonetheless, other exploratory analyses showed a significant relation between related emotions and source congruency, like trustworthiness, perceived factuality and surprise. Extremists viewed incongruent sources as less trustworthy and factual and they were more surprised. These results suggest that while curiosity and confusion may not differ much between extremists and moderates, their perception of credibility and their reactions to source congruency do vary. This highlights the complex role of emotions in processing political information. More research is needed to understand these dynamics and the influence of how survey questions are worded on the findings.Show less

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Not what’s been said, but who said it. The Influence of Political Extremism and Source Congruency on Curiosity and Confusion