Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Emotions, Partisanship, and Misperceptions:
How Anger and Anxiety Moderate the Effectof Partisan Bias on Susceptibility to Political
Misinformation
Brian E. Weeks
Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

Citizens are frequently misinformed about political issues and candidates but the circumstances under which inaccurate beliefs emerge are not fully understood. This experimental
study demonstrates that the independent experience of two emotions, anger and anxiety,in part determines whether citizens consider misinformation in a partisan or open-mindedfashion. Anger encourages partisan, motivated evaluation of uncorrected misinformationthat results in beliefs consistent with the supported political party, while anxiety at times
promotes initial beliefs based less on partisanship and more on the information environment. However, exposure to corrections improves belief accuracy, regardless of emotion
or partisanship. The results indicate that the unique experience of anger and anxiety canaffect the accuracy of political beliefs by strengthening or attenuating the influence ofpartisanship.
Keywords: Misinformation, Misperceptions, Emotion, Fact-checking, Corrections,
Motivated Reasoning, Anger, Anxiety.
doi:10.1111/jcom.12164

Politics are not devoid of emotion. Rather, emotions are a core component of citizenship that shape how people see their political world (Marcus, 2002). Emotions have apowerful influence on political attitudes and behaviors (Brader, 2005; Marcus, MacKuen, & Neuman, 2011; Nabi, 2003), but might they also affect what citizens perceive
to be political reality?
Political misperceptions, which are characterized as personal beliefs about politics that are inaccurate based on the best available evidence (Kuklinski, Quirk, Jerit,
Schwieder, & Rich, 2000), are prevalent in American politics and held about a rangeof political issues and candidates (Jerit & Barabas, 2012; Weeks & Garrett, 2014). The
prevailing understanding for why misperceptions emerge is based on the theory of
Corresponding author: Brian E. Weeks; e-mail: beweeks@gmail.com
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

699

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

partisan motivated reasoning and suggests that political information consistent withan individual’s ideology or partisanship is more likely to be believed, regardless of
its veracity (e.g., Garrett & Weeks, 2013; Nyhan & Reifler, 2010). Certainly, partisanship matters for political beliefs and misperceptions often fall along party lines, as
Democrats and Republicans vary in their accuracy regarding the facts about politics(Gaines, Kuklinski, Quirk, Peyton, & Verkuilen, 2007). However, this partisan-based
explanation for political misperceptions may be incomplete, as research has not fully
identified the conditions under which politically biased evaluations of misinformation occur.
This study contributes to our understanding of political misperceptions by arguing that citizens’ emotional experiences can enhance or lessen partisanship’s influence
on inaccurate beliefs. The focus here is on the effects of two negative emotions: anxiety and anger. Although the literature is beginning to recognize the influence of these
emotions on motivated reasoning, the differential effects of anger and anxiety in thisprocess are not fully understood, nor have they been explored in the context of misperceptions. Prior research has focused primarily on the influence of anxiety, showingthat the experience of this emotion can attenuate the effect of existing attitudes onpolitical evaluations (MacKuen, Wolak, Keele & Marcus, 2010; Marcus et al., 2011;
Redlawsk, Civettini, & Emmerson, 2010). Less attention has been paid to the effects
of anger on motivated reasoning, though MacKuen et al. (2010) found that angry individuals were less likely to seek out attitude-challenging information and less willingto compromise politically. While prior work suggests anxiety and anger may uniquely
affect partisan processing, it has neither isolated the causal influence of each emotion, nor has it fully assessed whether these emotions’ influence extends to explicitly
partisan motivations or to the accuracy of political beliefs.
To address these theoretical gaps, this experimental study manipulates emotional
states, partisan cues, and the information environment (presence of a corrective message or not) to better understand how political misperceptions are formed. The results
demonstrate that participants at times respond to uncorrected misinformation in different ways when angry or anxious, resulting in divergent beliefs about a series of
inaccurate political claims. When false claims go uncorrected, anger exacerbates theinfluence of partisanship and makes participants more susceptible to party-consistentmisinformation—claims they are predisposed to believe because of their politicalaffiliation. Conversely, anxiety lessens the influence of partisanship when considering
uncorrected misinformation and increases the likelihood that a claim disseminatedfrom the opposed political party is believed. This study provides a more complete
theoretical explanation for how political misperceptions are initially established, as
well as a causal account of how anger and anxiety uniquely affect partisan processingof political news and information.
Partisanship and political misperceptions

The formation and persistence of political misperceptions are often attributed to apolitically motivated need for consistency (e.g., Meirick, 2013; Nyhan & Reifler, 2010;
700

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

Weeks & Garrett, 2014; though, cf. Garrett, Nisbet, & Lynch, 2013). The theory of
motivated reasoning suggests individuals at times evaluate information in a biased
manner in order to remain consistent with prior attitudes or beliefs (Kunda, 1990). In
the case of politics, this means citizens are often motivated to consider new information through a partisan or ideological lens (Taber & Lodge, 2006). Partisan motivatedreasoning is presumed to be driven by affective-based goals that lead citizens to evaluate attitude-consistent information as strong, convincing, and valid, while inconsistent information is considered weak and unconvincing (Taber & Lodge, 2006). In
the context of misperceptions, the theory suggests that political claims consistent with
one’s partisanship or ideology are more likely to be accepted, regardless of their veracity. In contrast, claims are more likely to be rejected if they challenge existing partisan
attitudes. Empirical evidence supports this contention, as misinformation regarding
political candidates or issues is typically more likely to be believed when it is consistent with party identification or ideology (Jerit & Barabas, 2012; Nyhan & Reifler,
2010; Weeks & Garrett, 2014).
However, citizens do not always interpret political information in a way thatis biased toward their partisan leanings but instead at times consider information in a more even-handed manner (Bullock, 2009; Druckman, 2012; MacKuen
et al., 2010). This willingness to set aside partisanship is evident with misinformation too, as citizens occasionally believe false, attitude-discrepant claims andreject attitude-consistent ones. For example, a poll conducted in 2012 found nearly
one-third of Democrats incorrectly believed or did not know if Iraq possessed
weapons of mass destruction prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003, a misperception that
seems to contradict Democrats’ opposition to the war at that time (Valentino, 2012).
Surveys fielded during the 2012 presidential election show between approximately
10 and 20% of Democrats believed or were unsure whether Barack Obama was bornin the United States, while between 30 and 50% of Republicans dismissed this claim
as false (Cassino, 2013; Gallup, 2011).1 So although citizens are more likely to holdattitude-consistent misperceptions, partisan motivated reasoning appears to have
limits. The influence of party identification might be conditional but scholars havenot fully identified when partisanship affects false beliefs. The following sections
argue that anxiety and anger moderate partisanship’s influence when citizens consider
the veracity of misinformation.
Anxiety and anger

Despite sharing a negative valence, the emotions anxiety and anger exhibit several
distinct qualities that should lead to different responses to misinformation. Emotions are “internal, mental states representing evaluative, valenced reactions to events,
agents, or objects that vary in intensity … [t]hey are generally short-lived, intense,and directed at some external stimuli” (Nabi, 1999, p. 295). Emotions play a key rolein how people interact with stimuli they encounter in their environment and different emotions are distinguished by unique goals and motivations, cognitive appraisals,
and action tendencies (Frijda, 1986; Lazarus, 1991; Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994).
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

701

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

Anxiety is an aversive and motivational state that occurs in response to threatening
stimuli in one’s environment (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007; Marcus,
Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000). Anxiety is associated with uncertainty, a lack of personal control, and high levels of physiological arousal, all of which lead people todevelop strategies to reduce such feelings (Eysenck et al., 2007). Anger is a negatively
valenced emotion that is triggered when an individual’s goals are blocked, when one
feels slighted, or when a perceived injustice or violation of standards has occurred(Carver & Harmon-Jones, 2009). Anger is associated with perceptions of certainty
and individual control (Lerner & Keltner, 2001) and results in behaviors that seek
restitution, often by causing harm to or punishing others (Carver & Harmon-Jones,
2009; Frijda, 1986).
Although anger and anxiety often co-occur and are not mutually exclusive,
evidence demonstrates these emotions can result in divergent political outcomes(Huddy, Feldman, & Cassese, 2007; Lerner & Keltner, 2001). Anxiety increases
political information seeking, learning, and deliberation, whereas anger depresses
each and promotes close-mindedness (MacKuen et al., 2010; Redlawsk et al., 2010;
Valentino, Hutchings, Banks, & Davis, 2008). Anger and anxiety are also associatedwith differences in support for various political policies. Anxiety (or fear) can increase
support for conciliatory and precautionary policies whereas anger (or known threat)
boosts punitive policy support (Goodall, Slater, & Myers, 2013; Nabi, 2003). These
unique outcomes of anger and anxiety make it clear that conceptualizations ofemotions need to move beyond positive or negative valence (Nabi, 2010).
Emotion and partisan bias

Politically motivated reasoning is thought to be “driven by automatic affective
processes that establish the direction and strength of biases” (Taber & Lodge, 2006,
p. 756) but the observed differences between anxiety and anger suggest not all affective
responses, even those of the same valence, work in the same way. Evidence suggests
the experience of anxiety can diminish the effects of motivated reasoning as people
form political evaluations. According to the theory of Affective Intelligence, novel anduncertain political situations may trigger feelings of anxiety (Marcus et al., 2000). Thisanxiety motivates people to take action against that impending threat by more carefully considering each of the various alternatives at their disposal, even informationthat challenges existing attitudes. Because they pay closer attention to the information
at hand and are more likely to weigh opposing viewpoints, the subsequent evaluations
made by anxious individuals are less likely to be based on prior attitudes, partisanship, or ideology and are more heavily influenced by contemporary information(Brader, 2005; MacKuen et al., 2010; Marcus et al., 2000). For example, voters who
were anxious about their preferred party’s candidate were more likely to reconsider
their vote choice and pay closer attention to the candidates’ policy positions andpersonality characteristics, which at times resulted in an intention to vote against
their party’s candidate (Marcus et al., 2011). Redlawsk et al. (2010) directly tested the
hypothesis that anxiety is associated with a reduction in attitudinal bias by exposing
702

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

participants to large amounts of politically incongruent information. They find evidence of an “affective tipping point” in which encountering a high volume of negative
information about a preferred political candidate was associated with increases inanxiety, which was subsequently related to more negative evaluations of the initiallyliked candidate. This evidence suggests that anxiety may attenuate partisan bias.
Conversely, anger may enhance the motivated reasoning process. Anger arises in
response to aversive stimuli in the environment and in order to deal with this anger,
people may become defensive, dismiss attitude-challenging information, seek information that supports their position, or rely more heavily on prior dispositions in theirevaluations (MacKuen et al., 2010; Marcus et al., 2011). Angry individuals are also lesslikely to consider and learn from new information (Valentino et al., 2008).
Taken together, this prior work suggests that anxiety and anger should differentially interact with partisanship to affect beliefs, but many important questions
remain. The current study builds on work by Redlawsk et al. (2010) and MacKuen
et al. (2010) in several important ways. First, evidence of a causal effect of anger andanxiety on motivated reasoning has been elusive.2 Neither study directly manipulated
these emotions, which prohibits clear tests about the differential effects of anxiety
and anger in the motivated reasoning process (and Redlawsk et al. only examinedanxiety). Second, emotions in these studies were generated by exposing participants
to various amounts of information that either challenged or was consistent with theirpreferences. What is still unclear theoretically is whether general anxiety or anger
about a political issue, independent of the type or volume of information exposure,can affect partisan processing. Third, the two studies did not test whether the effects
of anxiety and anger extend to explicitly partisan motivations. The Redlawsk et al.
study was limited to a primary election context and did not test for the effects ofpartisanship. Similarly, MacKuen et al. examined the effects of emotions on politicalbias in the context of a political policy and did not examine the role of partisan affiliation. The omission of partisanship in these studies is important in light of criticismsthat emotions are often rationalizations of partisan preferences (Ladd & Lenz, 2008).
Yet, research has frequently shown that the effects of emotions on political behavior
are exogenous to or interactive with partisanship (see Brader, 2011) and the current
study is designed to further test this possibility. Finally, while existing studies focus on
how emotions may moderate the effect of political bias on information seeking andevaluations of political issues and candidates, the present study examines whether
these emotions affect assessments of political facts, which may help explain someuncertainties regarding when partisan bias influences belief accuracy.
Anxiety, anger, and political misperceptions

People should respond to political misinformation quite differently when experiencing anxiety or anger. Anxiety should increase the likelihood that individuals
carefully consider a wider range of viewpoints, even those they may disagree with,which should diminish the influence of partisanship and increase the impact ofcontemporary information in evaluation (MacKuen et al., 2010; Marcus et al., 2011;
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

703

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

Redlawsk et al., 2010). In the case of misinformation, this suggests that anxious individuals exposed to counterattitudinal corrections should more carefully weigh false
claims versus facts, which should increase the corrections’ effectiveness. Specifically,
when a correction is provided, anxious individuals exposed to misinformation from thein-party will hold more accurate beliefs than those in a neutral emotional state (H1a).
Although the influence of anxiety initially appears to be normatively beneficial for
democracy because it may lead to more rational updating, there is also the possibility
for adverse effects (Marcus, 2002). For instance, people primed to experience high levels of anxiety who were then exposed to an anti-free-speech message were significantly
less tolerant politically compared to those who received a low anxiety prime (Marcus,
Sullivan, Theiss-Morse, & Stevens, 2005). In the case of political misinformation, anxiety could make individuals more susceptible to uncorrected false claims that reflect
negatively on their own party. Because they are less likely to be driven by partisan
motivations, anxious citizens should pause and more carefully consider the nature of
the misinformation when it conflicts with their party affiliation (Marcus et al., 2011).
As a result, anxious individuals who receive uncorrected misinformation from theout-party will hold less accurate beliefs than those in a neutral emotional state (H1b).
Anger, however, should enhance the influence of partisanship on false beliefs.
Anger makes people defensive and increases the likelihood that they ignore information that challenges their attitudes and pay closer attention to attitude-consistent
information (Marcus et al., 2011). As a result, anger leads to evaluations that are based
more heavily on existing dispositions, such as partisanship. MacKuen et al. (2010)
found that angry individuals sought out more information that confirmed their priorattitudes, became resolute in those prior attitudes, and were less willing to compromise politically. Extending these findings to misperceptions, anger should result inless openness to new, attitude-challenging information contained in a fact-checking
message and an unwillingness to hear the other side. Thus, anger should enhance theinfluence of partisanship on beliefs, as people will be more likely to fall in line with
their political party when they are angry. As a result, angry citizens should be more
susceptible to inaccurate claims endorsed by a member of their preferred politicalparty and less likely to accept corrections that indicate their party’s claims are wrong.
In particular, when a correction is provided, angry individuals exposed to misinformation from the in-party will hold less accurate beliefs than those in a neutral emotional
condition (H2a). Also, angry individuals exposed to uncorrected misinformation fromthe in-party will hold less accurate beliefs than those in a neutral emotional state (H2b).
MethodAn online, between-participants experiment tested these hypotheses. Englishspeaking adults over age 18 who live in the United States and have access to theInternet participated in the study (N = 768). The sampling firm Qualtrics recruitedthe sample using an opt-in panel, and the data were collected between 25 Marchand 2 April 2014. The sample was diverse in terms of age (M = 47.99, SD = 14.05),
704

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

gender (50% male), race (83.3% White, 8.5% Black, and 7% Hispanic), education(22.0% high school or less, 25.3% 4-year college degree, and 11.6% postgraduate), andpolitical party affiliation (43.6% Democrat or leaning, 29.6% Republican or leaning,and 23.7% Independent).
Procedure

Qualtrics first sent panel members an email asking them to participate in the study.
After providing consent, participants were randomly assigned to take at least 2 minutes to write something about either immigration reform or the death penalty (issue
manipulation) that makes them either angry or anxious (emotion manipulation). Participants in a control condition wrote about something that makes them relaxed. Similar tasks have been used in prior research and allow for the independent induction ofeach emotion related to the target issue (Lerner & Keltner, 2001; Valentino, Brader,
Groenendyk, Gregorowicz, & Hutchings, 2011). Although this writing task generates emotions somewhat artificially, in the real world people frequently use strong
emotional language to express their opinions online (Papacharissi, 2012), and news
organizations’ websites are filled with uncivil and emotional comments (Coe, Kenski,& Rains, 2014). The writing task is thus a reasonable representation of how people express themselves politically outside of the experiment. Immediately following
the writing task, participants provided their current emotional state by reporting theextent to which they were experiencing a series of emotions.
Matching the issue they wrote about in the emotional induction, participants next
read a news article attributed to the Associated Press that discussed how public misperceptions were circulating around the political debate on either immigration or thedeath penalty (see Appendix S1, Supporting Information, for sample stimuli). The
articles were manipulated to contain either A) a series of four inaccurate and uncorrected claims (misinformation-only) about the issue, or B) the same claims as well as
corrective information providing explicit evidence showing why the statements arefalse (correction). The two issues were used as a form of stimulus sampling, which
improves construct and external validity (Wells & Windschitl, 1999). The politicalaffiliation of the source of the original misinformation was also manipulated suchthat the inaccurate information was attributed to either Congressional Republicans or
Democrats. The corrective information in the correction condition was attributed toa fictional independent fact-checking organization. The news articles were fictitious
but were based on realistic presentations of misinformation in the media. Outsideof the laboratory, the public can be exposed to misinformation presented without
explicit corrections via news or political websites, blogs, and e-mail (Garrett, 2011;
Weeks & Southwell, 2010), while news organizations and fact-checking organizations
such as Fact-check.org often rebut political inaccuracies by presenting both the original claim and an evidence-based correction (Gottfried, Hardy, Winneg, & Jamieson,2013). The claims were explicitly false and based on real misperceptions surrounding each issue. The factual statements used as corrections were created using evidence from reports by experts at governmental organizations and nonpartisan interest
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

705

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

groups. Immediately after reading their assigned news article, participants reported
their beliefs in the claims presented in the article. The study concluded by assessing
psychological individual differences and demographics.
Measures
EmotionDummy coded variables were created to represent the emotional induction conditions. Both the anger and anxiety conditions were coded high and the neutral control
condition was used as the reference group. All models in the analysis use the induction
condition dummy variables as predictors.
Source of misinformation

The source of the original misinformation was manipulated such that claims were
attributed to either Congressional Republicans or Democrats. A dichotomous variable was created to represent whether the source of the misinformation was fromthe political party participants supported or opposed. If, for example, a self-reported
Republican (or leaning) saw an article in which the false claims were attributed toCongressional Republicans, that combination would be coded as “in-party.” If a
Democrat saw that same article that combination would be coded as “out-party.”
This resulted in a dichotomous variable in which 287 participants read an article
attributing the misinformation to the out-party, while 275 participants saw claims
stemming from members of their in-party (coded high). This coding excludes true
Independents who did not lean toward one party, participants associated with a third
party, or those who did not respond to the political affiliation question.
Correction

The presence of a correction (coded high) was manipulated such that inaccurate
claims were presented either with or without evidence indicating the claims were
not true.
Political knowledge

Political knowledge is often associated with political misperceptions and was included
as a control in the models (Nyhan & Reifler, 2010). Political knowledge was measured
using questions about the current make-up of Congress, the party of the President
who appointed the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the current unemployment rate, and the current U.S. Secretary of State. The items were summed, creating a
range of possible scores from 0 to 4 (α = .65, M = 2.00, SD = 1.37).
Belief in false claims

Belief accuracy was the dependent variable and was measured by asking participants to report the extent to which they believed each of the four claims theyread to be true or false. Participants were asked: “The article you just read madeseveral claims about immigration (the death penalty). What do you think about theaccuracy of these statements? For each statement listed below, please tell us if you
706

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

think it is definitely true, probably true, probably false, definitely false or you are
unsure?”Participants who read the immigration article were asked to report their belief
in the following false claims: (a) Illegal immigrants are able to receive government
welfare benefits like food stamps and housing benefits; (b) The majority of immigrants
do not learn to speak English; (c) Immigrants are more likely to become criminals
than native born citizens; and (d) Proposed legislation will allow any current illegal
immigrant to become a citizen.
Participants who read the death penalty article reported their belief in four separate claims: (a) The number of inmates executed in the United States is growing; (b)Minorities are more likely to be executed than Whites; (c) It is legal to execute juveniles in the United States; and (d) Public support for the death penalty has increased
in recent years.
Prior to analyses, responses were recoded so that the “unsure” response was
located at the midpoint of the revised 5-point scale. Higher values on the scale
represent greater accuracy in assessing these false claims.3 On average, participants’
perceptions of the four immigration claims were not very accurate, as the mean wasat the midpoint of the 5-point scale (four items averaged scale, α = .75, M = 2.99,
SD = 1.06). Beliefs about the death penalty claims were more accurate, as the mean
fell between the “unsure” and “probably false” response options (four items averaged
scale, α = .74, M = 3.19, SD = 1.07). A t-test confirmed that beliefs about the death
penalty were significantly more accurate than those about immigration, t(766) = 2.52,
p < .05. The issues were combined for analyses (M = 3.09, SD = 1.07) but the issue
variable served as a control throughout.
Although these scaled items are used to test the hypotheses, converting thebelief items into dichotomous measures of accuracy helps illustrate the distributionof correct responses. All four claims about both issues were false, so participants
who responded “probably false” or “definitely false” were credited with providing
the correct or accurate response. Across the entire sample, participants provided
the correct response to just under half of the four claims (range 0 to 4; M = 1.89,
SD = 1.39). Table 1 displays the percentage of participants with correct beliefs bycondition, as well as the mean number of correct responses in each condition. Acrossthe entire sample, one in five participants (20.8%) did not provide a correct responseto any of the four claims, while 17.1% were accurate in assessing all claims.4
Results
Emotion induction check

An induction check demonstrates the writing task generated the intended emotional
response. Emotional responses were assessed on a scale from 1 (very slightly or
not at all) to 5 (extremely) and randomly presented items were used to measureanger (angry, outraged, and disgusted; α = .90, M = 1.83, SD = 1.08), anxiety (anxious,
afraid, and nervous; α = .84, M = 1.83, SD = 0.93), and enthusiasm (enthusiastic,
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

707

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

Table 1 Percentage of Participants With Correct Beliefs by Condition
Number of Correct Beliefs (%)
Condition
EmotionAnger
Anxiety
NeutralParty of source
In-party
Out-party
Information environment
Misinformation only
Correction
Issue
Immigration
Death penalty
Entire sample

0

1

2

3

4

Mean Number
Correct (SD)

19.1
22.5
21.4

25.2
20.7
19.6

18.8
25.3
17.3

18.8
16.5
23.8

18.2
15.1
17.9

1.94 (1.40)
1.91 (1.34)
2.06 (1.42)

21.8
16.7

23.3
20.6

18.9
23.0

18.5
20.6

17.5
19.2

1.87 (1.41)
2.04 (1.36)

29.4
11.1

26.0
18.1

24.5
16.7

14.5
24.2

5.6
30.0

1.50 (1.22)
2.45 (1.38)

23.8
17.8
20.8

23.3
21.2
22.3

20.2
21.5
20.8

17.9
20.2
19.0

14.8
19.4
17.1

1.75 (1.40)
2.16 (1.34)
1.89 (1.39)

Note: Beliefs were collapsed into a dichotomous measure and considered accurate if respondent
reported that the false claim was “probably” or “definitely” false.

hopeful, and proud; α = .84, M = 2.69, SD = 1.14). Anger and anxiety were positively
correlated, (r = .56, p < .001), while anger and enthusiasm were negatively correlated(r = −.06, p < .10 [two-tailed]). Anxiety and enthusiasm were positively correlated(r = .12, p = .001).
Participants asked to write something that made them angry reported moreanger (M = 2.10, SD = 1.17) than participants in the anxiety (M = 1.78, SD = 1.06) or
neutral conditions (M = 1.42, SD = 0.75), F(2,764) = 23.61, p < .001. The differencein anger between the anger and anxiety conditions was also significant, t(597) = 3.50,
p < .001. Participants who wrote about what made them anxious reported moreanxiety (M = 1.95, SD = 1.00) than participants in the anger (M = 1.78, SD = 0.88)
or neutral conditions (M = 1.71, SD = 0.89), F(2,764) = 4.04, p < .05. A directcomparison of anxiety between the anxious and angry conditions was significant,t(597) = 2.15, p < .05. Finally, those in the anxiety condition felt more anxiety thananger, t(284) = 3.23, p < .001, while participants in the anger condition experienced
greater anger than anxiety, t(313) = 5.35, p < .001.
Statistical analyses

Although main effects of the experimental conditions were not hypothesized, theresult of an ordinary least squares regression predicting belief accuracy without theinteraction terms is reported (Table 2, Model 1). The hypotheses were tested using
two separate “moderated moderation” regression models, also known as three-way
708

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

Table 2 Effects of Anxiety and Anger, Partisanship, and Corrections on Belief
Model 1
Anxiety−.14 (.11)
Anger−.09 (.11)
Correction (coded high).78 (.08) ***In-party (coded high)−.13 (.08)
Anxiety × In-party—
Anxiety × Correction—
Correction × In-party—
Anxiety × Correction × In-party—
Anger × In-party—
Anger × Correction—
Anger × Correction × In-party—
Issue (death penalty coded high).27 (.08)**
Political knowledge.15 (.03)***
Constant
2.18 (.18)***Observations
561
F (df )
20.46 (6, 554)
R2
.18

Model 2−.42 (.19)*−.09 (.11).70 (.15)***−.35 (.15)*.63 (.24)**.27 (.24).23 (.21)−.71 (.35)*———.27 (.08)**.15 (.03)***2.25 (.19)***561
13.07 (10, 550)***.192

Model 3−.15 (.11).26 (.18).98 (.15)***.15 (.15)——−.36 (.22)#—−.64 (.23)**−.45 (.24)#.79 (.34)*.27 (.08)**.15 (.03)***2.02 (.20)***561
13.16 (10, 550)***.193

Notes: Unstandardized regression coefficients reported. Standard error is listed in parentheses.
p-values are two-tailed.
# p < .10. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

interactions (Hayes, 2013). The first model tested the hypotheses about anxiety, while
the second examined predictions related to anger. The hypotheses make different predictions about the interactive effects of emotions and partisanship on belief accuracy
depending on the information environment and the three-way interaction models
allow for such tests. Table 2 (Models 2 and 3) illustrates that the three-way interaction between the emotion, partisan source, and correction variables is significant inboth the model for anxiety, b = −.71 (.35), p = .04 (two-tailed) and anger, b = .79 (.34),
p = .02 (two-tailed). These significant coefficients indicate that the extent to which
the two emotions and partisanship interact to affect beliefs is contingent on the presence of a correction. What the coefficients do not indicate, however, is the precise
nature of these interactions. In order to examine these conditional effects and test
the specific hypotheses posed in this study, these significant interactions were further probed using PROCESS (Hayes, 2013, p. 307). Probing the interactions allows for
direct comparisons of the hypothesized group differences. PROCESS provides inferential tests that explain the nature of the emotion × partisan source interactions inboth the misinformation-only and correction conditions. In reporting the results of
the hypotheses tests below I focus on the coefficients for these inferential tests (whichin this case signify adjusted mean differences between groups) as well as the estimatedmarginal means for the groups being compared.
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

709

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

Tests of main effects

The coefficients reported in Table 2 (Model 1) indicate there were no main effects of
the anger or anxiety conditions on participants’ beliefs (ps > .20). The coefficient for
the variable representing partisanship was negative, b = −.13 (.08), suggesting thatparticipants who received misinformation from the in-party held less accurate beliefs
than those who received the same information from the out-party. However, thiseffect was not significant (p = .11) and cannot be taken as strong evidence regarding
the direct influence of partisanship. The lack of main effects suggests that emotions
and the partisan source of the information alone did not significantly affect belief
accuracy.5 There were main effects of the issue (beliefs about the death penalty weremore accurate) and correction manipulations, as participants who received corrective information held significantly more accurate beliefs than those who received only
the misinformation. The coefficient for the correction variable suggests that all things
equal, receiving a correction was estimated to improve belief accuracy by .78 units(t = 9.29, p < .001). In addition, the control variable political knowledge was positively
related to belief accuracy, b = .15, p < .001.
Hypotheses tests

H1a predicted that when a correction is available, anxious individuals exposed tomisinformation from the in-party hold more accurate beliefs than those in theneutral condition. In other words, corrections that challenge one’s partisan loyalties
are more effective when anxiety is present. This hypothesis was tested by examining
the coefficient for the anxiety × partisan source interaction within the correction
condition. The coefficient was not significant, b = −.08 (.25), t = −.33, p = .75, indicating that anxiety and the partisan source do not interact to affect beliefs in thecorrection condition. Exploring this nonsignificant interaction further illustrates that
false claims attributed to the in-party were no more likely to be rejected in the anxiety
condition (M = 3.29, SE = .15) than in the neutral condition (M = 3.52, SE = .12)
when a correction was available, b = −.23 (.20), t = −1.18, p = .24 (see in-party, righthalf of Figure 1). Thus, H1a is not confirmed.
H1b posited that when misinformation goes uncorrected, anxious individuals
who receive false claims from the out-party will hold less accurate beliefs than thosein the neutral condition. In the misinformation-only condition, the interaction
between the anxiety and partisan source variables is positive and significant, b = .63(.24), t = 2.61, p = .009 (two-tailed). Probing this interaction indicates that beliefs ofanxious individuals who were exposed to uncorrected misinformation attributed tothe out-party (M = 2.52, SE = .15) were significantly less accurate than those in theneutral condition (M = 2.94, SE = .11), b = −.42 (.19), t = −2.25, p = .02 (two-tailed)(see out-party, left half of Figure 1). H1b is therefore supported as anxiety (comparedto neutral emotional state) reduced belief accuracy when evaluating uncorrected
misinformation stemming from the out-party.
H2a predicted that when a correction is available, beliefs of angry individuals
exposed to misinformation from the in-party will be less accurate than those in
710

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

Belief Accuracy

5
4
3
2
1

In-Party

Out-Party

In-Party

Misinformation Only
Neutral

Out-Party

Correction
Anxiety

Figure 1 Predicted belief accuracy by experimental condition and anxiety induction.
Notes: Bars represent estimated marginal means by condition, after controlling for issue, theanger condition, and political knowledge. Belief is measured on a 1–5 scale with higher scores
corresponding to more accuracy. Error bars denote standard error.

a neutral emotional state. This hypothesis is tested by focusing on the interaction
between the anger dummy and partisan source variables within the correction
condition. The nonsignificant coefficient for this interaction demonstrates that the
influence of anger and partisanship are not dependent on one another in the correction condition, b = .15 (.25), t = .60, p = .55. Additional assessments of the data
further indicate that when a correction is presented, false claims from the in-party
are no more likely to be believed when participants are angry (M = 3.41, SE = .15)
than when they are in a neutral emotional state (M = 3.46, SE = .12), b = −.04 (.19),
t = −.23, p = .82 (see in-party, right half of Figure 2). As a result, H2a is not supported.
H2b predicted that when misinformation is not corrected, angry individuals who
receive false claims from the in-party will hold less accurate beliefs than individuals
in a neutral emotional state. In the misinformation only condition, the interaction
between the anger and partisan source variables is negative and significant, b = −.64(.23), t = −2.73, p = .01 (two-tailed), suggesting that anger enhances the effect ofpartisanship on belief. Probing the interaction revealed that belief accuracy for angry
participants exposed to uncorrected misinformation from the in-party (M = 2.45,
SE = .13) was significantly lower than those in the neutral condition (M = 2.83,
SE = .11), b = −.38 (.18), t = −2.14, p = .03 (two-tailed) (see in-party, left half of
Figure 2). The findings therefore support H2b; anger reduced belief accuracy whenevaluating uncorrected, party-consistent misinformation.
Discussion

Emotions play an important role in how people respond to uncorrected politicalmisinformation. This study provides causal evidence that the independent experience
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

711

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

Belief Accuracy

5
4
3
2
1

In-Party

Out-Party

In-Party

Correction

Misinformation Only
Neutral

Out-Party

Anger

Figure 2 Predicted belief accuracy by experimental condition and anger induction.
Notes: Bars represent estimated marginal means by condition, after controlling for issue, theanxiety condition, and political knowledge. Belief is measured on a 1–5 scale with higher scores
corresponding to more accuracy. Error bars denote standard error.

of anger and anxiety at times has different consequences for political misperceptions
by heightening or dampening the influence of partisanship. When initially facedwith inaccurate claims about politics, angry people are more likely to process theinformation in a partisan manner, which results in beliefs that reinforce their party
affiliation. In contrast, anxiety reduces the reliance on partisanship at this initialstage and leads to beliefs that are consistent with information contained in themessage. In this study political misperceptions appear to stem not from partisanshipalone, but rather from an interaction between emotions, party identification, and theinformation environment.
Relying extensively on the theory of partisan motivated reasoning, previous
research has shown that partisanship is related to inaccurate political beliefs (Nyhan& Reifler, 2010; Weeks & Garrett, 2014). However, to date this work has not fully
illustrated when party affiliation impacts misperceptions. The current study provides
one explanation. The results here suggest that the partisan motivated reasoning process may be facilitated by anger rather than anxiety or general negative affect, as anger
resulted in initial beliefs that were consistent with party identification. This raises thepossibility that the “automatic affective processes” that are thought to lead to biased
processing of information might be limited to the discrete emotion anger rather thanother negative emotions or general negative affect (Taber & Lodge, 2006, p. 756). It
may be that political attitudes alone are not enough to drive partisan processing of
misinformation, but rather attitudes that are tied to anger or resentment. We know
there are limits to partisan motivated reasoning (Druckman, 2012; MacKuen et al.,2010; Redlawsk et al., 2010), and people do not necessarily believe derogatory claims
about the other side simply because they are Republican or Democrat. Rather, thecombination of anger and partisanship might be what leaves them misinformed. This
712

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

process could help explain why many Republicans believe false information about
Barack Obama. For example, 64% of Republicans said it was “probably true” that
Obama was hiding information about his birthplace in 2013 (Cassino, 2013), whichroughly coincides with the percentage of Republicans (58%) who expressed anger
at Obama during that time period (Steinhauser, 2013). The interaction of anger andpartisanship to facilitate belief in uncorrected misinformation is especially troubling
given that anger also depresses information seeking and increases selective exposure(MacKuen et al., 2010; Valentino et al., 2008). Anger therefore has the potential tocreate media diets in which people are primarily exposed to like-minded messages,
which may further enhance anger directed at political opponents (Slater, 2007). It will
be important for future research to examine the potential reinforcing and dynamic
influence of anger.
The effects of anxiety provide a theoretical explanation for why people occasionally believe misinformation that is inconsistent with their partisan affiliation (e.g.,
Democrats who believe Obama was not born in the United States). Anxious participants (vs. neutral) who only received misinformation saw a significant decrease
in belief accuracy when exposed to inaccurate information stemming from theout-party. Partisan motivated reasoning would suggest these individuals should reject
this misinformation because it challenges their partisanship. Yet that is not what happened. Insights from Affective Intelligence theory help us understand why this seemingly counterintuitive result should actually be expected. Recall anxiety arises out ofnovel political circumstances and depresses the role of prior attitudes and increases
the influence of contemporary information in evaluations (MacKuen et al., 2010; Redlawsk et al., 2010). In the present research, consider Democrats asked to write something that makes them anxious about immigration reform. This experienced anxiety
may have signaled that something is wrong with their position or their party’s stance,
which should increase the willingness to consider the information at hand (Marcus
et al., 2011). When these Democrats are subsequently presented with misinformation
originating from the Republican Party they do not automatically process this information in a partisan way. Instead, their beliefs are influenced more by the content of
the message. They are more likely to pay closer attention to what the out-party has
to say and, when corrective information is not available, have a higher probability of
being misinformed. Although anxiety has typically been discussed as an emotion thatfacilitates democratic thinking and open-mindedness, this suggests a paradox of anxiety. That is, anxiety promotes critical thinking and learning about politics, but it may
backfire if the information considered is inaccurate or misleading (Marcus, 2002).
This study does provide reasons to be hopeful about the nature of political misperceptions. Corrections to misinformation were effective, even in the face of emotional experiences and partisan motivations. Whether corrections are effective has
been a primary question driving misperception research and the results of prior work
are mixed. How are these conflicting findings to be reconciled? First, corrections toattitude-consistent beliefs can be effective as long as they don’t require a change inattitude (Ecker, Lewandowsky, Fenton, & Martin, 2014). The claims in this study are
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

713

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

likely not a critical component of people’s partisan identity, so admitting they are false
after seeing strong, corrective evidence did not require people to change their feelings
about their political party. In this case, the corrections may update beliefs but attitudes
toward the political party remain unchanged. Second, the corrections might have beensuccessful here due to a “tipping point.” Even strong partisan motivated reasoners arewilling to give up on their position when exposed to an abundance of information
telling them they are wrong (Redlawsk et al., 2010). Given that the corrections provided strong arguments for why each of the claims was false, it is possible that evenangry participants for whom the corrections were inconsistent with their partisanshipcould no longer engage in motivated processing. This may also help explain why someprior experimental research has failed to find corrective effects for counterattitudinalmisperceptions. In many of those studies, the correction comes in the form of a brief
passage embedded in a news article (e.g., Nyhan & Reifler, 2010) or a subtle identification of the misinformation (Garrett & Weeks, 2013), which may not offer enoughcontradictory evidence to reach a tipping point. While both of these possibilities areplausible, it will be critical for future research to further outline the conditions andprocesses related to successful corrective messages.
The study’s experimental design provides the opportunity to examine causal factors that influence misperceptions but it also creates some limitations. Notably, theresults reported here are based on a single experiment, making replication essential.
The controlled design using a large, politically and demographically diverse sample,
as well as the use of stimuli sampling, suggest the findings are not limited to a single
political issue or particular subgroup but future research should examine these effects
in different contexts.
A strength of this study is that it provides a causal tests of the unique effects ofanxiety and anger on partisan bias. However, the benefits of this design come withsome drawbacks. The emotional inductions did not direct participants to write abouta particular partisan target of their emotion related to the issue. It is possible thatparticipants in the anxiety condition noted something about the out-party’s stanceon the issue that made them anxious. This may have limited the study’s ability tofind effects in the correction condition, given that anxiety about one’s own party or
position on an issue, not the opposition’s, attenuates bias (Marcus et al., 2011). This
limitation is a tradeoff that was necessary to test the possibility that these emotions
uniquely affect partisan motivated reasoning. Some scholars argue that emotions areoften the result of preexisting political attitudes (Ladd & Lenz, 2008), so a stringent
test of the theory required that anger and anxiety be induced without any explicit
partisan cues. In addition, there was concern that directing attention to partisan
considerations about these issues would have inflated anger in the anxiety condition,
thus preventing a clean test of the distinct effects of each emotion. So although thewriting task comes with disadvantages, it was necessary to isolate the effects of anger
and anxiety from each other, as well as from partisanship.
The emotion induction raises another notable limitation. Participants in the neutral condition were not asked to write about immigration or the death penalty, which
714

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

creates the possibility that mere salience of the issue, not the experience of emotions,affected the results. It is also possible that the emotional inductions created negative thoughts about the issue, which directly affected belief accuracy. However, theevidence suggests this threat is limited as there was no main effect of emotion on
belief, indicating that the induction task alone did not affect perceptions. In addition,
the differential interactive effects of anxiety and anger are consistent with theory anddemonstrate that the unique experience of these emotions, not simply writing about
the issue, influenced what people believe.
Another limitation involves the false claims used. The misinformation here was
not widely known and did not receive media attention prior to fielding the study. It
is possible the effects observed here might be different with long-standing misperceptions that have been in the public sphere for years. Studies attempting to correctwell-known misperceptions have shown the task to be more difficult (e.g., Nyhan &Reifler, 2010) and the format of the corrections used here may work differently withprominent misperceptions in the real world.
Despite these limitations, this study offers a unique theoretical contribution
to the study of political misperceptions. Using a highly controlled experimental
design, this research directly addresses the question of why people hold politicalmisperceptions by providing causal evidence that two negative emotions—anxiety
and anger—uniquely work in connection with other factors to influence people’s
responses to inaccurate information. It is clear from this work that political beliefs
are formed not by a single consideration but rather by a set of interacting influences
including emotion, partisanship, and the information environment. Examining how
these components work together—not in isolation—will better serve us as we seek
to understand the problem of political misperceptions.
Acknowledgments

The author thanks Kelly Garrett for his guidance on this project and also Dave
Ewoldsen, Ariel Hasell, Lance Holbert, Shannon McGregor, and Emily Moyer-Gusé
for their comments and suggestions at various stages. This research was supportedby the National Science Foundation under Grant IIS-1149599, awarded to Kelly
Garrett. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed inthis material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Science Foundation.
Notes
1 Redlawsk, Tolbert, & McNeely (2014) find fear exacerbated effects of symbolic racism on
evaluations of Obama and a similar mechanism may exist with Democrats’ misperceptions
about Obama.
2 Brader (2005) demonstrated experimentally that anxiety can alter candidate preferences.
However, his study was not directly interested in emotions’ effects on partisan motivatedreasoning, nor did he examine the effects of anger.
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

715

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

3 Some evidence indicates that survey responses to factual questions do not always represent
true beliefs, but rather are expressions of partisan loyalty (e.g. Bullock, Gerber, Hill, &Huber, 2013; Prior, Sood, & Khanna, 2013). Although this suggests that partisandifferences in factual perceptions may be overstated, research indicates that self-reported
misperceptions, whether true beliefs or not, can independently affect democratic outcomessuch as support for political policies (Kuklinski et al., 2000) and vote choice (Weeks &Garrett, 2014).
4 The study does not take into account participants’ prior knowledge on these issues, which
could affect belief accuracy. For example, being knowledgeable about these issues should
improve accuracy, and it is possible that participants who reported accurate beliefs did so
because they knew the right answer from the start and not because the corrections wereeffective. However, given that the experimental design incorporated random assignment,
any bias generated from prior knowledge should be evenly distributed throughout the
sample.
5 It is possible that respondents would not believe scenarios in which Democrats spreadmisinformation about immigration or Republicans promote false claims about the death
penalty, given each party’s general position on those issues. Two analyses of variance(controlling for the emotion and correction conditions and political knowledge)
demonstrate a main effect of participants’ political affiliation, as Republicans held lessaccurate beliefs than Democrats about immigration (F(1,270) = 6.62, p = .01), while
Democrats were less accurate than Republicans about the death penalty (F(1,275) = 4.52,
p = .03). However there was no main effect of the political party of the source of themisinformation on belief for either immigration (F(1,270) = 1.44, p = .23) or the death
penalty (F(1,275) = 1.33, p = .25). More importantly, there was no interaction between theparticipants’ party affiliation and the partisan source of the misinformation for either issue(immigration: F(1,270) = 2.38, p = .12; death penalty: F(1, 275) = 2.28, p = .13). This
indicates that neither Republicans’ nor Democrats’ beliefs about these issues depended on
the political party attributed as the source of the misinformation.

References
Brader, T. (2005). Striking a responsive chord: How political ads motivate and persuade
voters by appealing to emotions. American Journal of Political Science, 49, 388–405.
doi:10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00130.x.
Brader, T. (2011). The political relevance of emotions: “Reassessing” revisited. Political
Psychology, 32, 337–346. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00803.x.
Bullock, J. G. (2009). Partisan bias and the Bayesian ideal in the study of public opinion.
Journal of Politics, 71, 1109–1124. doi:10.1017/S0022381609090914.
Bullock, J.G., Gerber, A.S., Hill, S.J., & Huber, G.A. (2013). Partisan bias in factual beliefs
about politics. Working Paper 19080, National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved
from http://www.nber.org/papers/w19080
Carver, C. S., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009). Anger is an approach-related affect: Evidence andimplications. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 183–204. doi:10.1037/a0013965.
Cassino, D. (2013, January 17). Conspiracy theories prosper: 25% of Americans are “truthers.”
Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Public Mind Poll. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.
com/doc/120815791/Fairleigh-Dickinson-poll-on-conspiracy-theories
716

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

Coe, K., Kenski, K., & Rains, S. A. (2014). Online and uncivil? Patterns and determinants ofincivility in newspaper website comments. Journal of Communication, 64, 658–679.
doi:10.1111/jcom.12104.
Druckman, J. N. (2012). The politics of motivation. Critical Review: A Journal of Politics andSociety, 24, 199–216. doi:10.1080/08913811.2012.711022.
Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Fenton, O., & Martin, K. (2014). Do people keep believing
because they want to? Pre-existing attitudes and the continued influence of
misinformation. Memory & Cognition, 42, 292–304. doi:10.3758/s13421-013-0358-x.
Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive
performance: Attention control theory. Emotion, 7, 336–353. doi:10.1037/15283542.7.2.336.
Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Gaines, B. J., Kuklinski, J. H., Quirk, P. J., Peyton, B., & Verkuilen, J. (2007). Same facts,
different interpretations: Partisan motivation and opinion on Iraq. Journal of Politics, 69,
957–974. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00601.x.
Gallup. (2011, May 13). Obama’s birth certificate convinces some, but not all, skeptics.
Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/147530/obama-birth-certificateconvinces-not-skeptics.aspx
Garrett, R. K. (2011). Troubling consequences of online political rumoring. Human
Communication Research, 37, 255–274. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01401.x.
Garrett, R. K., Nisbet, E. C., & Lynch, E. K. (2013). Undermining the corrective effects ofmedia-based political fact checking? The role of contextual cues and naïve theory. Journalof Communication, 63, 617–637. doi:10.1111/jcom.12038.
Garrett, R. K., & Weeks, B. E. (2013). The promise and peril of real-time corrections to politicalmisperceptions. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the ACM 2013 Conference on
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) (pp. 1047–1058), San Antonio, TX.
New York, NY: ACM.
Goodall, C. E., Slater, M. D., & Myers, T. A. (2013). Fear and anger responses to local news
coverage of alcohol-related crimes, accidents, and injuries: Explaining news effects onpolicy support using a representative sample of messages and people. Journal ofCommunication, 63, 373–392. doi:10.1111/jcom.12020.
Gottfried, J. A., Hardy, B. W., Winneg, K. M., & Jamieson, K. H. (2013). Did fact checking
matter in the 2012 presidential campaign? American Behavioral Scientist, 57, 1558–1567.
doi:10.1177/0002764213489012.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis.
New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Huddy, L., Feldman, S., & Cassese, E. (2007). On the distinct political effects of anxiety andanger. In W. R. Neuman, G. E. Marcus, A. N. Crigler, & M. Mackuen (Eds.), The affecteffect: Dynamics of emotion in political thinking and behavior (pp. 202–230). Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Jerit, J., & Barabas, J. (2012). Partisan perceptual bias and the information environment. The
Journal of Politics, 74, 672–684. doi:10.1017/S0022381612000187.
Kuklinski, J. H., Quirk, P. J., Jerit, J., Schwieder, D., & Rich, R. F. (2000). Misinformation andthe currency of democratic citizenship. The Journal of Politics, 62, 790–816. doi:10.1111/
0022-3816.00033.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480–498.
doi:10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480.
Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

717

Emotions and Misperceptions

B. E. Weeks

Ladd, J. M., & Lenz, G. S. (2008). Reassessing the role of anxiety and vote choice. Political
Psychology, 29, 275–296.
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 81, 146–159. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.1.146.
MacKuen, M., Wolak, J., Keele, L., & Marcus, G. E. (2010). Civic engagements: Resolutepartisanship or reflective deliberation. American Journal of Political Science, 54, 440–458.
doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00440.x.
Marcus, G. E. (2002). The sentimental citizen: Emotion in democratic politics. University Park:
The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Marcus, G. E., MacKuen, M., & Neuman, W. R. (2011). Parsimony and complexity:
Developing and testing theories of affective intelligence. Political Psychology, 32,
323–336. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00806.x.
Marcus, G. E., Neuman, W. R., & MacKuen, M. (2000). Affective intelligence and political
judgment. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Marcus, G. E., Sullivan, J. T., Theiss-Morse, E., & Stevens, D. (2005). The emotionalfoundation of political cognition: The impact of extrinsic anxiety on the formation ofpolitical tolerance judgments. Political Psychology, 26, 949–963. doi:10.1111/j.14679221.2005.00452.x.
Meirick, P. C. (2013). Motivated misperception? Party, education, partisan news, and belief in“death panels”. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90, 39–57. doi:10.1177/
1077699012468696.
Nabi, R. L. (1999). A cognitive-functional model for the effects of discrete negative emotions
on information processing, attitude change, and recall. Communication Theory, 9,292–320. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.1999.tb00172.x.
Nabi, R. L. (2003). Exploring the framing effects of emotion: Do discrete emotions
differentially influence information accessibility, information seeking, and policy
preference? Communication Research, 30, 224–247. doi:10.1177/0093650202250881.
Nabi, R. L. (2010). The case for emphasizing discrete emotions in communication research.
Communication Monographs, 77, 153–159. doi:10.1080/03637751003790444.
Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. (2010). When corrections fail: The persistence of politicalmisperceptions. Political Behavior, 32, 303–330. doi:10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2.
Papacharissi, Z. (2012). Without you, I’m nothing: Performances of the self on Twitter.
International Journal of Communication, 6, 1989–2006.
Prior, M., Sood, G., & Khanna, K. (2013). You cannot be serious: Do partisans believe what
they say? Working Paper. Retrieved from http://government.arts.cornell.edu/assets/
psac/sp13/Prior_PSAC_Apr15.pdf
Redlawsk, D. P., Civettini, A. J., & Emmerson, K. M. (2010). The affective tipping point: Do
motivated reasoners ever “get it”? Political Psychology, 31, 563–593.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00772.x.
Redlawsk, D. P., Tolbert, C. J., & McNeely, N. A. (2014). Symbolic racism and emotional
responses to the 2012 presidential candidates. Political Research Quarterly, 67, 680–694.
doi:10.1177/1065912914531091.
Roseman, I. J., Wiest, C., & Swartz, T. S. (1994). Phenomenology, behaviors, and goals
differentiate discrete emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 206–221.
doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.2.206.
718

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

B. E. Weeks

Emotions and Misperceptions

Slater, M. D. (2007). Reinforcing spirals: The mutual influence of media selectivity and media
effects and their impact on individual behavior and social identity. Communication
Theory, 17, 281–303. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2007.00296.x.
Steinhauser, P. (2013, October 7). CNN shutdown poll: Plenty of blame to go around. Retrieved
from http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/07/cnn-shutdown-poll-plentyof-blame-to-go-around/
Taber, C. S., & Lodge, M. (2006). Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs.
American Journal of Political Science, 50, 755–769. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.x.
Valentino, B. (2012). Survey on foreign policy and American overseas commitments. YouGov.
Retrieved from http://www.dartmouth.edu/∼benv/data.html.
Valentino, N. A., Brader, T., Groenendyk, E. W., Gregorowicz, K., & Hutchings, V. L. (2011).
Election night’s alright for fighting: The role of emotions in political participation. Journalof Politics, 73, 156–170. doi:10.1017/S0022381610000939.
Valentino, N. A., Hutchings, V. L., Banks, A. J., & Davis, A. K. (2008). Is a worried citizen agood citizen? Emotions, political information seeking, and learning via the internet.
Political Psychology, 29, 247–273. doi:10.1017/S0022381610000939.
Weeks, B. E., & Garrett, R. K. (2014). Electoral consequences of political rumors: Motivatedreasoning, candidate rumors, and vote choice during the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 26, 401–422. doi:10.1093/ijpor/edu005.
Weeks, B., & Southwell, B. (2010). The symbiosis of news coverage and aggregate on-line
search behavior: Obama, rumors, and presidential politics. Mass Communication andSociety, 13, 341–360. doi:10.1080/15205430903470532.
Wells, G. L., & Windschitl, P. D. (1999). Stimulus sampling and social psychologicalexperimentation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1115–1125.
doi:10.1177/01461672992512005.

Supporting Information
Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article:
Appendix S1. (a) Misperceptions about immigration make reform harder. (b) Misperceptions about the death penalty cloud debate.

Journal of Communication 65 (2015) 699–719 © 2015 International Communication Association

719