by Carolyn Paczkowski – U. Georgia
After the election, a familiar pattern emerged across democracies. Election winners are more satisfied with democracy than those whose candidates lose.
For decades, political scientists have debated why this “winner-loser gap” exists.
Is it driven by emotion – the simple joy of winning and the frustration of losing – or by expectations about the policies a new government will deliver?
Using a creative approach involving World Cup, Super Bowl and Disney lion kingThe study found evidence that democratic legitimacy depends less on emotional rhetoric and more on delivering on policy commitments.
Doing so can help maintain confidence in democracy even among those who do not win, especially if, where possible, electoral “losers” still have their interests reflected in policy.
According to the researchers, the study also has a cautionary note.
Attempts to inflame passions or insult opponents are less likely to strengthen public support for democracy and may deepen. Political discontent.
“If you really want to build sustainable Democratic support, turn down the heat and focus on policy,” says Shane P. Singh, lead author of the study and professor of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.
It is difficult to separate emotional reactions from policy expectations in elections because winning offers both emotional and political rewards.
To isolate emotion alone, Singh and his colleagues looked outside elections to situations where winning and losing are emotionally powerful but politically irrelevant.
The research team started with the 2022 Super Bowl, surveying people in the Cincinnati and Los Angeles areas before and after the game. As expected, fans of the winning team felt an emotional boost, while fans of the losing team did not. But when the researchers examined participants’ satisfaction with democracy, they found no meaningful changes.
“That was the first big signal,” Singh said. “We were clearly seeing changes in sentiment, but those changes weren’t translating into changes in how people felt about democracy.”
To see if the results held globally, the team repeated the study around the 2022 World Cup final between Argentina and France. Again, emotions moved sharply. And again, satisfaction with democracy was largely unchanged.
In a controlled experiment, participants watched a pleasant clip (the “Hakuna Matata” scene from lion king) or a sad clip (the scene depicting Mufasa’s death).
The clips worked exactly as they did: viewers of happy scenes reported feeling happier, and viewers of sad scenes reported feeling sadder. But this strong psychological shift had no effect on satisfaction with democracy.
“At that point, it became clear that we as a driver could override irrelevant emotions,” says Singh. “We have changed the mood of the people but not their democratic spirit.”
These insights highlight that the strength of democracy depends on actual policy outcomes and meeting expectations from policymakers rather than short-lived emotional reactions, Singh said.
For voters, Singh hopes the research will strengthen the long-term perspective.
“Democracy is cyclical,” he says. “You win some; you lose some. Losing doesn’t mean the system has failed. It just means there will be another chance in the future.”
Research shows Political Psychology.
Source: University of Georgia
Original study DOI: 10.1111/pops.70104
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Previously published with future.org Creative Commons License
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Photo credit: splash
