Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-4-2024
Keywords
COVID-19; rally-‘round-the-flag; Donald Trump; micro-expressions; emotion; LIWC
Abstract
This preregistered study replicates and extends studies concerning emotional response to wartime rally speeches and applies it to U.S. President Donald Trump’s first national address regarding the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020. We experimentally test the effect of a micro-expression (ME) by Trump associated with appraised threat on change in participant self-reported distress, sadness, anger, affinity, and reassurance while controlling for followership. We find that polarization is perpetuated in emotional response to the address which focused on portraying the COVID-19 threat as being of Chinese provenance. We also find a significant, albeit slight, effect by Trump’s ME on self-reported sadness, suggesting that this facial behavior served did not diminish his speech, instead serving as a form of nonverbal punctuation. Further exploration of participant response using the Linguistic Inventory and Word Count software reinforces and extends these findings.
Citation
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , Fall 2024 , pp. 167 - 184 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/pls.2024.8
Supplementary information
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Politics and Social Change Commons, Social Influence and Political Communication Commons
