Drawing upon theories of group based emotion, group based efficacy and appraisal, I propose a model of racial emotion regulation to explain variations in how Black and White Americans respond emotionally and behaviorally to policy opportunity cues. I test the major claims of this model with data from an original experiment and national survey. Findings from the studies indicate that expressions of hope carry a strong and consistent mobilizing effect on the political participation of African Americans, while producing null effects on White participation. I discuss the implications of this model for our understanding of the potential of hope to shape appraisals and perceptions of efficacy among socially marginalized groups, opening up a distinct pathway through which they can be mobilized for political engagement.
Differences in rates of political participation between Black and White Americans are often attributed to differences in the groups’ possession of material resources, or their general beliefs about the utility of action. But understanding differences in the groups’ emotional responses to political figures, regimes and policies can also help to explain racial variations in political behavior.
Much of the work examining how emotional responses to politics translate to political participation do not take into full account how individuals’ experiences around race can shape both the emotions they feel when navigating politics, and how those emotions inform decisions to act. This study was conducted to explore whether the unique, racialized lens through which many African Americans view politics creates a unique pathway for the emotion of hope to stimulate Black political participation.
This research consists of two studies. The first is an experiment conducted with a sample of Black and White participants in the Detroit metro area. Participants viewed political messaging about a local prospective policy change, then reported their emotional responses to the messaging and their likelihoods of taking future action on the policy. The second study analyzed national survey data from Presidential election years spanning 1980 through 2012. I examined Black and White partisans’ likelihoods of expressing hope toward their favored party’s Presidential candidate, and estimated the effects of reported hope on likelihood of voting. Across both studies, reported hope exerts a strong and positive effect on African Americans’ likelihood of taking up political action, while exhibiting little to no effect on White Americans’ participation. Additionally, Study 1 suggests that Black participants’ hope was associated with increased perceptions of collective efficacy.
This research uncovers a uniquely mobilizing effect of political hope for African Americans. The role of positive emotions in propelling political action among a socially marginalized group cannot be discounted, even as many members of the group continue to mobilize for political action based on anger over systemic injustice. Despite the overarching emphasis on the power of threat cues to stimulate participation, this work indicates that opportunity can effectively stimulate action among Black people.
I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We shall overcome some day
Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive! On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive!
Reflecting upon the words and ideas that have shaped Black political thought for centuries, one detects an unmistakable current of optimism—a heralding of an eventual dawn of Black liberation from a racially stratified society. Often conveyed through the language of Christian symbolism, this sentiment of Black hope wells up in the songs, speeches and sermons that animate Black individuals’ senses of racial group solidarity and political consciousness. Such racial consciousness is known to increase African Americans’ political behavior (
I contend the hope narratives so prevalent within Black dialogic spaces also constitute a unique mobilizer of political action for African Americans. To uncover the unique function of hope in stimulating Black participation requires an integration of theories of appraisal, group-based emotions and group efficacy with literature on the political attitudes and beliefs of the Black body politic. I develop this integrative framework to offer two claims. One, African Americans possess a collective emotional sentiment that differs systematically from White Americans, and this sentiment influences Black individuals’ appraisals of cues of policy opportunity. Two, the emergence of hope in response to cues of opportunity produces shifts in African American appraisals of collective efficacy, resulting in increased motivation to take action to make good on the opportunity. Identifying the race-specific patterns of appraisal and participation among African Americans illustrates the unique capacity of hope to mobilize Black political behavior. It also defies conventional understanding, which indicates threats are generally more effective mobilizers of political action than opportunity.
Recent scholarship identifies how group-based emotions shape the political engagement and decision making of African Americans, revealing distinctions in the translation of emotions such as anger, enthusiasm and shame to participation in costly political actions (
I build a theoretical model of racial emotion regulation by drawing on scholarship connecting emotions to behavior, assessing the role of group identity in shaping emotional responses and perceptions of group efficacy in response to political stimuli, and interrogating the respective effects of threat and opportunity cues on political decision making.
Defined as a feeling of aspiration toward a particular goal, accompanied by positive feelings about the anticipated outcome, hope is a goal-oriented emotion that facilitates risk taking (
I contend the linkages between hope, creativity and problem solving carry particular impact for the political behavior of African Americans. This impact comes into clearer view when considering the roles of group identity and social context in shaping individuals’ emotional and behavioral responses to political stimuli. As
Group-based emotions are centered on an individual’s perceptions of closeness to and solidarity with the group, as well as her perceptions of the group’s collective efficacy (
The strong racial group ties among African Americans should make group-based emotions especially instrumental in shaping political engagement. Black individuals generally exhibit strong senses of in-group solidarity and racial consciousness, which are based in large part on shared perceptions that the group is marginalized by discriminatory structures in the U.S. (
Yet while African American generally possess the highest senses of racial solidarity among different racial groups, they also tend to express the lowest senses of collective political efficacy. Black people generally exhibit lower levels of trust in government, less confidence that politics works fairly, and greater dissatisfaction with the sociopolitical environment relative to Whites (
Past studies offer a framework for understanding how African Americans’ low perceptions of group efficacy should be expected to shape collective action in contexts of threat.
This perspective views the emotion state of hope and one’s sense of efficacy as distinct additive factors that can spur collective action when present together. This view is consistent with the appraisal theory of emotions, which asserts that individuals’ emotional responses to phenomena are rooted in their cognitive evaluations regarding how that phenomenon will advance or hinder their progress toward their goals (
I offer here an alternate account of hope and efficacy, viewing them not as additive but rather interactive. Whereas appraisal theory suggests the directional relationship flows from cognitive evaluations to emotional responses,
A framework indicating that appraisals of efficacy precede the emergence of emotions suggests African Americans’ diminished group efficacy would inhibit the emergence of hope. Yet studies of Black personal and political life indicate that despite possession of a pervasive and engrained sense of sociopolitical inefficacy, African Americans nonetheless maintain optimistic sentiments (
That this sentiment is deeply rooted in Black collective life in spite of the sense of group inefficacy suggests that such inefficacy need not preclude the emotion state of hope from playing a pivotal role in Black collective action. In fact, when attached to a concrete prospective opportunity, this sentiment can disrupt African Americans’ general perceptions of their sociopolitical environment. Signaling a departure from the modal state of affairs in which Black interests are typically subjugated, the positive prospective change represents an opportunity for Black collective action to be freed from the usual constraints emanating from a racially stratified system.
The emergence of hope then represents the removal of a critical barrier to Black collective action—the perception that such action will amount to little within the extant environment. Consistent with the claim by
The potential carried by hope to disrupt the usual resignation regarding the sociopolitical environment should be uniquely felt by African Americans. Despite the increasing salience of White racial identity (
In response to cues of opportunity that can animate hope, African Americans’ distinct emotional sentiment shapes their subsequent appraisal of the cue, regulating their emotional and subsequent behavioral response to the cue in a racially distinct manner. I illustrate this model of racial emotion regulation in
Racial Emotion Regulation Model—Illustrating the effect of hope on group efficacy and behavior.
My claim regarding the action mobilizing force of hope adds a new dimension to scholarship on the respective motivating effects of threat and opportunity on political behavior. Studies by
I contend that as a consequence of their unique emotional sentiment forged as a racially conscious and socially marginalized group, African Americans exhibit unique responses to opportunity cues, uncovering a pathway for such cues to be distinctly mobilizing for the group. This is because such cues can interrupt the group’s collective disposition of inefficacy, generating a hope that motivates increased political behavior through causing Black individuals to reappraise their collective efficacy within the environment.
Accordingly, I expect hope engendered among African Americans to prime heightened senses of the group’s political efficacy. This expectation runs counter to extant literature, which links efficacy to anger rather than hope (
I expect to find that expressed hope carries a stronger mobilizing effect for Black than for White participants (H1). Accordingly, opportunity cues will elicit greater participation from African Americans relative to Whites (H2). Finally, I expect to find that hope engendered among Black Americans will prime greater perceptions of group efficacy (H3a) and a positive appraisal of the responsiveness of the policy environment (H3b). In contrast, reported hope will exhibit null association with White participants’ perceptions of group efficacy (H4a) and their appraisals of the policy environment (H4b).
A survey experiment conducted in the Detroit metro area from May 2013 through May 2014 investigated racial differences in participants’ emotional and participatory responses to messages signaling policy opportunity. The experiment addressed a local area issue that carried political relevance for participants—privatization of Detroit’s water board. Proponents argued this move would lead to safer, more efficient and cost effective service, while opponents argued the move would cost local jobs and lessen accountability over residents’ water service. The pro arguments were mirrored in the opportunity condition to which participants were randomly assigned.
The treatment design provides high ecological validity by approximating how participants would be exposed to such messaging in real-world contexts. Treatments take the form of political flyers from a local political advocacy organization believed to be authentic by participants. Participants in the opportunity condition view images of contented people with the headline:
Participants in the control condition view a flyer purportedly from an independent research group. This flyer contains no images of people, with the headline:
This flyer departs from the typical control condition, as rather than address an irrelevant issue, it presents the same issue absent emotion priming language. Thus, participants' prior awareness of and attitudes about the DWSD issue are as relevant to their responses in the control condition as in the treatment conditions.
A convenience sample of 287 adult (148 Black, 139 White) residents of the Detroit metro area were recruited for participation in the study via invitations to mailing lists of registered voters, advertising in local newspapers, and the researcher entering local area churches, universities and workplaces with invitations to take the survey. The average age of the sample was 32 years (
Black and White participants varied as expected in perceptions of the sociopolitical environment. A pre-treatment question asks participants:
The first post-treatment question is a five category measure gauging participants' opinion on the DWSD privatization. This question measures how effectively the treatments affected participants' views of the DWSD privatization, across variations in prior knowledge of the issue and attention paid to the flyer. Among Black participants, mean approval for privatization hovers right around the midpoint in the control condition (
Near the end of the instrument, participants answered multiple choice questions asking them to correctly identify elements of the treatment flyers they viewed. Just over 70% percent of participants correctly identified the region of Michigan represented by the political group named on the flyer. Just under 71% of participants correctly identified the make-up of the people in the photo on the flyer they viewed. Just over 50% of participants could correctly identify the name of the political group to which the flyer was attributed. These variations indicate participants varied in attention paid to and retention of the flyers. Although this likely imposed limits on the observable main effects, it better approximates how people process and respond to varying political messages in the real world.
The first measure of respondents' participation is a direct invitation to sign their name to a letter being sent to the state legislature:
In addition to this direct measure of immediate participation, participants reported their likelihood of
Participants' emotional responses to the flyers were measured via self-reports of the extent to which they felt each of the following emotions while viewing the flyer:
Participants' senses of collective efficacy were measured with a post-test question asking:
All variables are rescaled to range in value from 0 to 1 (see Table A2 in the
Variable | Con. |
Opp. |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
Black | -0.03 (0.53) | .96 | 0.67 (0.42) | .11 |
175 | 81 |
To make direct comparisons of the action stimulating effects of hope on Black and White participants, I ran logistic regression models including an interaction between reported hope and participant race.
Variable | Sign letter |
Attend meeting |
Discuss w/ others |
Contact officials |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Black | 0.36 (0.32) | .27 | 0.73 (0.33) | .02 | 0.21 (0.33) | .52 | 0.78 (0.33) | .02 |
Hope | 0.67 (0.56) | .23 | 0.38 (0.58) | .52 | 0.76 (0.58) | .19 | 0.61 (0.58) | .30 |
Black*Hope | 0.79 (0.91) | .38 | 1.12 (0.94) | .23 | 2.20 (1.18) | .06 | 1.48 (0.97) | .13 |
321 | 317 | 317 | 317 |
The coefficient on the interaction term is positive across all four actions, but only reaches one-tailed significance for the action of discussing the restructuring with others. Calculating the predicted probabilities from these interactions, the marginal effects of hope on participation are substantially higher for Black than White participants—about 20 percentage points larger in the domain of signing the letter, 25 points larger for discussing the restructuring with others, 15 points larger for attending a meeting on DWSD, and about 40 points larger for contacting local officials.
The strong mobilizing effect of hope on Black participation portends that African American participants would be uniquely responsive to the opportunity treatment.
Variable | Sign letter |
Attend meeting |
Discuss with others |
Contact officials |
||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Con. |
Opp. |
Con. |
Opp. |
Con. |
Opp. |
Con. |
Opp. |
|||||||||
Black | 0.63 (0.58) | .30 | 1.23 (0.47) | .01 | 1.11 (0.52) | .03 | 0.90 (0.44) | .04 | 0.85 (0.50) | .09 | 0.76 (0.40) | .06 | 1.11 (0.52) | .03 | 0.52 (0.43) | .23 |
59 | 91 | 59 | 89 | 59 | 88 | 59 | 89 |
Exposure to the policy opportunity treatment causes Black participants to be substantially more likely than their White counterparts to take the immediate action of signing the letter. Additionally, Black participants report a higher likelihood of attending a meeting addressing the DWSD restructuring and discussing the issue with others.
These results provide only partial support for Hypothesis 2, as Black participants were generally more participatory regardless of their assignment to the control or opportunity condition. To clarify the relationship between exposure to the policy opportunity frame, expressed hope and participation, I constructed structural models for Black and White participants separately. The models predict the effect of assignment to the opportunity treatment on participants’ participation likelihood, mediated by their reported hope.
Neither subsample reaches the recommended sample size of 200; however the ratios of participants to free parameters exceed the recommended ratio of 5:1 (
Variable | Black |
White |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
Hope | ||||
Total | 0.37 (0.19) | .05 | 0.20 (0.15) | .18 |
Opportunity | ||||
Total | -0.07 (0.10) | .53 | -0.12 (0.09) | .20 |
Indirect | 0.05 (0.03) | .10 | 0.02 (0.02) | .29 |
Direct | -0.12 (0.11) | .26 | -0.14 (0.09) | .14 |
Reported hope has a positive and significant effect on Black participation, but exerts a null effect on White likelihood of signing the letter. The opportunity treatment itself exerts null direct effects on participation for both Black and White participants. Exposure to this treatment yields small, significant increases in reported hopefulness among both Black (β = 0.15,
Thus, while the opportunity frame effectively engenders hope among both Black and White participants, only among Black participants is reported hope positively associated with taking action on the DWSD restructuring. The opportunity frame provides a clearer pathway to collective action for African Americans than their White counterparts (path diagrams displayed in Figure A2 in the
Variable | Attend meeting |
Discuss with others |
Contact officials |
|||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Black |
White |
Black |
White |
Black |
White |
|||||||
Hope | ||||||||||||
Total | 0.14 (0.11) | .21 | 0.02 (0.07) | .75 | 0.46 (0.12) | < .001 | -0.03 (0.08) | .71 | 0.24 (0.11) | < .001 | -0.01 (0.06) | .85 |
Opp. | ||||||||||||
Total | -0.05 (0.06) | .39 | -0.02 (0.04) | .58 | -0.09 (0.07) | .20 | -0.04 (0.05) | .44 | -0.13 (0.02) | .04 | -0.02 (0.04) | .85 |
Indirect | 0.02 (0.02) | .24 | 0.00 (0.01) | .75 | 0.07 (0.03) | .02 | -0.00 (0.01) | .72 | 0.05 (0.02) | .04 | -0.00 (0.01) | .85 |
Direct | -0.07 (0.06) | .24 | -0.03 (0.04) | .56 | -0.16 (0.07) | .02 | -0.04 (0.05) | .48 | -0.18 (0.06) | < .001 | -0.02 (0.04) | .58 |
Turning to the direct treatment effects on participation, exposure to the opportunity flyer exhibits significant
I test the final set of hypotheses by examining the associations between reported hope and participants' perceptions of group efficacy on the DWSD issue. I ran ordered logistic regressions including an interaction between participant race and reported hope on the post-test indicators of collective efficacy and appraisal of the policy environment.
Variable | Community influence |
Preferred outcome |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
Black | -0.35 (0.37) | .35 | -0.67 (0.42) | .11 |
Hope | 0.29 (0.70) | .68 | -0.66 (0.72) | .36 |
Black*Hope | 1.72 (1.23) | .16 | 2.93 (1.35) | .03 |
317 | 312 |
The interaction between participant race and reported hope achieves two-tailed significance in the domain of participants' belief that their preferences on the restructuring will be met. Calculating the marginal effects of hope for each subject group yields an effect of reported hope on perceptions of community influence that is about 27 points higher among Black participants. The effect of reported hope on participants’ sense of efficacy is about 39 points higher among Black participants than among White participants.
Study 1 provided support for Hypotheses 1 and 3a through 4b, while offering less consistent support for Hypothesis 2. Exposure to the policy opportunity treatment engendered increased hope among both Black and White participants. But only for Black participants did this emotion state discernibly impact political behavior. Further, among Black but not White participants, expressed hope appeared to prime increased perceptions of group efficacy and a positive appraisal of the responsiveness of the policy environment.
The Study 1 treatment design enhanced the ecological validity of the study. The findings, however, remain limited to a relatively small sample in a particular geographic and temporal context. The null effects for White participants appear to reflect a fundamental distinction in racial groups’ responses to hope cues. Yet some of insignificant treatment and emotion effects on participation among Black participants may be attributable to the study’s reduced power. Study 2 addressed these concerns by examining a large sample in a nationally representative survey data set.
Study 2 analyzes the pooled American National Election Study (ANES), a large and nationally representative pre- and post-election survey of political attitudes conducted every Presidential election year since 1948. Beginning in 1980, the ANES has asked participants whether the Presidential incumbent and the major party Presidential candidates have made them feel each of the following emotions: angry, afraid, proud and hopeful. I examine racial differences in the propensity of a set of White and Black partisans to express hope toward favored partisans, and compare the effects of reported hopefulness on respondents’ vote participation and reported external efficacy.
Although past work indicates that African Americans expressed little optimism regarding the capacity of the Obama administration to achieve substantive policy gains for the racial ingroup (
I therefore operationalize the Obama era as a context of distinct political opportunity for African Americans. Accordingly, models are run separately for the years 2008 and 2012, in order to determine whether the presence of Barack Obama on the ballot produced a distinct effect of hopefulness on Black political behavior. I expect that during this era, African Americans will be more hopeful (H5) and more participatory (H6) relative to their White counterparts during this time period. Additionally, I expect that the hope expressed by Black Democrats toward Obama bolsters their reported external efficacy, while producing null effects for White respondents (H7).
I ran a series of logistic regression models to test the hypotheses. Due to the partisan affiliation of both Obama and a majority of Black survey respondents, analyses are limited to Democratic identifiers. This allows for examination of how racial emotion regulation creates distinct responses to common political figures from people sharing a salient political identity.
Between the years 1980 and 2012, the ANES contains samples of 4,345 self-identified Black respondents and 22,676 self-identified White respondents. The 2008 and 2012 surveys contained oversamples of Black respondents. More than 84% of Black respondents in the sample identify as Democrats.
The first dependent variables is a dichotomous measure of respondent answers to the following question:
Respondent participation is measured via a dichotomous self-report of whether or not respondents voted in the Presidential election. The act of voting offers respondents the most direct means to translate their affect for presidential figures to action.
The regression models include as controls the demographic variables of
The ANES contains no direct measures of respondents’ senses of racial group efficacy. In its stead, I use the
Finally, a measure of incumbents’ evaluations of the Presidential incumbent is included.
Variable | Pre-Obama 1980-2004 |
Obama 2008-12 |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
Black | 0.17 (0.09) | .07 | 0.71 (0.13) | < .001 |
Religious attendance | 0.12 (0.11) | .26 | 0.01 (0.17) | .96 |
Woman | 0.15 (0.07) | .02 | -0.02 (0.10) | .85 |
South | -0.23 (0.07) | < .001 | -0.08 (0.11) | .46 |
Age | 0.31 (0.20) | .13 | -0.51 (0.30) | .09 |
Household income | -0.23 (0.13) | .09 | 0.62 (0.20) | < .001 |
Education | 1.13 (0.12) | < .001 | 1.15 (0.20) | < .001 |
Party ID strength | 1.39 (0.13) | < .001 | 1.09 (0.19) | < .001 |
Distrust in govt. | 0.03 (0.15) | .83 | 0.09 (0.20) | .64 |
Incumbent approval | -0.37 (0.07) | < .001 | 1.22 (0.10) | < .001 |
Constant | -0.44 (0.19) | .02 | -0.38 (0.26) | .14 |
Pseudo |
.04 | .11 | ||
4920 | 3975 |
Results for the years 2008 and 2012 are shown separately in the second column in order to isolate the “Obama” effect on African Americans’ reports of hope. Black Democrats are indeed substantially more likely than their White counterparts to report hope in the Obama era. During the pre-Obama years, Black Democrats are also more likely than their White counterparts to express hope toward Democratic incumbents and candidates, albeit by a much smaller margin substantially. Consistent with Hypothesis 5, African Americans' proclivity to express in-partisan hope is magnified in an era marked by unique political opportunity for the group.
Variable | Pre-Obama 1980-2004 |
Obama 2008-12 |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
Black | 0.11 (018) | .54 | 1.58 (0.33) | < .001 |
Hope toward Democrats | 0.28 (0.09) | < .001 | 0.80 (0.14) | < .001 |
Black*Hope | 0.04 (0.21) | .83 | 0.87 (0.35) | .01 |
Religious attendance | 1.03 (0.13) | < .001 | 0.65 (0.17) | < .001 |
Woman | -0.03 (0.08) | .72 | 0.09 (0.09) | .32 |
South | -0.42 (0.08) | < .001 | -0.45 (0.10) | < .001 |
Age | 2.65 (0.23) | < .001 | 2.56 (0.28) | < .001 |
Household income | 1.55 (0.15) | < .001 | 1.28 (0.18) | < .001 |
Education | 2.37 (0.15) | < .001 | 2.08 (0.19) | < .001 |
Party ID strength | 1.33 (0.15) | < .001 | 1.64 (0.17) | < .001 |
Distrust in govt. | -0.21 (0.17) | .23 | 0.03 (0.18) | .89 |
Incumbent approval | -0.30 (0.08) | < .001 | -0.06 (0.10) | .57 |
constant | -2.52 (0.22) | < .001 | -3.02 (0.27) | < .001 |
Pseudo |
.16 | .17 | ||
4833 | 3793 |
Whereas Democrats’ reported hope toward favored partisans is positively associated with turnout during the pre-Obama era, the effect of hope increases substantially during the Obama era. From the years 1980 through 2004, Black Democrats are no more likely than White Democrats to cast a ballot. In the years 2008 and 2012, Black Democrats are significantly more likely than their White co-partisans to vote. Additionally, in the Obama era the interaction term between Democrat race and hope is positive and significant at the .05 alpha level, indicating that hope exerts a stronger influence on voting among Black than White Democrats. These results strongly support Hypothesis 6.
Predicted probability plots—Marginal effects of hope on vote likelihood, across Democrat race and election years. Includes 95% confidence intervals.
Variable | Pre-Obama 1980-2004 |
Obama 2008-12 |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
Black | 0.19 (0.18) | .29 | 0.29 (0.54) | .59 |
Hope toward Democrats | -0.08 (0.08) | .35 | -0.34 (0.25) | .17 |
Black*Hope | 0.10 (0.21) | .62 | 0.39 (0.55) | .49 |
Religious attendance | -0.16 (0.11) | .15 | 0.22 (0.22) | .30 |
Woman | 0.01 (0.07) | .89 | 0.17 (0.13) | .17 |
South | -0.06 (0.07) | .41 | -0.08 (0.13) | .55 |
Age | 0.64 (0.21) | < .001 | -0.77 (0.39) | .05 |
Household income | -0.79 (0.13) | < .001 | -0.75 (0.24) | < .001 |
Education | -0.99 (0.12) | < .001 | -1.09 (0.24) | < .001 |
Party ID strength | -0.64 (0.15) | < .001 | -0.56 (0.25) | .02 |
Distrust in govt. | 2.38 (0.15) | < .001 | 2.47 (0.25) | < .001 |
Incumbent approval | 0.38 (0.07) | < .001 | 0.28 (0.14) | .04 |
Constant | 0.32 (0.19) | .10 | 1.60 (0.38) | < .001 |
Pseudo |
.08 | .08 | ||
4830 | 2035 |
Reported hope from both Black and White Democrats exhibits null effects on the external efficacy measure, across both the pre-Obama and Obama eras. As expected, Black Democrats express no more efficacy than White Democrats during the years 1980 through 2004. Yet despite a larger coefficient effect size, African Americans remain no more likely than Whites to report greater efficacy during the Obama era. Finally, the interaction term between Democrat race and hope is positive but exceeded by its standard error term in across both eras. These results do not support Hypothesis 7. Across all designated years, Democrats’ reported hope failed to exhibit empirically discernible positive effects on their external efficacy.
Conducted on a national sample, Study 2 yields findings similar to Study 1, indicating that hope produces distinctly mobilizing effects for African Americans. Further, this action-motivating hope was only animated among African Americans in a context of political opportunity—operationalized as the Obama era. This study also demonstrates that the unique translation of hope to action among African Americans is robust to differences of socioeconomic status and social and political engagement.
Yet in contrast to the first study, these analyses did not yield evidence that the hope engendered among African Americans in the Obama era spurred greater efficacy. This set of null results may be a reflection of usage of efficacy measures that do not directly gauge respondents’ senses of their racial group’s collective capacity to exhibit political influence. Alternately, this may suggest that African American Democrats’ positive affect toward Obama did not fundamentally alter their modal skepticism regarding their collective political influence. In this context, hope may have stimulated Black political participation not through increasing perceptions of collective efficacy, but rather by minimizing the effect of those perceptions on African Americans' decision to turnout.
The studies presented here provide strong indication that contexts of opportunity can effectively mobilize collective action among a socially marginalized group. The emotion state of hope emerged as a critical pathway to action for African Americans, while exhibiting null or substantively small effects on the participation of White Americans. Taken together, these studies indicate that when African Americans face a concrete object of hope—represented either by a promising prospective policy change or a descriptively representative political actor—they respond in kind with increased motivation to take up political action.
Yet the studies varied in indicating whether hope mobilizes Black participation through enhancing group members’ sense of efficacy, preventing me from drawing conclusive results about efficacy’s role in mediating the effect of hope on Black participation. Whereas Study 1 revealed strong associations between Black participants’ expressions of hope and their expressions of community efficacy, Study 2 revealed no association between hope induced by Obama and general efficacy. Identifying alternate design decisions that would address this and other lingering issues offers a blueprint for future work to arrive at a more refined understanding of how hope engendered among African Americans can prime greater collective efficacy and mobilize political participation among the group.
Despite the design of the experimental treatments to include elements such as emotive faces (
Both studies relied on self-reported responses to close-ended questions to measure participants’ emotional responses to the respective objects. This operationalization method leaves open the question of whether participants agree on what is meant by “hopeful” or “optimistic.” Further, whereas Study 1 allowed participants to exhibit variations in the degrees to which they felt the reported emotions, Study 2 allowed for only dichotomous yes or no responses. I was thus precluded from examining how variations in either intensity or frequency of hope felt toward the Presidential figures influenced turnout.
Alternate measurements of participants’ emotional responses to the objects include open-ended self-reports, or batteries of close-ended questions asking participants to report intensity and frequency with which they feel the given emotion. Additionally, imposition of a time series element can allow participants to report pre-test emotion levels as a reference point against which to compare their reported emotions in response to the prime, administered at a later time. This design element allows for exploration of the duration of the hope’s effect on African Americans’ assessments of their collective influence within the political environment, and their corresponding behavior.
Whereas Study 2 measured turnout, Study 1 did not measure participants’ participation in costly political behavior. Beyond the relatively cost-free act of signing their name to a letter address to the state legislature, only participants’ declared intent to engage in future action was measured. An alternate design can address this issue by creating concrete opportunities for participants to engage in real behavior, such as inviting them to make a monetary donation in real time.
Finally, neither study contained direct measures of participants’ perceptions of their racial group efficacy or the responsiveness of the political system to their racial group. Due to the entrenched racial residential segregation in Detroit, the community influence question is a suitable proxy for participants’ perceptions of their racial group efficacy. But the ANES relies on measures of external efficacy that utilize the nebulous concept of “people like me” as respondents’ referent group. Inclusion of questions that directly gauge participants’ perceptions of their racial group’s influence over politics can clarify the relationship between hope, group efficacy and behavior.
This is particularly important given the inconsistent trends emergent from the studies. Would Study 2 yield a stronger mediating role for group efficacy in the relationship between expressed hope and turnout if direct measures of collective racial efficacy were available? Or does a focus on the realm of national electoral politics (compared to local non-partisan politics) illustrate the recalcitrance of Black perceptions of collective efficacy to hope inspiring actors?
To summarize, future work can address the limitations of these studies by employing more visually or aurally stimulating emotion primes, offering a more comprehensive set of response options for participants to report the intensity or frequency of emotions felt in response to the treatments, including measures of direct participation in a variety of actions post-test, and providing direct measures of participants’ racial group efficacy, both pre- and post-test. Such design decisions will further illuminate the distinct effects of hope on Black perceptions of efficacy and political behavior. Additionally, such designs can provide insight into whether the effects of hope are immediate and short lived, or remain robust over time.
Despite the limitations of these studies, clear racial differences emerged in how Black and White participants responded to emotionally and behaviorally to policy opportunity contexts. Those differences carry strong generalizability to real-world settings, in which people are continuously exposed to competing messages about relevant political issues and actors, with their prior knowledge and perceptions of those issues and actors shaping their receptivity to those messages.
The studies also highlight the challenge of disentangling the causal effects of emotion and efficacy on behavior. While Study 1 revealed positive associations between hope and reported efficacy that were unique to African Americans, I was unable to demonstrate a positive association between efficacy and participants’ participation.
Usage of more precise measures of efficacy that prime specific group identities such as race, gender or religious affiliation can result in more refined analyses of how perceptions of collective efficacy shape political behavior—both in contexts of threat, which have been examined thoroughly, and in contexts of opportunity, which have been understudied. Additionally, these measures can clarify the mechanisms through which different emotions exert varying effects on political behavior across social group identities. Future work in this area can inform the efforts of political actors and groups seeking to mobilize African Americans, and perhaps other socio-politically marginalized groups more broadly, by highlighting opportunity cues as a viable pathway to increased political engagement.
Following the lead of
The findings presented here indicate that the rhetorical appeals to hope long prevalent in Black political discourses—from Rev. Jesse Jackson’s spirited cries to
The Supplementary Materials include a figure illustrating the racial emotion regulation model, the control and treatment flyers from Study 1, a path analysis model from Study 1, and a predicted probability plot from Study 2 (for access see Index of
This research was supported in part by a grant from the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP).
The author has declared that no competing interests exist.
The author thanks Olugbenga Olumolade for invaluable assistance and encouragement, Ted Brader, Vincent Hutchings, Nancy Burns and Ann C. Lin for guidance on the experimental study, and Leonie Huddy, David Redlawsk, Samara Klar, Greg Huber, Antoine Banks and Ismail White for their helpful feedback. Finally, I thank the anonymous reviewers and JSPP editor for constructive comments, which were instrumental in improving the manuscript.
The original experiment also contained a third treatment condition framing the DWSD restructuring as a threat. For the purposes of this study, comparisons across treatment conditions will focus only on the control and opportunity conditions.