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Politicians may have good reason to turn to angry rhetoric, according to 鈥攖he strategy seems to work, at least in the short term.听

In a new study, Carey Stapleton at CU Boulder and Ryan Dawkins at the U.S. Air Force Academy discovered that political furor may spread easily: Ordinary citizens can start to mirror the angry emotions of the politicians they read about in the news. Such 鈥渆motional contagion鈥� might even drive some voters who would otherwise tune out of politics to head to the polls.听

鈥淧oliticians want to get reelected, and anger is a powerful tool that they can use to make that happen,鈥� said Stapleton, who recently earned his PhD in political science at CU Boulder.听

He and Dawkins, an assistant professor, published their results this month in the journal Political Research Quarterly.

The researchers surveyed roughly 1,400 people online from across the political spectrum, presenting them with a series of mock news stories about a recent political debate. They discovered that when it comes to politics, anger may lead to more anger. Subjects who read about an enraged politician from their own party were more likely to report feeling mad themselves than people who didn鈥檛. Those same steaming partisans also reported that they were more likely to get involved in politics, from attending rallies to voting on Election Day.听

鈥淎nger is a very strong, short-term emotion that motivates people into action,鈥� said Stapleton. 鈥淏ut there can be these much more negative implications in the long term. There鈥檚 always the potential that anger can turn into rage and violence.鈥�

Tempers rising

Anger and politics in the U.S. have long gone hand-in-hand鈥攖he nation鈥檚 second president, John Adams, once referred to Alexander Hamilton as a 鈥渂astard brat of a Scotch peddler.鈥� But Stapleton and Dawkins鈥� findings come at a time when American politics has grown especially divisive.听

, in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, 鈥渁round nine-in-ten Trump and Biden supporters said there would be 鈥榣asting harm鈥� to the nation if the other candidate won.鈥� That anger boiled over with deadly results when a mob of supporters of then-President Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.听

Stapleton, who is not related to the Colorado political family, wanted to find out just how contagious those kinds of emotions could be. He will start a position as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Notre Dame in the fall.听

鈥淢ost political science research to date has focused on what we do when we feel an emotion like anger, rather than how our emotions affect other people,鈥� Stapleton said.

Fighting words

To find out how the emotions of politicians might rub off on their supporters, he and Dawkins ran an experiment. The duo wrote a series of news stories about a debate on immigration policy between two candidates for an open Congressional seat in Minnesota. Unbeknownst to the study's subjects, neither the candidates nor their debate were real.听

In some cases, the faux politicians used language that tipped into outrage (although it might still look tame in the current political landscape). 鈥淲hen I look at our borders, I鈥檓 enraged by what I see,鈥� as an example. In other cases, the soap boxers stuck to more neutral language.

The team鈥檚 results are among the first to show what many Americans have long known鈥攖hat political anger can be a powerful force.听听

鈥淲e report being angrier after seeing our fellow partisans being angry,鈥� Stapleton said. 鈥淲hen the other side is angry, it doesn鈥檛 seem to affect us much at all.鈥�

If Democrats read about a fellow Democrat getting mad, for example, they often reported feeling angry themselves. In contrast, blue voters who encountered neutral information or saw an angry quote from a Republican didn鈥檛 experience the same swings in emotion.听

The study also brought a twist: The people who were the most susceptible to those shifts weren鈥檛 the die-hard partisans on either side of the aisle. They were more moderate voters.

鈥淭he really far left and right are already so amped up,鈥� Stapleton said. 鈥淏ut these weakly-aligned partisans who are notoriously less likely to participate in elections were more susceptible to changing their emotions.鈥�

For Stapleton, the results carry an important lesson for ordinary voters: When watching the news, people should pay attention to how politicians may try to appeal to or even manipulate emotions to get what they want. But, he added, anger is only part of the picture. In a previous study, he and his colleagues than pessimists.

鈥淎nger is one way we can get people to vote and get engaged in politics, but it鈥檚 not the only way,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 have to be all doom and gloom.鈥�