Politicians know that turning on the tears can be a vote winner, but how does the political manipulation of our emotions actually work Research in Political Psychology1 explores how emotions such as anxiety, even if their cause has nothing to do with politics, can result in a hardening of our views. Theres been a lot of focus in recent years on emotions and political attitudes, but the ways we, as political scientists, have studied this phenomena2 have made it hard to draw firm conclusions, said Dr. Jonathan Renshon, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We bypassed many of the methodological problems of previous studies by inducing an emotion unrelated to politics and measuring its effects not with self-reports but with tonic3 skin conductance.The authors believed that induced anxiety could carry over to impact political beliefs, potentially triggering prejudice toward groups such as immigrants. When anxiety levels are high voters are more likely to recall negative experiences with immigrants and interpret ambiguous（模糊不清的） information in a more negative and threatening manner.To test the theory 138 men from Cambridge, Massachusetts were asked to watch a series of videos before answering surveys. First the group watched relaxing images of beaches and palm trees, before being divided into groups. Two groups watched soothing4（抚慰的） music or a screensaver of abstract shapes.. The third group was subjected to Sylvester Stallones Cliffhanger.The results showed that the heightened physiological5 reactivity caused by watching two minutes of rope dangling6（悬挂的） peril7, led to stronger anti-immigration attitudes.We found that the anxiety we generated was powerful enough that people couldnt simply turn it off, it carried over to unrelated domains8 and actually influenced peoples political beliefs, particularly their attitudes towards immigrants, concluded Renshon. This is all the more important as political campaigns become more adept9 at stimulating10 and manipulating the emotions of the general public.
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1 psychology n.心理，心理学，心理状况 参考例句： She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。 He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。
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