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The Divergent Effects of Anxiety on Political Participation: Anxiety Inhibits Participation Among the Socio-Economic and Racially Marginalized

Podob, Andrew W
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7120-8309
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1606995880407543

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Political Science.
This dissertation presents an exploration of anxiety for politics distinct from previous study in political psychology. Previous studies report on anxiety's potential to mobilize the electorate. Anxiety has been shown to bring political activation, to help sustain the collective action needed for civic and political participation, to increase willingness for compromise, to encourage political learning, and to increase trust in experts. But for many, the political world underlies much of their anxiety. Consider members of marginalized groups, many of whom are chronically taxed by politics, which can rewire neural networks in the brain and which leaves them with less available mental bandwidth to conduct themselves civically and politically. Taken together, I predict members of marginalized groups respond differently to anxiety than members of non-marginalized groups. While non-marginalized persons can muster their cognitive resources to channel anxiety into action, the precarious situations of many marginalized people merits devoting their cognitive resources elsewhere, leaving them demobilized by their anxiety. In Chapter 2 I lay bare this theory and annotate specific hypotheses. In Chapter 3 I launch a preregistered survey experiment to test my theory among a sample of Black subjects, White subjects, and Hispanic subjects, on welfare and off. Findings offer support for a heterogeneous understanding of anxiety's effects. Higher levels of anxiety caused the marginalized to be less likely to express an interest in voting than the non-marginalized. Furthermore, the interactive effect of race and welfare status inhibited participation the most among the intersectionally marginalized. In Chapter 4 I offer robustness tests for my hypotheses, testing for moderated mediation in particular. In Chapter 5 I conclude by discussing the broad implications of my findings, how government and politics can foster anxiety among the masses, but in particular the negative consequences it has for political participation among the marginalized.
Thomas Nelson (Committee Chair)
William Minozzi (Committee Member)
Thomas Wood (Committee Member)
Michael Neblo (Committee Member)
212 p.
Behavioral Sciences; Cognitive Psychology; Political Science; Public Policy; Social Psychology; Social Research
Anxiety, state-anxiety, marginalized groups, intersectionally-marginalized groups, intersectional marginalization, African Americans, Hispanics, welfare recipients, Medicaid, food stamps, SNAP

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Podob, A. W. (2020). The Divergent Effects of Anxiety on Political Participation: Anxiety Inhibits Participation Among the Socio-Economic and Racially Marginalized [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1606995880407543

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Podob, Andrew. The Divergent Effects of Anxiety on Political Participation: Anxiety Inhibits Participation Among the Socio-Economic and Racially Marginalized. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1606995880407543.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Podob, Andrew. "The Divergent Effects of Anxiety on Political Participation: Anxiety Inhibits Participation Among the Socio-Economic and Racially Marginalized." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1606995880407543

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1606995880407543
605
© 2020, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License The Divergent Effects of Anxiety on Political Participation: Anxiety Inhibits Participation Among the Socio-Economic and Racially Marginalized by Andrew W Podob is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.