University of São Paulo: Emotions such as fear and hope are tools for mass mobilization in politics
Since the 20th century, during the rise of Nazi-fascism, researchers have studied how emotions manifest themselves in politics, both in grand speeches and during election periods. According to Antonio Euzébios Filho, professor at the Institute of Psychology at USP, emotions and politics are inseparable, since they are part of human nature: “ Affection is manifested in encounters and politics is made of encounters. You cannot think about politics without affection. This has been improved over the years with political marketing strategies”.
Rodrigo Ratier, professor at the Department of Journalism at USP, states that the electoral context is, in itself, a context of manipulation and instrumentalization of emotions, in which politics becomes a central and identity aspect of people’s lives.
In the field of predominantly explored sentiments, experts see that politicians with successful campaigns alternate between fear and hope to captivate the public. For Euzébios Filho, the extreme right is usually organized by fear: “It is fear against the destruction of the family, against the supposed communism that surrounds the country. On the other hand, you have the hope of improving, of a better world, of income distribution. They [the two affections] bring people together”.
“Fear is related to the fear of losing something in the conservative camp, because the conservative wants to keep something”, reiterates Ratier. “Hope, on the other hand, points towards a project, towards a utopia, towards positive changes and, in this sense, I think it is an emotion more linked to the progressive”, he adds.
Anger and fear were emotions used by Fernando Collor when he arrived at Planalto, while former president Lula won in 2002 with a speech captivated by enthusiasm and hope. The Yes We Can campaign of Barack Obama’s election in the United States was also marked by positive affections.
But, in Ratier’s opinion, in the current global moment, negative emotions predominate, as hope is uncertain and builds imaginary futures, while fear works with the attribution of enemies, contributing to the emergence of radical groups.
Other mobilization instruments
The journalist also explains about confirmation bias and social bubbles, common tools in the sphere of radical political collectives: “If we think about the algorithms of social networks, computer programs that decide what will appear on our timeline, the Their main instruction concerns user engagement. If you’ve interacted with a certain type of content, more content similar to that will appear for you.” This happens in a way that the individual becomes cloistered in a community that thinks similarly to him, which can lead to radical thinking.
Another trick used is moral panic, a mobilization of negative affects regarding morality and the intimate forum, such as specters of sexuality called by conservative groups of “gender ideology” as a threat to society and non-Christian religions.
Euzébios Filho sees that hate speech coming from extremist groups can lead to violence, both verbal and physical, and affect people’s psychology: “ Polarization is usually accompanied by violence, and violence brings fear, it brings emotional wear and tear. , brings a state of alert and can generate psychosocial trauma, leading the person to isolation or a life restricted to those homogeneous groups that agree with him [the individual]”.
The psychologist also warns of the use of fake news, juggling misinformation that are very common in the current scenario of political polarization and that have the power to affect human emotions. According to him, fake news can be accompanied by the defamation of the enemy’s image, a discriminatory attack with the power to completely affect another person’s life.