Emotions expressed by leaders in videos predict political aggression

Abstract

Matsumoto, Hwang, and Frank [2012a. Emotions expressed in speeches by leaders of ideologically motivated groups predict aggression. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. doi:10.1080/19434472.2012.716449] provided evidence that the verbal expression of anger, contempt, and disgust by leaders of ideologically motivated groups when talking about their archrival opponent outgroups is associated with subsequent political aggression. That study was limited in two ways, first because it only analyzed emotions expressed in text, and second because it analyzed only text excerpts that directly mentioned the outgroups. In this study, we remedied both limitations by analyzing emotions nonverbally expressed by leaders in videos, and by comparing both outgroup and non-outgroup mentions. Leaders of groups that eventually committed acts of aggression expressed significantly more anger, contempt, and disgust when talking about their archrival opponent outgroups than when not talking, whereas there was no such difference for acts of resistance. These findings reinforced the potentially important role of anger, contempt, and disgust in the escalation to political aggression.