Wednesday 14 May, assistant professor Talbot Andrews from Cornell University visits our department. She studies how policy design and the changing environment interact with individuals’ attitudes to shape their behavior related to environmental policy and climate change.

She will give a talk titled “Emotions as information in the face of disaster” from 10:00-11:00 in the large meeting room (1330-126). Find the abstract and a short bio below.

All are all most welcome, no registration needed.

Individual meetings:

Talbot will also have some time for individual research meetings on 14 May. Please email Lene Aarøe if you would like to meet with Talbot Andrews.

Short abstract:

 “Emotions as information in the face of disaster”

Politics is often marked by disaster, and in an increasingly interconnected world we are exposed to others’ emotional responses to such disaster. In this paper I argue emotions are a form of information: When we observe someone express a negative emotion in response to a specific public risk, we can infer (1) the event is worth being concerned about, (2) the expressor is simply and emotional person, and/or (3) the expressor is trying to manipulate others with their (feigned or exaggerated) emotional expression. When does such expression successfully convince others to support policies to address public risks? I propose and test three dimensions both between and within risks that affect whether emotional expression persuades others to support government intervention to address the public risk, rather than causing observers to dismiss the expressor as simply emotional or manipulative. These include perceptions of harm caused by the risk, both on average and to the person expressing their emotions; perceptions of whether everyday Americans can protect themselves from the risk; and the level of partisan disagreement about whether and how to address the risk. Emotional expression has the potential to persuade observers support risk prevention policies. But, just like other forms of information, the persuasive power of emotional expression is contingent on contextual factors. Advances in textual and visual data analyses have provided new tools in identifying the prevalence of emotional expression across media sources, and this work offers a theoretical foundation for the inferences observers make when faced with the emotional expression of others.

Short bio:

Talbot Andrews is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Government at Cornell University. Her research examines how policy design and environmental change interact with public beliefs, attitudes, and behavior with a special focus on climate change and environmental policy. She also studies political accountability and how public opinion responds to environmental disasters. Her work has appeared in Nature Climate Change, The Journal of Politics, Political Psychology and Political Behavior, and her book Climate Games investigates collective responses to climate risk. Before moving to Cornell University, Tabot Andrews has been a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University and an assistant professor at University of Connecticut. She has also been a visiting scholar at NYU. She received her PhD from Stony Brook University in 2020.