Core Beliefs Disruption in the Context of an Election: Implications for Subjective Well-Being

Abstract

Major life events often challenge the core beliefs people hold about the world, which is a crucial cognitive process predictive of adjustment outcomes. Elections have been associated with physical and socioemotional responses, but what is unclear is whether core beliefs can be disrupted and what implication this disruption might have for well-being. In two studies, we examined the association between core beliefs disruption and well-being in the context of the 2018 U.S. midterm election. In both studies, participants reported a small degree of disruption of core beliefs due to the election. In Study 1, a 14-day daily diary study spanning the weeks before and after the election, multilevel modeling on 529 daily reports revealed that greater disruption of core beliefs was associated with lower mean levels of life satisfaction and greater changes in positive and negative affect. In Study 2, a cross-sectional study conducted 40 days following the election, linear regression analyses on 767 adults aged 18–77 from all 50 states revealed that the disruption of core beliefs due to the midterm election was positively associated with current life satisfaction. The effect held when controlling for multiple confounding factors. These findings suggest that elections can trigger disruption of core beliefs, and this disruption may spill over to subjective well-being in the short term but may positively contribute to post-election adjustment.

Age, education, and political involvement differences in daily election-related stress

“…Factors within a person’s life may impact whether they will participate in such activities and their exposure to election-related stressors. Zhu and Neupert ( 2021 ) discovered that the 2018 midterm election resulted in disruptions to peoples’ core beliefs, indicating that elections have a substantial impact on subjective well-being. Political involvement in the United States has changed dramatically in recent decades, now including social media activism (Shea, 2015 ) and being a socially conscious consumer (Ward & de Vreese, 2011 ).…”

“…In order to understand the relationship between age, level of education, past political involvement, political orientation, exposure to election-related stressors, and anticipation of election-related stress, participants took part in the 2018 U.S. Midterm Election Stress Coping and Prevention Every Day (ESCAPED) study (Zhu & Neupert, 2021 ). After the participants were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk), they were presented with a survey link to click on that redirected them to Qualtrics.…”

A Coordinated Analysis of Physical Reactivity to Daily Stressors: Age and Proactive Coping Matter

“…Participants from Study 2 were 140 adults from the ESCAPED (Election Stress Coping and Prevention Every Day) [37,38] study and were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (mTurk) (M Age = 35.37, SD = 9.14, range = 19-86). Sample size was determined based on prior studies [35] and recommendations for daily diary studies [36], with the goal to maximize the number of participants and days for the available grant funds.…”

Anticipatory stress during an election: A daily diary study

“…Participants were 125 adults in the U.S. as part of the Election Stress Coping and Prevention Every Day (ESCAPED; Early et al, 2022; Zhu & Neupert, 2021) study recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (mTurk). A total of 1056 daily reports were provided.…”

“…Daily diary methods are widely used to study dynamic psychosocial processes (e.g., stress response) within individuals (Almeida, 2005), particularly as an event unfolds over time (Neupert et al, 2006). Therefore, they have also been used in election studies (Neupert et al, 2021; Roche & Jacobson, 2019; Zhu & Neupert, 2021). The mid‐term election day was November 6th, 2018, and the study was conducted from October 15th to November 13th, 2018.…”