Pride and Compassion: How Emotional Strategies Target Audiences in Political Communication?

Abstract

The paper discusses appeals to pride and compassion as emotional strategies for mobilization in political communication, developing the Emotional Rescue Model of enthusiasm, anger, and fear. Exploring general results of brain activity, facial expressions, cognitive responses, attitude change, and prosocial behavior, it examines how compelling pride-related and compassion-related narratives are. Moreover, it considers the possibilities of targeting emotional content to specific audiences, verifying how results correspond with participants’ empathy, political preferences, and attitudes toward collective remembrance. The paper explores age, gender, and election attendance as other possible factors correlated with the outcomes of manipulation. In conclusion, it suggested that appeals to pride should target supporters of the cause, but compassionate narratives can address non-supporters and undecided recipients.