Dr. Atkeson Awarded NSF Grant

Departmental News

Posted:  May 26, 2017 - 12:00pm

Dr. Lonna Atkeson was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant to support her project "Emotion Regulation, Attitudes, and Activism in Extraordinary Times". 

Project Abstract:

Transitions of power from one party to another in a democracy creates a unique political context because the prospect of substantial and sometimes unexpected changes in economic, social, or foreign policy stimulates heated debate and strong emotions in the public. This evolving context permits the testing of key theories about how emotion regulation shapes expressive and social political action, including posting on social media, attending town hall meetings, contacting elected officials, signing petitions, and participating in marches or protests. This knowledge helps us better predict when and why emotions fuel broad-scale political activism and conflict. The data generated from this project provide the broader research community with the first multi-wave panel survey tracking how individual attitudes and behavior change over time in response to political events during the first year of a party transition in the United States. The survey is the first in political science to study how emotion regulation habits vary across individuals in society and considers whether, over time, these habits foster agreement or polarization.