Publications
Arceneaux, K., Foucault, M., Giannelos, K., Ladd, J., & Zengin, C. (2024) Facebook increases political knowledge, reduces well-being and informational treatments do little to help. Royal Society Open Science. 11: 240280
| Arceneaux-et-al-2024-facebook-increases-political-knowledge-reduces-well-being-and-informational-treatments-do-little.pdf |
Nearly three billion people actively use Facebook, making it the largest social media platform in the world. Previous research shows that the social media platform reduces users’ happiness, while increasing political knowledge. It also may increase partisan polarization. Working to build a scientific consensus, we test whether the potential negative effects of Facebook use can be overcome with the help of minimalist informational interventions that a parallel line of research has shown to be effective at inducing people to be more accurate and civil. We conducted a pre-registered well-powered Facebook deactivation experiment during the 2022 French presidential election. In line with previous research, we find that deactivating Facebook increases subjective well-being and reduces political knowledge. However, deactivating Facebook had no overall effect on the level of political or social polarization during the election. Moreover, we find little evidence that minimalist informational interventions in a field setting helped individuals who deactivated Facebook to become better informed.
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Zengin, C. (2024). The Role of Self-Conscious Emotions in Polarized Societies. Temple University (PhD thesis)
| Zengin_(2024)_Thesis_Self_conscios_emotions.pdf |
In modern times, there is an increasing tendency to use “us versus them” rhetoric in the political realm. Motivated reasoning literature offers a solution as to how group conflict contributes to out-group bias. People may develop negative feelings towards out-groups in order to reduce cognitive dissonance and feel better about their judgments. Nevertheless, this is not the situation for everyone. My research aims to understand how peoples’ predisposed tendencies may affect the level of their out-group bias. Drawing from the distinction between shame (a negative sense of identity) and guilt (a response to a specific behavior) in psychology, I hypothesized that self-conscious emotions would moderate the relationship between information about in-group transgressions and out-group bias. To test this, I conducted a survey experiment with three different groups: Men/Women, White/Black people, and Democrats/Republicans. Participants were randomly assigned to watch videos depicting misbehavior from their respective group. Results showed that the proneness to self-conscious emotions did moderate the relationship to some extent, although the connection between shame and guilt proneness was more complex than anticipated. Criticizing one’s in-group generally caused people to experience cognitive dissonance and reinforced out-group bias, particularly among those who were highly prone to both shame and guilt. The three-way interaction between treatment, shame proneness, and guilt proneness varied across and within the different identity categories, suggesting that there is no single theory that can entirely explain the degree of out-group bias.
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Working Papers
Zengin, C. (in progress) Shame, Guilt, Political Tribalism: How Emotional Predispositions Shape Racial Attitudes.
| Pre-analysis plan |
In modern times, there is a growing trend of using "us versus them" rhetoric in a political tribalism context. However, there has also been an increasing awareness among White people about racial inequality towards other racial groups in the United States. Political cleavages literature argues that when there are two groups that are political rivals, one tends to dislike the other. However, this notion contradicts the actions of those who acknowledge and do good for the other side. To better understand this puzzle, I conducted a survey experiment among White and Black people to examine how their predisposed tendencies (shame and guilt proneness) may explain the variance in their out-group discrimination. The results showed that negative information about the in-group (a) caused cognitive dissonance for both groups, (b) increased out-group discrimination among White people with high shame and guilt-proneness, and (c) among Black people, particularly for those who are guilt-prone and strongly attached to their identity. Overall, the relationship between shame and guilt proneness is complex and has a intricate structure, especially when considering the racial context.
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Zengin, C. (in progress) From Shame to Populism: The Role of Pride in Political Attitude
| Pre-analysis plan |
Research on the role of emotions in populist movements is a rising trend, yet one type of set of emotions has been understudied: Self-Conscious Emotions. ‘Cooley-Scheff conjecture’ states that “adults are virtually always in a state of either pride or shame, usually of a quite unostentatious kind” to monitor social bonds (Scheff, 1988; p:399). So, how would this phenomenon pertain to individual’s political behavior in terms of their group identity? In this paper, I investigate (1) whether exposure to populist messages will elicit pride more among shame-prone individuals, and (2) the role of pride as a mediator for an explanation for populist attitudes through 3-sample survey experiment (Gender, Race, and Party Identity) in the United States.
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Zengin, C., Ladd, J., Giannelos, K., Foucault, M. & Arceneaux, K. (in progress) The Modest Consequences of Social Media for Major Political Communication Processes: Evidence from a Field Experiment in France
| Pre-analysis plan |
A growing portion of people in advanced democracies use social media to get at least some of their political news. How does this social media use alter the longstanding ways that they interact with the overall media system? We use a preregistered randomized field experiment to study the consequences of social media use for several phenomena that have long been prominent in the political communication literature. The experiment incentivized those in a treatment group to deactivate their Facebook accounts during the 2022 French presidential election campaign. We find that Facebook use increases the power of media agenda-setting and may (by one measure) decrease people’s tendencies to live in ideological online echo chambers. We find no detectable effect of Facebook use on trust in the mainstream media or trust in social media. We also review a finding we reported in another paper that Facebook use increases people’s knowledge of real mainstream news stories and has no effect on receptivity to disinformation. We argue that, taken together, these findings cast doubt on fears that social media will worsen various negative trends in political media use. If anything, social media seems to intensify longstanding media effects like agenda setting, which have been common since the broadcast news era
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Szegőfi, Á., Zengin, C. & Lachat, R. (in progress) How Does ID Verification on Social Media Influence Political and Social Behavior?
| Pre-analysis plan |
The spread of misinformation, rumors, or conspiracies on social media is not new, and is particularly intense in periods of crisis. Social media platforms have tried different options to constrain the spread of fake news, however existing methods mostly approach the problem from the side of content. Another way to handle the issue is to concentrate on the sources, that is, providing evidence for users to trust good sources and become mindful of others that have a history of deceptive communication. The exact way how the trustworthiness of sources can be communicated online ranges from basic authentication towards more elaborate scoring systems. In this research, we intend to measure the effects of a variety of source-verification strategies that influence user engagement and the user's ability to tease apart credible information from non-credible. For measurement, we rely on a mock social media platform similar to X which participants can engage with in the same manner as they do with actual social media sites.
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Arceneaux, K., Hansen, K., & Zengin, C. (in progress) Is There a Connection between Social Devaluation and Support for Populism?
The education cleavage in populist voting constitutes a fundamental transformation of Western democracies. While anger is a central driver of populist support, it remains a puzzle why the same structural threats (economic and cultural) only fuel anger among less educated, low-income voters, while it cannot explain anger among less educated, well-off voters and the opposite among high-education, low-income voters. This registered report proposes a social psychological explanation that centers on the discrepancy between how much people believe that their social group should be valued and how much they think they are actually valued in society. Using a four-country survey experiment that exposes respondents to group-based social devaluation, we shed light on the psychological and emotional factors that motivate voters to be more receptive to populism in this current political moment.
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Upcoming Projects
with Bono, P.H., Bol, D., & Arceneaux, K. -- Regret & Guilt in the Ballot Box: Emotional Drivers of Electoral Behavior
The study examines the distinct effects of regret & guilt on electoral behavior. Drawing on theories of self-discrepancy and regulatory focus, we investigate how emotions from action vs. inaction influence voter turnout and candidate preference.
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with Pentz, J. -- Why Do People Join Non-State Armed Groups? Emotions’ Role in Rebel Recruitment
We investigate the relationship between shame & guilt on joining non-state armed groups. By referring to the theories of perceived status threat and victimisation, we investigate how these emotions people's decision making
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with Nedregård, O. -- Self-conscious Emotions in Climate Action
This research explores how self-conscious emotions shape climate-related behaviors. Through a randomized experiment, participants will encounter guilt, regret, or neutral messaging about environmental impact. Immediate actions and future intentions will be measured to uncover emotional pathways that motivate sustainable decision-making.
