When does activism benefit well-being? Evidence from a longitudinal study of Clinton voters in the 2016 U.S. presidential election

Contrary to the expectations of many, Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The initial shock to her supporters turned into despair for most, but not everyone was affected equally. We draw from the literature on political activism, identity, and self-other overlap in predicting t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2019-09, Vol.14 (9), p.e0221754-e0221754
Main Authors: Dwyer, Patrick C, Chang, Yen-Ping, Hannay, Jason, Algoe, Sara B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Activists
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Biology and Life Sciences
Clinton, Hillary Rodham
Correlation analysis
Depression (Mood disorder)
Depression - physiopathology
Elections
Emotions - physiology
Female
Health aspects
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Medicine and Health Sciences
Middle Aged
Political activism
Political Activism - trends
Political aspects
Political participation
Politics
Presidential elections
Public Health
Research and Analysis Methods
Risk factors
Self esteem
Shock
Sleep
Social action
Social aspects
Social Sciences
Voters
Young Adult
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Summary:Contrary to the expectations of many, Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The initial shock to her supporters turned into despair for most, but not everyone was affected equally. We draw from the literature on political activism, identity, and self-other overlap in predicting that not all Clinton voters would be equivalently crushed by her loss. Specifically, we hypothesize that pre-election measures of political activism, and level of self-other identification between participants and Clinton-that is, how much a person was "with her"-will interact to predict the level of distress of Clinton voters two months later. Longitudinal data support our hypothesis. Notably, among Clinton voters, greater activism negatively predicted depressive symptoms, and positively predicted sleep quality, but only when participants were highly identified with Clinton. We discuss the implications of the results for theory and research on social action and well-being.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0221754