Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

Date of Award

Spring 2026

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

College

College of Science and Health

First Advisor

Nyssa Snow-Hill

Abstract

The United States of America is in a time of political division. Research shows that political ideological alignment is related to emotional processing. Further understanding this relationship may be useful to bridging the political divide. This exploratory research study investigated the relationship between cognitive and affective meta-perceptions of five discrete emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust) and political ideological alignment. The study was guided by three exploratory research questions: Are meta-perceptions of emotion, assessed by affective and cognitive attitudes toward discrete emotions (joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust), related to political identification and political ideology? Are affective and cognitive meta-perceptions of emotion equally relevant to political identification and political ideology? Does the interaction between cognitive and affective evaluations of discrete emotions (joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust) predict political identification and political ideology alignment? Only affective attitudes toward anger and cognitive attitudes toward fear showed significant zero-order correlations with political ideology. Bootstrapped regression analyses predicting political ideology from both affective meta-perceptions of anger and cognitive meta-perceptions of fear showed that only attitudes toward anger significantly predicted political ideological alignment. Specifically, more positive affective attitudes toward anger predicted weaker alignment with liberal ideology. Anger should be further explored as an emotion that may guide and inform conservative-leaning individuals on their stance.

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