Collective future orientation, group-based emotions, and support for policy

Abstract

While past studies have demonstrated the role of group-based emotions in intergroup attitudes within the context of intractable conflicts, it is unknown how individual temporal perspectives, namely collective future orientations and political ideology, moderate the relationship between conflict-related emotions and support for policies. In two exploratory studies, we adopted a functional approach to emotions in conflict and examined whether the associations between the three group-based emotions of compassion, hope, and hatred and support for conciliatory versus aggressive policies were moderated by individual perceptions of collective future and by political ideology. The results indicate that the way group-based emotions predict support for policies is moderated by both future and political orientation, such that high collective future orientation reduces the effect of positively-valenced emotions on support for conciliatory policies, and increases the effect of negatively-valenced emotions on support for aggressive policies, but only among leftwingers. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this nuanced link between group-based emotions and support for policies, moderated by political ideology and collective future orientation.