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Today's gift guide examines the role of emotion in politics: The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation and Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work .
In The Political Brain, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, demonstrates how the brain processes information. His conclusion: "The idea of the mind as a cool calculator that makes decisions by weighing the evidence bears no relation to how the brain actually works." The book details Presidential election data from the 1950s through 2000, looking for how emotion affects voting behavior.
Westen shows, through a tour of American political leaders and how they have appealed to voters, that Americans vote with their hearts, not their heads. In doing so, he focuses on emotional intelligence and the importance of narrative, or storytelling, to present policy choices. In his research, Westen bucks the conventional wisdom of many cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists.
In Campaigning for Hearts and Minds, Ted Brader shows us the results of experiments conducted during a Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign, demonstrating (if anyone doubted) that keeping text unchanged while modifying music or imagery can provoke completely different voter response to a TV ad.
He also analyzes more than 1,500 ads from the 2004 campaign to demonstrate the power of fear and enthusiasm on message received. It also integrates neuroscience; both are published by an academic press but are approachable for a lay audience.
Buy these books! The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation and Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work