Hope for the Best or Fear for the Worst: Utopian vs Dystopian Outlooks as Political Engagement Motivators

The present research aimed to test whether prescriptive and proscriptive mindsets can motivate people to become politically engaged, and whether political orientation, emotion, and cognition play a role in this relationship. Prescriptive and proscriptive manipulations did not lead to stronger political engagement than a control condition in the context of activism related to Black and Blue Lives Matter (Study 1). Positive emotions mediated the relationship between prescriptive manipulations and stronger political engagement relative to control, and negative emotions mediated the relationship between proscriptive manipulations and stronger political engagement in the context of the U.S. 2020 presidential election. Political orientation moderated these relationships such that both emotional pathways were stronger for conservatives compared to liberals, whereas beliefs about candidates did not mediate either pathway (Study 2). Findings are discussed in terms of implications for moral motives theory and motivated cognition theory, and for future experimental work in motivation for political engagement.