Politics are rife with emotions. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests emotions alone may not determine whether people are satisfied with democracy.
After elections, a familiar pattern emerges across democracies. Election winners tend to feel more satisfied with democracy than those whose candidates lose. For decades, political scientists have debated why this "winner-loser gap" exists.
Is it driven by emotion - the simple joy of winning and disappointment of losing - or by expectations about the policies a new government will deliver?
Using a creative approach involving the World Cup, the Super Bowl and Disney's "The Lion King," the study found evidence suggesting that democratic legitimacy rests less on emotional rhetoric and more on delivering on policy promises.
Doing so may help sustain confidence in democracy even among those who did not win, especially if, where possible, electoral "losers" still see their interests reflected in policy.
The study also offers a cautionary note, according to the researchers.
Efforts to inflame emotions or vilify opponents are unlikely to strengthen public support for democracy itself and may only deepen political disaffection.
"If you really want to build durable democratic support, turn down the temperature and focus on policy," said Shane P. Singh, lead author of the study and the Joshua W. Jones Professor of Public and International Affairs in the UGA School of Public and International Affairs.
The winner-loser gap in politics
Separating emotional reactions from policy expectations in elections is difficult since winning delivers both emotional and political rewards.
To isolate emotion alone, Singh and his colleagues looked beyond elections to situations where winning and losing are emotionally powerful but politically irrelevant.
The research team began with the 2022 Super Bowl, surveying people in the Cincinnati and Los Angeles regions before and after the game. As expected, fans of the winning team experienced an emotional boost, while fans of the losing team did not. But when researchers examined participants' satisfaction with democracy, they found no meaningful change.
We changed people's moods but not their democratic attitudes.
Shane Singh, School of Public and International Affairs
"That was the first big signal," Singh said. "We were clearly seeing changes in emotions, but those shifts weren't translating into changes in how people felt about democracy."
To see whether the result held on a global scale, the team repeated the study around the 2022 World Cup final between Argentina and France. Once again, emotions moved sharply. And once again, satisfaction with democracy remained largely unchanged.
Emotions unlikely to affect feelings about state of democracy
In a controlled experiment, participants watched either a joyful clip (the "Hakuna Matata" scene from "The Lion King") or a sad clip (the scene depicting Mufasa's death).
The clips worked exactly as intended: Viewers of the happy scene reported feeling happier, and viewers of the sad scene reported feeling sadder. But these strong emotional shifts had no effect on satisfaction with democracy.
"At that point, it became clear we could rule out irrelevant emotions as a driver," Singh said. "We changed people's moods but not their democratic attitudes."
What does this mean for democracy?
These insights highlight that democracy's strength depends on real policy results and fulfilled expectations from policymakers rather than short-lived emotional responses, Singh said.
For voters, Singh hopes the study reinforces a longer‑term perspective.
"Democracy is cyclical," he said. "You win some; you lose some. Losing doesn't mean the system has failed. It means there will be another chance in the future."
Published in Political Psychology, the study was co-authored by Patrick Fournier and Jason Roy.
