Incivility Diminishes Interest in What Politicians Have to Say

Abstract

Incivility is prevalent in society suggesting a potential benefit. Within politics, theorists and strategists often claim incivility grabs attention and stokes interest in what a politician has to say. In contrast, we propose incivility diminishes overall interest in what a politician has to say because people find the incivility morally distasteful. Studies 1a and 1b examined the relationship between uncivil language and followership in the Twitter feeds of Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, finding incivility reduced their following on the platform. In Studies 2–3, we manipulated how uncivil a number of politicians were and found that incivility consistently depressed interest in what they had to say. These effects of incivility are generalized to both political allies and opponents. Observers’ moral disapproval of the incivility mediated the diminished interest, suppressing the attention-grabbing nature of incivility. Altogether, our findings indicate that the public reacts more negatively to political incivility than previously thought.