Charts reveal where your feelings about politics are felt in the body

"Researchers asked nearly 1,000 participants to draw maps of where they felt emotions in everyday life, then draw them again while thinking about politics. This revealed that disgust, depression, hope, and anxiety are felt quite differently when they are evoked by politics. Political disgust, for example, is felt in the chest and arms rather than the stomach - appearing much more like normal anger."

"The study also found a clear divide between left-wing and right-wing voters. Left-leaning voters who might favour Labour or the Green Party were found to feel these negative emotions far more strongly than people on the right. Adding the political context doesn't just change how angry, depressed, or hopeful someone is; it changes how they physically feel those emotions."

"Lead author Dr Andrea Vik, from Royal Holloway University, says: 'We tend to think of political emotions as things people simply think about, like how angry you are on a scale of one to ten.' But emotions are so much more than a scale; emotions are felt and lived through the body. We may feel "butterflies in our stomach" or "weak in the knees"."

"Disgust is typically related to a feeling of physical sickness, brought on by a desire to purge yourself of anything harmful. If you see some rotten food, for example, your emotion of disgust is also connected to a physical reaction to the threat of infection. This means that disgust, as an emotion, is intensely felt in the stomach and throat. But when people were asked to think of something that disgusted them in politics, the feeling manifested more strongly in the ches"

Researchers mapped where emotions are felt in everyday life and again while participants thought about politics. Nearly 1,000 participants drew emotion maps for hope, anger, anxiety, depression, and disgust. Political disgust appeared in the chest and arms rather than the stomach, resembling normal anger more than typical disgust. Political context changed not only the intensity of anger, depression, and hope, but also the physical experience of those emotions. A divide emerged between left-wing and right-wing voters, with left-leaning voters reporting stronger negative emotions than right-leaning voters. The findings link political disgust to different bodily patterns than disgust triggered by physical contamination.

Read at Mail Online