Title: Emotional Representation: Identifying the Characteristics and Consequences of Elected Officials Mirroring the Emotions of Their Constituents
(with Christopher Stout, Gregory Leslie, and Elizabeth Schroeder)

Abstract: In this study, we identify a previously overlooked component of representation, which we label ‘emotional representation.’ Emotional representation occurs when elected officials mirror the dominant emotional state of a constituent group through their public outreach. First, to explore the existence of emotional representation, we examine the degree to which members of Congress mirrored Black people’s documented increase in expressions of anger following the murder of
George Floyd in the Summer of 2020. Using a regression discontinuity design and sentiment analysis including 305,358 tweets, 190,192 Facebook Posts, and 35,409 press releases, we show that descriptively representative MCs provide the highest levels of emotional representation. Second, to examine the impact of emotional representation, we deploy a two-stage experiment to 390 Black respondents. We find that Black people who increased in anger after being primed with images of police violence view elected officials who engage in emotional representation as more
favorable, empathetic, and trustworthy.