Professor Jonathan Roiser and Dr Luca Bernardi on the impact of politics on our mental health

Good etiquette has long dictated that it is best to avoid talking politics at the dinner table.

Following the 2024 US election, dozens of articles appeared online about how to ‘survive Thanksgiving’ with family members who have different political beliefs than your own. Likewise, almost a decade after the Brexit vote, opinion still divides families on this side of the pond and many people may feel like politics is a subject to steer clear of.

But is political engagement good for us? Despite what some may think, the OECD Centre on Well-being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity recently concluded that mental health and civic engagement are two important factors contributing to our wellbeing.

So far, research has largely focused on how poor mental health influences the way we engage in politics. However, politics has the capacity to evoke intense emotions, affecting people’s emotional wellbeing and potentially contributing to mental ill-health.

In a new project co-led by Professor Jonathan Roiser (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience) and Dr Luca Bernardi (Department of Politics, University of Liverpool), the researchers will be looking at how politics-based stressors can impact our mental health.

“The idea that there could be a link between politics and mental health is relatively recent, and even a decade ago it was not a topic of substantial research,” says Dr Bernardi.

“Political scientists have long been interested in how emotions play out in voting behaviour, but only recently have they started questioning the impact of political events, typically elections, on mood and well-being.”

Just think back on how you felt following the last election. Depending on whether your preferred candidate won or lost, you may have felt elated or disheartened when you turned on the television the following day. But how long do these feelings last and how deeply do they affect us? The research team plan to find out.

“Our study is the first to go beyond short-term measurements, studying symptoms of mental health problems in the longer term,” Professor Roiser explains, “Another novel aspect of the project is that it also explores the cognitive, emotional and social mechanisms that help explain the impact of politics-based stress on mental health, and also strategies that might affect its impact.”

This study couldn’t be timelier. With our world often feeling increasingly polarised, it can seem as if we are all living in echo chambers, with little openness to listen and debate opinions.

Dr Bernardi says: “Negative events such as economic and migration crises, climate breakdown or wars, and the loss of trust in and perceived responsiveness of politicians and the political system, are increasing.

“Although antipathy towards people from opposing political camps may paradoxically improve mood under certain circumstances – in the same way that football fans may dislike fans of their rival team and experience satisfaction from being surrounded by people who feel the same way – the consequences for society are worrying.”

The research team’s overarching hypothesis is that negative experience of politics as perceived by citizens – whether ineffective policies, feeling left behind, or distrusting political institutions – may increase symptoms of mental distress.

Professor Roiser says: “Not every person reacts in the same way, and therefore we think that some people are more vulnerable than others. Our project considers a number of factors that may moderate the association between politics and mental health, including having a personal history or family history of mental illness, having experienced trauma in childhood, employing counter-productive emotion regulation strategies, or exhibiting certain negative cognitive biases.”

In the first stage of the project, generous grants from the UCL Grand Challenges on Mental Health and Wellbeing and the University of Liverpool have allowed the team to collect original data in the context of the UK 2024 General Election, focusing on young people.

“The focus on young people is for two reasons. Firstly, there has been an increased prevalence of mental disorders among young people since the early 2000s, with just under half of adolescents reporting that they have experienced some form of clinically relevant mental health symptoms. Secondly, there has been a declining electoral turnout among young adults in Western societies,” Dr Bernardi explains.

The project will look at both the short and long-term effects of politics on mental health. To study the short-term effects, the team asked a sample of around 250 participants to keep a daily diary in the lead up to and after the UK General Election and were able to replicate the study in the USA ahead of the Presidential Election.

To explore the long-term effects on mental health, the researchers are also conducting a two-wave panel survey among approximately 1,500 participants in the UK. A survey was completed by participants in the election’s immediate aftermath and a follow-up survey was conducted six months later.

“The large-scale survey study will allow us to test which psychological strategies may reduce the negative impact of political stressors on mental health,” says Professor Roiser, “Our findings might inform how political parties prepare and deliver information on elections to those groups who are more vulnerable, such as young people at a higher risk of mental health problems.”

Dr Bernaldi adds: “Preliminary analyses of our survey from the first wave suggest that avoiding the news and not using social media is associated with finding politics more stressful, which in turn is associated with poorer mental health. However, it’s difficult to disentangle cause and effect in these analyses, as it could be that people avoid the news or social media precisely because they find politics more stressful. Collecting follow-up data, which we are doing right now, will give us better insights into cause and effect.”

While we wait for the results of the study, the researchers are already in agreement about steps we can take to build our resilience to how poor mental health and the political landscape both affect us.

Professor Roiser says: “One of the most important challenges facing democracies today is disaffection and apathy. We can all help contribute to counteracting these feelings by relying on high-quality, trustworthy, and diverse sources of information, by critically engaging with peers and ‘disagreeing well,’ by actively participating in political and civic engagement, and by maintaining hope for a better future.”

Perhaps then, talking politics at the dinner table shouldn’t be so controversial after all.

This research project is ongoing. Professor Roiser and Dr Bernardi would like to thank all who have contributed to the project so far including: Dr Emma Bridger (University of Leicester), Dr Jack Blumenau (UCL), Dr Yumeya Yamamori (UCL alumni) and Mr Rowan Board (UCL PhD student).

Image credit: Markus Spiske, Pexels

Biography

Jonathan Roiser is Professor of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience where he co-directs the Neuroscience and Mental Health Group. His research interests lie in understanding the brain and psychological processes driving mental health problems and their treatment, especially disrupted motivation in depression. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers and his recent research has been funded by Wellcome, the Leverhulme Trust and the Rosetrees Trust. He founded and directs two PhD schemes: the UCL-NIMH Joint Doctoral Training Program in Neuroscience; and the UCL Wellcome 4-year PhD Programme in Mental Health Science.

Dr Luca Bernardi is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department of Politics at the University of Liverpool. He joined the Department as a Lecturer in Politics in September 2019. Before moving to Liverpool, he was a Juan de la Cierva-formación Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science and Public Law at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.