Emotional stratification in context: sources of anger and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic

In line with long-held assumptions in the sociology of emotions, recent research from different disciplines suggests that emotional experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic were socially stratified, reflecting existing social inequalities. Specifically, this research indicates that citizens with lower socioeconomic status experienced more negative emotions, in particular anger and anxiety, compared to those in higher socioeconomic status positions. To achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the stratification of emotional experience during this crisis, we argue that it is essential to account for crisis-induced changes to people’s socioeconomic status and to better understand the specific objects of citizens’ negative emotions – in other words, address the question of what people get emotional about. To this end, we collected data from a stratified sample of the German general population during the COVID-19 pandemic using an online questionnaire (N=1,004). We investigated the emotional stratification of anger and anxiety, specifically looking at income loss as crisis-induced downward social mobility and at different sources of these emotions. Findings show that income loss is a more robust predictor of anger and anxiety as compared to absolute levels of household income, underscoring the importance of a dynamic perspective on stratification. Second, we found that income loss increased anger and anxiety in response to specific aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In summary, emotional stratification during the pandemic was context-specific and driven by downward social mobility rather than relatively stable social-structural positions.