Emotional representation: Identifying the characteristics and consequences of elected officials mirroring the emotions of their constituents

Abstract This study examines which elected officials are most likely to mirror their constituents' emotions in public outreach—a concept we term emotional representation. We also analyze the significance of emotional representation for the targeted group. To accomplish these goals, 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 the sentiment analysis of 305,358 tweets, 190,192 Facebook Posts, and 35,409 press releases, we show that descriptive representatives provide the highest levels of emotional representation. To examine the impact of emotional representation, we deployed 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.