Featured Article
Over twenty percent of public remains fearful about job potential in next year
A new SenseUs® report that measured emotional response to the U.S. economy, reveals an interesting dichotomy within U.S. voters—perceptions about the economy may be improving, but feelings about job security remain lower than the unemployment statistics suggest.
A new SenseUs® report that measured emotional response to the U.S. economy, reveals an interesting dichotomy within U.S. voters—perceptions about the economy may be improving, but feelings about job security remain lower than the unemployment statistics suggest.
Over twenty percent of those surveyed are “gloomy” to “fearful” about the potential for having employment in the next year. Forty percent of U.S. voters in each party do feel positive about employment potential in the next year, with the remaining mostly Ambivalent.
“Although not yet positive about the current economy and Obama’s economic plan, Democrat and Independent voters’ feelings have become far less negative and more “ambivalent”—or emotionally on the fence, states Jon Morris, Ph.D., president of AdSAM® and a University of Florida professor. SenseUs used the AdSAM measure to assess the feelings of the voting public. “We see an economic outlook trend that is still cautious but more emotionally stable.”
Nevertheless, despite expressing some level of optimism for the future of the economy under the Obama administration, Democrats’ enthusiasm and confidence has diminished over the last year. “The public seems reluctant to give Obama credit for any economic improvements. This appears to be due in large part to a lack of a well-formed opinion of the Obama economic plan. Until the benefits and consequences of the plan are understood or experienced by the individual, ambivalent feelings are likely to remain prevalent.”
Current feelings about President Obama suggest that the Democratic Party is fairly united behind the president, as over 70 percent expressed positive feelings. Yet, Democrats’ exuberance for Obama has waned since October 2008—“enthusiastic” feelings have decreased 10 percent while “comfortable” and “ambivalent” feelings have increased nine and 14 percent respectively. Morris finds that this may be an indication of an “emotional cooling off” for Obama or just a natural normalization of the intense pre-election feelings measured last October when the SenseUs economy survey was last fielded.
Independents’ feelings about the President are fairly diverse while negative emotions predominate for Republican voters. Republicans’ feelings about the economy have grown intensely more negative over last year, and voters in this party are largely “alarmed” by Obama’s economic plan.
In conjunction with Medefield, a provider of online healthcare and pharmaceutical market research, AdSAM surveyed 405 voters from the 2008 election and 207 physicians in its sixth online SenseUs survey. “Tapping into and understanding emotions permits us to more fully comprehend why people think and act the way they do. Human responses are generally a combination of rational and emotional processing,” Morris said. “Because emotions are the precursor to action, this type of polling device delves deep into a person’s emotions to interpret and predict attitudes, preferences and behavior.”
About AdSAM:
AdSAM is a non-verbal, cross-cultural, visual measure that accurately taps into the core of human emotional responses. It is designed to identify the relationship among attitude, cognition, brand interest and purchase intention. For over two decades, AdSAM has been applied in over 600 proprietary marketing and communications studies and incorporated into the research of many Fortune 500 companies. Visit www.adsam.com for more information.
Go back to the home pageComment
2008 SenseUS™ Presidential Survey
SenseUS™ measures emotion response to Democratic and Republican candidates and major issues. All candidates are compared by party and overall.
To view past blog entries, please click below.
Achived ArticlesSenseUs seeks to understand the hearts and minds of voters
Voters Only Care About Giuliani, Clinton and Obama
The SenseUS Executive Report shows...
Democrats Feel Better About Party Than Candidates; Republicans Feel Better About Giuliani Than Party
Republican Voters becoming less accepting of war effort; many issues emotionally shaping candidate positions
OBAMA CAPTURING HEARTS OF INDEPENDENT VOTERS, CLINTON’S NEGATIVES SURFACE AS DISGUST; GIULIANI MILDLY POLARIZING
Jan. 2008 Polling: McCain Becomes Leading Candidate Based on Feelings
Hillary Clinton takes an Emotional Tumble among all voters, but particularly Independents.
SenseUs™ Poll compares changes in voters’ feeling about candidates since September 07
Voters feelings about prescription drug ads.
