Elections and Post Traumatic Stress: Evidence from the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

Authors

Timothy Fraser, Cornell University
Costas Panagopoulos, Northeastern University
Kevin Smith, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2023

Citation

Published: (2023) Politics and the Life Sciences. DOI: 10.1017/pls.2023.8

Comments

Used by permission.

Abstract

The 2020 U.S. presidential election saw rising political tensions among ordinary voters and political elites, with fears of election violence culminating in the January 6th riot. We hypothesized that the 2020 election might have been traumatic for some voters, producing measurable symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We also hypothesized that negative sentiment towards the opposing party correlates with PTSD. We measured PTSD with a modified PCL-5, a validated PTSD screener, for 573 individuals from a nationally representative YouGov sample. We modeled the association between affective polarization and PTSD, controlling for political, demographic, and psychological traits. We estimate that 12.5% of American adults (95% CI: 9.2 to 15.9%) experienced election-related PTSD, far higher than 3.5%, the annual PTSD prevalence rate. Additionally, negativity towards opposing partisans correlated with PTSD symptoms. These findings highlight a potential need to support Americans affected by election-related trauma.