Appealing to Meaning Increases Political Interest

Some people find politics immensely interesting, while others do not. This paper proposes that political interest can in part be explained by the meaning that people find in politics. Evidence from six experiments (n=5,767) shows that appealing to meaning can increase political interest. In these studies, treated participants provide information about what they find meaningful in their lives, with their responses leveraged in on-the-fly treatments that connect their responses to politics. These treatments lead people otherwise disinterested in politics and policy to become more interested in both. The effects of meaning on interest are sizable, equivalent to 43.1% of the pre-treatment divide in political interest between strong and non-strong partisans and 61.1% of the divide between those with and without college degrees. These results offer a new way of understanding---and increasing---political interest.