Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Publication Title

Journal of Social Issues

Keywords

2024 election, critical action, daily diary, emotions, political stress

Abstract

The 2024 US election was stressful. Taking critical actions (i.e., behaviors that address social or economic inequality) may reduce or exacerbate election stress and negative emotions. This daily diary study, spanning 20 consecutive days throughout the 2024 election, takes an exploratory and descriptive approach to understand adolescents’ daily critical action and its association with political stress and emotions. Participants (N = 32, Mage = 15.53, SD = 1.19), most of whom were White (59.4%), female (62.5%) and Democrat (71.9%), reported taking critical action frequently, especially before and a few days following the election. Participants were more likely to take critical action on days when they reported political stress and negative emotions. Lagged (spill-over) effects were not significant when controlling for same-day constructs. Critical action may increase or decrease stress and negative emotions. If adolescents use critical action as a coping mechanism, they may do so in an immediate fashion.

Funding Source

This project was funded by the American Psychological Association's Division 15 Policy Grant. The funder did not play a role in the study design, analysis of data, interpretation of results, or writing of this manuscript. This article was published Open Access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Wiley.

Comments

First published in Journal of Social Issues (2026): https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.70070

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.1111/josi.70070

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