By 1849 the kindergarten spread across the German Confederation as an alternative space of revolutionary politics and protest. I argue that the kindergarten worked alongside the barricade as a key location to protest traditional forms of state and religious authority and cultivate a new humanity that centered on women's gendered labor and children's education. For the founder of the kindergarten Friedrich Fröbel and his supporters, the classroom was a garden for the future in which educators and children alike could “perform utopia.” For female revolutionaries, the kindergarten provided a forum to make political claims in ways not open elsewhere. This article provides insight not only into the history of Central Europe in the Age of Revolutions, but also into the histories of emotions, gender, and education. I argue that historians should examine how ideas of “utopian hope” have been utilized in moments of upheaval to create new spaces of opposition.

In International Relations (IR) scholarship, there is a growing body of research on the connections between emotions, stigma, and norm violations. It is often presumed that for stigma imposition to be successful, norm violators should feel shame. We argue instead that the emotional dynamics that inform the management of stigma are more complex and involve overlooked emotions such as anxiety, sadness, and hopelessness. We substantiate this by analysing the successful stigmatisation of anti-war voices in Azerbaijan during the 2020 Karabakh war. While the vast majority of the Azerbaijani population supported the war, a small minority contested its legitimacy and the related emotional obligation to express hatred against Armenians. However, these anti-war voices became stigmatised as ‘traitors to the homeland’, and were ultimately pushed to self-silence. We contribute to the growing IR scholarship on emotions and stigma in two ways. First, we show how successful stigmatisation of norm violators may involve emotional dynamics that go beyond shame. Second, we discuss the power of emotion norms of hatred, which, especially in times of war, can push ‘ordinary people’ to pro-actively and vehemently stigmatise norm-violators. In conclusion, we elaborate on the potential future implications of stigma on peacebuilding activities between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In this paper, the strategy method's impact on behavior in sequential bargaining games is investigated. Besides the decision procedure (hot versus cold), we varied the second mover punishment costs (high versus low). Significant impacts of both treatment variables were observed. For example, second movers punished significantly more often in the hot version of the low cost game. Furthermore, first mover behavior was significantly different in the hot and cold versions of both games. In the hot games, first mover behavior suggests an expectation of decreased rewards and/or punishments from second movers. We observed, however, no decrease in reward and an increase in punishment. The hot cold variable only informs first movers that the decision procedure used by second movers has changed. Therefore, first mover behavior must be shaped by their perceived assessment concerning how second movers make decisions. We argue that first mover behavior can be explained by the interaction of two well-known psychological effects: the consensus and positive self-image effects.

Numerous experiments have shown that people often engage in third-party punishment (3PP) of selfish behavior. This evidence has been used to argue that people respond to selfishness with anger, and get utility from punishing those who mistreat others. Elements of the standard 3PP experimental design, however, allow alternative explanations: it has been argued that 3PP could be motivated by envy (as selfish dictators earn high payoffs), or could be influenced by the use of the strategy method (which is known to influence second-party punishment). Here we test these alternatives by varying the third party’s endowment and the use of the strategy method, and measuring punishment. We find that while third parties do report more envy when they have lower endowments, neither manipulation significantly affects punishment. We also show that punishment is associated with ratings of anger but not of envy. Thus, our results suggest that 3PP is not an artifact of self-focused envy or use of the strategy method. Instead, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that 3PP is motivated by anger.

The economics-of-crime approach usually ignores the emotional cost and benefit of cheating. In this paper, we investigate the relationships between emotions, deception, and rational decision-making by means of an experiment on tax evasion. Emotions are measured by skin conductance responses and self-reports. We show that the intensity of anticipated and anticipatory emotions before reporting income positively correlates with both the decision to cheat and the proportion of evaded income. The experienced emotional arousal after an audit increases with the monetary sanctions and the arousal is even stronger when the evader's picture is publicly displayed. We also find that the risk of a public exposure of deception deters evasion whereas the amount of fines encourages evasion. These results suggest that an audit policy that strengthens the emotional dimension of cheating favors compliance.

We develop a new experimental paradigm to study how emotions affect decision-making. We use it to investigate the impact of short-term fluctuations in incidental happiness on economic decisions. Experimental subjects watch an NFL football game in a sports bar. At various commercial breaks, we measure subjects’ happiness and observe their decisions regarding charitable giving, willingness to pay for a consumer good, risk taking, and trust. We find that events in the game impact the incidental happiness of our subjects, and these changes lead to predictable changes in choices. We provide a simple model that rationalizes how subjects’ behavior varies with incidental happiness and provides insight into how mood can be tractably included in economics models. Our experimental paradigm can be leveraged by other researchers interested in exploring the impact of emotions on behavior.

In this paper, we report an experimental investigation of the effect of framing on social preferences, as revealed in a one-shot linear public goods game. We use two types of indicator to measure social preferences: self-reported emotional responses; and, as a behavioural indicator of disapproval, punishment. Our findings are that, for a given pattern of contributions, neither type of indicator depends on the Give versus Take framing that we manipulate. To this extent, they suggest that the social preferences we observe are robust to framing effects.

The January 6th insurrection at the U.S. capital was an eye-opening moment for many Americans. With the 2024 election cycle in swing, members of the Democratic Party are using January 6th as a rallying call for the need to protect democracy. But were the events of January 6th viewed equally among liberals? We argue that the events of January 6th resonate for a particular demographic well-informed liberal White voters. We argue that liberal minority voters will feel the racial undertones of January 6th more than White liberals. Furthermore, we examine how voters of different races viewed the events of January 6th and how views on race relations impact their perceptions of January 6th. We find that White liberals are less angry about race relations in the aftermath of January 6th, and while they viewed January 6th as an insurrection and blamed Trump and Republicans in Congress for their role, they are less likely to say that racism and White Supremacy motivated the insurrectionists. This paper indicates that race plays a key role in political perceptions, even among those who hold similar political ideologies.