Non-apathetic political neutrality exacerbates violence and mental health problems: triangulating online and offline data

Abstract

<p>Those who claim to be politically neutral are often neglected in the study of politically divided societies. Little is known about the nature of their neutrality; whether or not they are politically apathetic. During the 2019 social unrest, Hong Kong was divided into two politically opposed camps: the pro-government and the anti-government. In this study, we investigated how <em>non-apathetic political neutrality</em> impacted violence and mental well-being in this period.</p><p><br></p><p>We triangulated online and offline data, with a focus on political identification, acceptance of violence, and mental well-being. We examined politically polarized social media data (<em>N</em> = 39,487,911) in 2019 as well as survey data from young adults (<em>N</em> = 657) aged between 18 and 30 in 2021. We analyzed the data using text mining, machine learning, latent profile analyses, latent markov models, generalized linear models, and generalized estimating equations.</p><p><br></p><p>Both online and offline findings revealed a category of non-apathetic political neutrality. Survey findings showed that self-identified political neutrals have non-apathetic attitudes that favored or opposed violence toward politically polarized groups. Furthermore, non-apathetic political neutrals were more likely to exacerbate violence and mental distress (e.g., depression) than individuals in other categories of political attitudes.</p><p><br></p><p>Political neutrality does not reflect political apathy. In addition to the traditional binary political spectrum, the identified political neutrality is an important dimension of political polarization. Those that are non-apathetically neutral may in fact be a<em>ggressive neutral</em>, potentially constituting as a third group in politically polarized societies. Further investigation is needed to reveal the underlying mechanism of non-apathetic political neutrality on violence.</p>