Effect of a Major Political Crisis on Negative and Positive Affect: The Israeli Legislative Reform/Overhaul

Politically stressful situations lead to emotional distress and reduce well-being. In Israel, a legislative plan has been advanced by the ruling coalition with the aim of altering the balance of power between the judicial system, government, and parliament. This plan, confronted by large-scale protests and nonviolent resistance on the part of a wide segment of society, is still ongoing. To examine the effect of this legislative reform on the public’s affect, we studied Jewish-Israeli adults who had previously participated in a longitudinal 15- assessment study focusing on the effect of COVID-19 on this population (original N = 991). A 16th assessment (N = 486) was implemented 3 months into the legislative processes (i.e., April 2023) and just before it was temporarily halted due to public and international pressure. Participants completed self-report measures of attitudes toward the reform, negative and positive affect, dispositional resilience (individual, community, and national), and demographic and psychological covariates. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses converged into a stark affective estrangement pattern: Whereas legislation opposers (53%) evinced a sharp increase in negative affect (Cohen ds: 1.51), supporters (30%) evinced stability in both negative and positive affect. A third group with no firm position (“Don’t Knowers”; 17%) was similar to supporters in terms of previous voting patterns and positive affect but similar to the opposers regarding their negative affect. Dispositional individual resilience strengthened the opposers–supporters gap, whereas community resilience reduced (buffered against) this gap. Findings encourage the integration of political stressors into stress/trauma research.