Bentall, R.P. orcid.org/0000-0001-7561-2923, Alsuhibani, A., Bennett, K. orcid.org/0000-0003-3164-6894 et al. (8 more authors) (2024) The emotional consequences of novel political identities: Brexit and mental health in the United Kingdom. Political Psychology, 45 (1). pp. 133-149. ISSN 0162-895X
Abstract
Following the 2016 EU referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union, many people described themselves as “Leavers” or “Remainers.” Here, we examine the emotional responses associated with Brexit identities using survey data collected from two nationally representative samples of the British public in 2019 (N = 638) and 2021 (N = 2,058). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that many in both samples had coherent Leave or Remain identities. Remain and, to a lesser extent, Leave identities (regardless of how people actually voted in the referendum) predicted distress about Brexit-related events and clinical symptoms of depression and anxiety at both time points. Structural equation models suggested that the effect of identities on symptoms was largely mediated by distress about Brexit-related events. We demonstrate a lasting impact of Brexit on the mental health of UK citizens and show that the formation of novel political identities has been more important in this process than voting behavior.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. Political Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | anxiety; brexit; depression; identity; mental health |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 04 Sep 2023 14:44 |
Last Modified: | 04 Oct 2024 14:17 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/pops.12923 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:202959 |