Research Information System
Political Psychology, vol.47, no.3, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
Drawing on research from the past 30 years, this systematic and narrative review introduces the Affect, Context, and Target (ACT) Framework and synthesizes findings on how emotions shape collective action across different cultural and political contexts. Specifically, it examines the cultures and regimes studied, the types of emotions involved, their emotional targets, and the forms of collective action analyzed. Our systematic review (N = 156 articles) demonstrated that (1) more than 40 discrete emotions have been examined; (2) more negative and more activating emotions have received greater empirical attention; (3) emotions directed toward internal-system-relevant targets have been disproportionately represented in the literature, and (4) system-challenging and normative forms of collective actions have been investigated more frequently in democratic than authoritarian regimes. The distribution of those studies was more equal in tight cultures and loose cultures. However, the ACT Framework highlights the importance of emotion targets and contextual factors.