This article to analyzes the role of emotion in the electoral choices during the 2006 Brazilian presidential election. Specifically, it analyzes in which way the emotions of the voters in relation to the candidates affect and stimulates the evaluation and the vote for them. In the first place, we demonstrate forms of measuring emotions in quantitative terms through surveys conducted during the electoral period. Second, we demonstrate that the retrospective evaluation government's can better be understood if we comprehend in which way the government's evaluation interacts with emotional states of the voters. Thus, denying the long tradition that opposes reason and emotion in politics, we point out the thesis that feelings constitute an important variable in the information processing and, consequently, in the vote decision.
electoral behavior; rational vote; emotional vote; political psychology
