What ’s a unseasoned wizard like Harry Potter to do now that he ’s vanquished his foe Voldemort ? Perhaps he should turn his verge towards the American political bowl . According to a raw study published in an election - themed edition of the journal PS : Political Science & Politics , interpret Harry Potter books diminishes Americans ' opinions of Donald Trump . Additionally , the more books in the fantasy novel series an individual has read , the lower his or her notion of the Republican presidential candidate becomes .
In 2014 , communications professorDiana Mutz , of the University of Pennsylvania and the Annenberg School for Communication , polled a nationally representative sample of 1,142 Americans to expect about their Harry Potter using up and their take on political emergence of the twenty-four hour period — subject such as the treatment of Muslims and gays , waterboarding , capital punishment — answering interrogation with a score on a scale of 0 to 100 . She followed up that research this twelvemonth , inquiring about their feeling about Donald Trump .
For every playscript read , respondent ' rating of Trump dropped by about two to three points . " This may seem small , " says Mutz ina press release , " but for someone who has study all seven books , the total impact could lower their estimation of Trump by 18 points out of 100 . The size of this upshot is on equation with the wallop of party identification on attitude toward gays and Muslims . "
In an effort to clarify the kinship between thejuvenile sorcererand the real - estate tycoon , the written report ascertain for factors that are already known to touch on how an single views Trump — thing like gender , age , education , political party tie and religion . The study detect that self - discover Republicans , Democrats and autonomous elector translate Harry Potter equally ; it spotlight three root word in the novel Mutz identified as contrasting Trump ’s policy and attitude :
( 1 ) valuing tolerance and prize difference
( 2 ) opposing fierceness and punitiveness
( 3 ) match totalitarianism
As she writes in the report : " Because Trump ’s political views are widely viewed as fight back to the values espoused in the Harry Potter serial publication , picture to the Potter series may bet an influential use in influencing how Americans respond to Donald Trump . "
" Throughout the series , love and kindness systematically crow over aggressiveness and prejudice , " pronounce Mutz , an expert in political psychology , communication andglobalization . " It ’s a powerful positive theme , and thus not surprising that reader understand the rudimentary subject matter of this plot line , and are moved by it . "
This is n’t the first look into how reading the Harry Potter serial publication can have affect worldviews . In 2014 , Italian research worker showed that students who read the book — and most importantly , identified with the agonist — develop less biasedtowards nonage groups and immigrant .
" Politics is shaped by hoi polloi . And people , sometimes , are shaped by the fiction they read , " novelist Mohsin Hamidwrote in the New York Times last yearin a small-arm examining fabrication ’s impingement on actual - human beings politics . And a 2013 study publish in the journal Science detail howreading literary fictioncan track to more well - developed empathy and other social and emotional accomplishment , and a 2016 study found even morebenefits to the mentality . In fact , Mutz ’s study bump that watch the movies based on the Harry Potter novels had no impingement on enemy to Trump — it was only reading the Good Book that influenced citizenry .
