“What more timely task for psychological science than to expose the roots

and fruits of today’s growing tribalism (of both left and right) and the support
for autocratic leaders. Kudos to this global team of scholars for revealing
the emotions, the thinking, and the collectivist energy that fuel populism.
A much-needed resource for interested students of psychology, sociology, and
political science—and for political pundits and leaders.”
—David G. Myers, Professor of Psychology, Hope College

“This outstanding and very timely book explores the psychological factors behind
the recent rise of radical populist movements. Leading international scholars
analyze the effects of motivational, emotional and cognitive factors in populist
appeals both on the left and on the right, with often surprising results. Issues of
identity, grievance, insecurity, nationalism, xenophobia, tribalism and uncertainty
avoidance receive special consideration. This is must reading for anyone who cares
about the world today, and especially for students, researchers and practitioners in
the social and behavioral sciences.”
—Roy Baumeister, Co-author of the ‘Power of Bad’,
Professor of Psychology, University of
Queensland, Australia

“Forgas, Crano and Fiedler have pulled together an amazing set of chapters from
an international cast of interdisciplinary scholars to address a topic that could not
be more timely and important to the survival of liberal democracies world-wide.
The chapters yield thought-provoking analyses of what populists want, what its
origins are, how it produces tribalism, and why it appeals to both the political
right and left. Readers will achieve a comprehensive and essential understanding
of a global movement that is affecting everyone’s lives.”
—Richard E. Petty, Distinguished University Professor,
Department of Psychology, The Ohio
State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
POPULISM
The recent rise of populist politics represents a major challenge for liberal democracies.
This important book explores the psychological reasons for the rise of populism, featuring
contributions from leading international researchers in the fields of psychology and
political science.
Unlike liberal democracy based on the Enlightenment values of individual freedom,
autonomy, and rationality, both right-wing and left-wing populism offer collectivist,
autocratic formulations reminiscent of the evolutionary history and tribal instincts of
our species. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the psychology of populism,
covering such phenomena as identity seeking, anger and fear, collective narcissism,
grievance, norms, perceptions of powerlessness and deprivation, authoritarianism,
nationalism, radicalism, propaganda and persuasion, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and the
effects of globalization.
The book is divided into four parts. Part I deals with the motivational and emotional
factors that attract voters to populist causes, and the human needs and values that populist
movements satisfy. Part II analyzes the cognitive features of populist appeals, especially their
emphasis on simplicity, epistemic certainty, and moral absolutism. Part III turns to one
of the defining features of populism: its offer of a powerful tribal identity and collectivist
ideology that provide meaning and personal significance to its followers. Finally, in Part IV,
the propaganda tactics used by populist movements are analyzed, including the roles
of charismatic leadership, authoritarianism, and nationalism and the use of conspiracy
narratives and persuasive strategies.
This is fascinating reading on a highly topical issue. The book will be of interest to
students, researchers, and applied professionals in all areas of psychology and the social
sciences as a textbook or reference book, and to anyone interested in the global rise of
populism.

Joseph P. Forgas is Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales. His research
focuses on affective influences on social cognition and behavior. For his work, he received
the Order of Australia and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, and he has
been elected Fellow of the Australian and Hungarian Academies of Science.

William D. Crano is Oskamp Professor of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University.

He was Liaison Scientist for the US Office of Naval Research, NATO Senior Scientist,
and Fulbright Senior Scholar. His research focuses on attitude development and attitude
change and their applications.

Klaus Fiedler is Professor of Psychology at the University of Heidelberg and Fellow of

the German Academies of Science, the Association for Psychological Sciences, and Society
for Personality and Social Psychology. His research focuses on social cognition, language,
judgments, and decision making. He has received several awards, including the Leibniz
Award, and is on the editorial boards of leading journals.
The Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology series
This book is Volume 20 in the Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology series. The
aim of the Sydney Symposia of Social Psychology is to provide new, integrative
insights into key areas of contemporary research. Held every year at the Uni-
versity of New South Wales, Sydney, each symposium deals with an important
integrative theme in social psychology, and the invited participants are leading
researchers in the field from around the world. Each contribution is extensively
discussed during the symposium and is subsequently thoroughly revised into
book chapters that are published in the volumes in this series. For further details
see the website at www.sydneysymposium.unsw.edu.au
Previous Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology volumes:
SSSP 1. FEELING AND THINKING: THE ROLE OF AFFECT
IN SOCIAL COGNITION** ISBN 0-521-64223-X (Edited by J.P. Forgas).
­Contributors: Robert Zajonc, Jim Blascovich, Wendy Berry Mendes, Craig Smith,
Leslie Kirby, Eric Eich, Dawn Macauley, Len Berkowitz, Sara Jaffee, EunKyung
Jo, Bartholomeu Troccoli, Leonard Martin, Daniel Gilbert, Timothy Wilson,
Herbert Bless, Klaus Fiedler, Joseph Forgas, Carolin Showers, Anthony Green-
wald, Mahzarin Banaji, Laurie Rudman, Shelly Farnham, Brian Nosek, Marshall
Rosier, Mark Leary, Paula Niedenthal & Jamin Halberstadt.
SSSP 2. THE SOCIAL MIND: COGNITIVE AND MOTIVATIONAL
ASPECTS OF INTERPERSONAL BEHAVIOR** ISBN 0-521-77092-0
(Edited by J.P. Forgas, K.D. Williams & L. Wheeler). Contributors: William &
Claire McGuire, Susan Andersen, Roy Baumeister, Joel Cooper, Bill Crano,
Garth Fletcher, Joseph Forgas, Pascal Huguet, Mike Hogg, Martin Kaplan, Norb
Kerr, John Nezlek, Fred Rhodewalt, Astrid Schuetz, Constantine Sedikides,
Jeffry Simpson, Richard Sorrentino, Dianne Tice, Kip Williams, and Ladd
Wheeler.
SSSP 3. SOCIAL INFLUENCE: DIRECT AND INDIRECT PRO-
CESSES* ISBN 1-84169-038-4 (Edited by J.P. Forgas & K.D. Williams).
­Contributors: Robert Cialdini, Eric Knowles, Shannon Butler, Jay Linn, Bibb
Latane, Martin Bourgeois, Mark Schaller, Ap Dijksterhuis, James Tedeschi,
Richard Petty, Joseph Forgas, Herbert Bless, Fritz Strack, Eva Walther, Sik
­
Hung Ng, Thomas Mussweiler, Kipling Williams, Lara Dolnik, Charles Stangor,
Gretchen Sechrist, John Jost, Deborah Terry, Michael Hogg, Stephen Harkins,
Barbara David, John Turner, Robin Martin, Miles Hewstone, Russell Spears,
Tom Postmes, Martin Lea, Susan Watt.
SSSP 4. THE SOCIAL SELF: COGNITIVE, INTERPERSONAL,
AND INTERGROUP PERSPECTIVES** ISBN 1-84169-062-7 (Edited
by J.P. Forgas & K.D. Williams). Contributors: Eliot R. Smith, Thomas Gilovich,
Monica Biernat, Joseph P. Forgas, Stephanie J. Moylan, Edward R. Hirt, Sean M.
McCrea, Frederick Rhodewalt, Michael Tragakis, Mark Leary, Roy F. Baumeister,
Jean M. Twenge, Natalie Ciarocco, Dianne M. Tice, Jean M. Twenge, Brandon
J. Schmeichel, Bertram F. Malle, William Ickes, Marianne LaFrance, Yoshihisa
Kashima, Emiko Kashima, Anna Clark, Marilynn B. Brewer, Cynthia L. Pickett,
Sabine Otten, Christian S. Crandall, Diane M. Mackie, Joel Cooper, Michael
Hogg, Stephen C. Wright, Art Aron, Linda R. Tropp, and Constantine Sedikides.
SSSP 5. SOCIAL JUDGMENTS: IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT PRO-
CESSES** ISBN 0-521-82248-3. (Edited by J.P. Forgas, K.D. Williams & W.
Von Hippel). Contributors: Herbert Bless, Marilynn Brewer, David Buss, Tanya
Chartrand, Klaus Fiedler, Joseph Forgas, David Funder, Adam Galinsky, Martie
Haselton, Denis Hilton, Lucy Johnston, Arie Kruglanski, Matthew Lieberman,
John McClure, Mario Mikulincer, Norbert Schwarz, Philip Shaver, Diederik
Stapel, Jerry Suls, William von Hippel, Michaela Waenke, Ladd Wheeler, Kipling
Williams, Michael Zarate.
SSSP 6. SOCIAL MOTIVATION: CONSCIOUS AND UNCON-
SCIOUS PROCESSES** ISBN 0-521-83254-3 (Edited by J.P. Forgas, K.D.
Williams & S.M. Laham). Contributors: Henk Aarts, Ran Hassin,Trish Devine,
Joseph Forgas, Jens Forster, Nira Liberman, Judy Harackiewicz, Leanne Hing,
Mark Zanna, Michael Kernis, Paul Lewicki, Steve Neuberg, Doug Kenrick, Mark
Schaller, Tom Pyszczynski, Fred Rhodewalt, Jonathan Schooler, Steve Spencer,
Fritz Strack, Roland Deutsch, Howard Weiss, Neal Ashkanasy, Kip Williams,
Trevor Case, Wayne Warburton, Wendy Wood, Jeffrey Quinn, Rex Wright and
Guido Gendolla.
SSSP 7. THE SOCIAL OUTCAST: OSTRACISM, SOCIAL EXCLU-
SION, REJECTION, AND BULLYING* ISBN 1-84169-424-X (Edited
by K.D. Williams, J.P Forgas & W. Von Hippel). Contributors: Kipling D. Wil-
liams, Joseph P. Forgas, William von Hippel, Lisa Zadro, Mark R. Leary, Roy
F. Baumeister, and C. Nathan DeWall, Geoff MacDonald, Rachell Kingsbury,
Stephanie Shaw, John T. Cacioppo, Louise C. Hawkley, Naomi I. Eisenberger
Matthew D. Lieberman, Rainer Romero-Canyas, Geraldine Downey, Jaana
Juvonen, Elisheva F. Gross, Kristin L. Sommer, Yonata Rubin, Susan T. Fiske,
Mariko Yamamoto, Jean M. Twenge, Cynthia L. Pickett, Wendi L. Gardner,
Megan Knowles, Michael A. Hogg, Julie Fitness, Jessica L. Lakin, Tanya L. Char-
trand, Kathleen R. Catanese and Dianne M. Tice, Lowell Gaertner, Jonathan
Iuzzini, Jaap W. Ouwerkerk, Norbert L. Kerr, Marcello Gallucci, Paul A. M. Van
Lange, and Marilynn B. Brewer.
SSSP 8. AFFECT IN SOCIAL THINKING AND BEHAVIOR*
ISBN 1-84169-454-2 (Edited by J.P. Forgas). Contributors: Joseph P. Forgas, Car-
rie Wyland, Simon M. Laham, Martie G. Haselton Timothy Ketelaar, Piotr
Winkielman, John T. Cacioppo, Herbert Bless, Klaus Fiedler, Craig A. Smith,
Bieke David, Leslie D. Kirby, Eric Eich, Dawn Macaulay, Gerald L. Clore, Justin
Storbeck, Roy F. Baumeister, Kathleen D. Vohs, Dianne M. Tice, Dacher Keltner,
E.J. Horberg, Christopher Oveis, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Simon M. Laham, Con-
stantine Sedikides, Tim Wildschut, Jamie Arndt, Clay Routledge, Yaacov Trope,
Eric R. Igou, Chris Burke, Felicia A. Huppert, Ralph Erber, Susan Markunas,
Joseph P. Forgas, Joseph Ciarrochi, John T. Blackledge, Janice R. Kelly, Jennifer
R.Spoor, John G. Holmes, Danu B. Anthony.
SSSP 9. EVOLUTION AND THE SOCIAL MIND* ISBN 1-84169-
458-0 (Edited by J.P. Forgas, M.G. Haselton & W. Von Hippel). Contributors:
­William von Hippel, Martie Haselton, Joseph P. Forgas, R.I.M. Dunbar, Steven W.
Gangestad, Randy Thornhill, Douglas T. Kenrick, Andrew W. Delton, Theresa
E. Robertson, D. Vaughn Becker, Steven L. Neuberg, Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Ross
Buck, Joseph P. Forgas, Paul B.T. Badcock, Nicholas B. Allen, Peter M. Todd,
Jeffry A. Simpson, Jonathon LaPaglia, Debra Lieberman, Garth J. O. Fletcher,
Nickola C. Overall, Abraham P. Buunk, Karlijn Massar, Pieternel Dijkstra, Mark
Van Vugt, Rob Kurzban, Jamin Halberstadt, Oscar Ybarra, Matthew C. Keller,
Emily Chan, Andrew S. Baron, Jeffrey Hutsler, Stephen Garcia, Jeffrey Sanchez-
Burks, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Jennifer R. Spoor, Kipling D. Williams, Mark
Schaller, Lesley A. Duncan.
SSSP 10. SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS: COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE,
AND MOTIVATIONAL PROCESSES* ISBN 978-1-84169-715-4 (Edited
by J.P. Forgas & J. Fitness). Contributors: Joseph P. Forgas, Julie Fitness, Elaine
Hatfield, Richard L. Rapson, Gian C. Gonzaga, Martie G. Haselton, Phillip R.
Shaver, Mario Mikulincer, David P. Schmitt, Garth J.O. Fletcher, Alice D. Boyes,
Linda K. Acitelli, Margaret S. Clark, Steven M. Graham, Erin Williams, Edward
P. Lemay, Christopher R. Agnew, Ximena B. Arriaga, Juan E. Wilson, Mari-
lynn B. Brewer, Jeffry A. Simpson, W. Andrew Collins, SiSi Tran, Katherine C.
Haydon, Shelly L. Gable, Patricia Noller, Susan Conway, Anita Blakeley-Smith,
Julie Peterson, Eli J. Finkel, Sandra L. Murray, Lisa Zadro, Kipling D. Williams,
Rowland S. Miller.
SSSP 11. PSYCHOLOGY OF SELF-REGULATION: COGNITIVE,
AFFECTIVE, AND MOTIVATIONAL PROCESSES* ISBN 978-1-84872-
842-4 (Edited by J.P. Forgas, R. Baumeister & D.M. Tice). Contributors: Joseph
P. Forgas, Roy F. Baumeister, Dianne M. Tice, Jessica L. Alquist, Carol San-
sone, Malte Friese, Michaela Wänke, Wilhelm Hofmann, Constantine Sedikides,
Christian Unkelbach, Henning Plessner, Daniel Memmert, Charles S. Carver,
Michael F. Scheier, Gabriele Oettingen, Peter M. Gollwitzer, Jens Förster, Nira
Liberman, Ayelet Fishbach, Gráinne M. Fitzsimons, Justin Friesen, Edward
­Orehek, Arie W. Kruglanski, Sander L. Koole, Thomas F. Denson, Klaus Fie-
dler, Matthias Bluemke, Christian Unkelbach, Hart Blanton, Deborah L. Hall,
Kathleen D. Vohs, Jannine D. Lasaleta, Bob Fennis, William von Hippel, Richard
Ronay, Eli J. Finkel, Daniel C. Molden, Sarah E. Johnson, Paul W. Eastwick.
SSSP 12. PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTITUDES AND ATTITUDE
CHANGE* ISBN 978-1-84872-908-7 (Edited by J.P. Forgas, J. Cooper & W.D.
Crano). Contributors: William D. Crano, Joel Cooper, Joseph P. Forgas, Blair T.
Johnson, Marcella H. Boynton, Alison Ledgerwood, Yaacov Trope, Eva Walther,
Tina Langer, Klaus Fiedler, Steven J. Spencer, Jennifer Peach, Emiko Yoshida,
Mark P. Zanna, Allyson L. Holbrook, Jon A. Krosnick, Eddie Harmon-Jones,
David M. Amodio, Cindy Harmon-Jones, Michaela Wänke, Leonie Reutner,
Kipling D. Williams, Zhansheng Chen, Duane Wegener, Radmila Prislin, Brenda
Major, Sarah S. M. Townsend, Frederick Rhodewalt, Benjamin Peterson, Jim
Blascovich, Cade McCall.
SSSP 13. PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL CONFLICT AND AGGRES-
SION* ISBN 978-1-84872-932-2 (Edited by J.P. Forgas, A.W. Kruglanski &
K.D Williams). Contributors: Daniel Ames, Craig A. Anderson, Joanna E. Ander-
son, Paul Boxer, Tanya L. Chartrand, John Christner, Matt DeLisi, Thomas F.
Denson, Ed Donnerstein, Eric F. Dubow, Chris Eckhardt, Emma C. Fabiansson,
Eli J. Finkel, Gráinne M. Fitzsimons, Joseph P. Forgas, Adam D. Galinsky, Debra
Gilin, Georgina S. Hammock, L. Rowell Huesmann, Arie W. Kruglanski, Rob-
ert Kurzban, N. Pontus Leander, Laura B. Luchies, William W. Maddux, Mario
Mikulincer, Edward Orehek, Deborah South Richardson, Phillip R. Shaver, Hui
Bing Tan, Mark Van Vugt, Eric D. Wesselmann, Kipling D. Williams, Lisa Zadro.
SSSP 14. SOCIAL THINKING AND INTERPERSONAL BEHAV-
IOR* ISBN 978-1-84872-990-2 (Edited by J.P. Forgas, K. Fiedler & C.
Sekidikes). Contributors: Andrea E. Abele, Eusebio M. Alvaro, Mauro Bertolotti,
Camiel J. Beukeboom, Susanne Bruckmüller, Patrizia Catellani, Cindy K. Chung,
Joel Cooper, William D. Crano, István Csertő, John F. Dovidio, Bea Ehmann,
Klaus Fiedler, Joseph P. Forgas, Éva Fülöp, Jessica Gasiorek, Howard Giles, Liz
Goldenberg, Barbara Ilg, Yoshihisa Kashima, Mikhail Kissine, Olivier Klein, Alex
Koch, János László, Anne Maass, Andre Mata, Elisa M. Merkel, Alessio Nencini,
Andrew A. Pearson, James W. Pennebaker, Kim Peters, Tibor Pólya, Ben Slu-
goski, Caterina Suitner, Zsolt Szabó, Matthew D. Trujillo, Orsolya Vincze.
SSSP 15. SOCIAL COGNITION AND COMMUNICATION* ISBN
978-1-84872-663-5 (Edited by J.P. Forgas, O. Vincze & J. László). Contributors:
Andrea E. Abele, Eusebio M. Alvaro, Maro Bertolotti, Camiel J. Beukeboom,
Susanne Bruckmüller, Patrizia Catellani, István Cserto , Cindy K. Chung, Joel
Coooper, William D. Crano, John F. Dovidio, Bea Ehmann, Klaus Fiedler, J. P.
Forgas, Éva Fülöp, Jessica Gasiorek, Howard Giles, Liz Goldenberg, Barbara Ilg,
Yoshihisa Kahima, Mikhail Kissine, Alex S. Koch, János László, Olivier Klein,
Anne Maass, André Mata, Elisa M. Merkel, Alessio Nencini, Adam R. Pearson,
James W. Pennebaker, Kim Peters, Tibor Pólya, Ben Slugoski, Caterina Suitner,
Zsolt Szabó, Matthew D. Trujillo, Orsolya Vincze.
SSSP 16. MOTIVATION AND ITS REGULATION: THE CONTROL
WITHIN* ISBN 978-1-84872-562-1 (Edited by J.P. Forgas & E. H ­ armon-Jones).
Contributors: Emily Balcetis, John A. Bargh, Jarik Bouw, Charles S. Carver, Brit-
tany M. Christian, Hannah Faye Chua, Shana Cole, Carsten K. W. De Dreu,
Thomas F. Denson, Andrew J. Elliot, Joseph P. Forgas, Alexandra Godwin, Karen
Gonsalkorale, Jamin Halberstadt, Cindy Harmon-Jones, Eddie Harmon-Jones,
E. Tory Higgins, Julie Y. Huang, Michael Inzlicht, Sheri L. Johnson, Jonathan
Jong, Jutta Joormann, Nils B. Jostmann, Shinobu Kitayama, Sander L. Koole, Lisa
Legault, Jennifer Leo, C. Neil Macrae, Jon K. Maner, Lynden K. Mile, Steven B.
Most, Jaime L. Napier, Tom F. Price, Marieke Roskes, Brandon J. Schmeichel,
Iris K. Schneider, Abigail A. Scholer, Julia Schüler, Sarah Strübin, David Tang,
Steve Tompson, Mattie Tops, Lisa Zadro.
SSSP 17. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS* ISBN 978-1-
13882-968-8 (Edited by Joseph P. Forgas, Klaus Fiedler, William D. Crano).
­Contributors: Stephanie M. Anglin, Luisa Batalha, Mauro Bertolotti, Patrizia
Catellani, William D. Crano, Jarret T. Crawford, John F. Dovidio, Klaus Fiedler,
Joseph P. Forgas, Mark G. Frank, Samuel L. Gaertner, Jeremy Ginges, Joscha
Hofferbert, Michael A. Hogg, Hyisung C. Hwang, Yoel Inbar, Lee Jussim, Lucas
A. Keefer, Laszlo Kelemen, Alex Koch, Tobias Krüger, Mark J. Landau, Janos
Laszlo, Elena Lyrintzis, David Matsumoto, G. Scott Morgan, David A. Pizarro,
Felicia Pratto, Katherine J. Reynolds, Tamar Saguy, Daan Scheepers, David O.
Sears, Linda J. Skitka, Sean T. Stevens, Emina Subasic, Elze G. Ufkes, Robin R.
Vallacher, Paul A. M. Van Lange, Daniel C. Wisneski, Michaela Wänke, Franz
Woellert, Fouad Bou Zeineddine.
SSSP 18. The Social Psychology of Morality* ISBN 978-1-138-92907-4
(Edited by Joseph P. Forgas, Lee Jussim, and Paul A. M. Van Lange). Contributors:
Stephanie M. Anglin, Joel B. Armstrong, Mark J. Brandt, Brock Bastian, Paul
Conway, Joel Cooper, Chelsea Corless, Jarret T. Crawford, Daniel Crimston,
Molly J. Crockett, Jose L. Duarte, Allison K. Farrell, Klaus Fiedler, Rebecca
Friesdorf, Jeremy A. Frimer, Adam D. Galinsky, Bertram Gawronski, William G.
Graziano, Nick Haslam, Mandy Hütter, Lee Jussim, Alice Lee, William W. Mad-
dux, Emma Marshall, Dale T. Miller, Benoît Monin, Tom Pyszczynski, Richard
Ronay, David A. Schroeder, Simon M. Laham, Jeffry A. Simpson, Sean T. Ste-
vens, William Von Hippel, Geoffrey Wetherell.
 SSP 19. The Social Psychology of Living Well* ISBN 978-0-8153-
6924-0 (Edited by Joseph P. Forgas and Roy F. Baumeister). Contributors: Yair
Amichai- Hamburger, Peter Arslan, Roy F. Baumeister, William D. Crano, Can-
dice D. Donaldson, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Ryan J. Dwyer, Shir Etgar, Allison K.
Farrell, Klaus Fiedler, Joseph P. Forgas, Barbara L. Fredrickson, Megan M. Fritz,
Shelly L. Gable, Karen Gonsalkorale, Alexa Hubbard, Chloe O. Huelsnitz, Felicia
A. Huppert, David Kalkstein, Sonja Lyubomirsky, David G. Myers, Constantine
Sedikides, James Shah, Kennon M. Sheldon, Jeffry A. Simpson, Elena Stephan,
Yaacov Trope, William Von Hippel, Tom Wildschut.
SSP 20. The Social Psychology of Gullibility* ISBN 978-0-3671-8793-4
(Edited by Joseph P. Forgas and Roy F. Baumeister). Contributors: Stephanie M.
Anglin, Joseph J. Avery, Roy F. Baumeister, Aleksandra Chicoka, Joel Cooper,
Karen Douglas, David Dunning, Anthony M. Evans, Johanna K. Falbén, Klaus
Fiedler, Joseph P. Forgas, Nicholas Fox, Marius Golubickis, Nathan Honeycutt,
Lee Jussim, Alex Koch, Joachim I. Krueger, Spike W. S. Lee, C. Neil Macrae,
Jessica A. Maxwell, Ruth Mayo, David Myers, Juliana L. Olivier, Daphna Oyser-
man, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Norbert Schwarz, Sean T. Stevens, Fritz Strack,
Robbie M. Sutton, Geoffrey P. Thomas, Christian Unkelbach, Kathleen D. Vohs,
Claudia Vogrincic-Haselbacher.
SSP 21. Applications of Social Psychology* ISBN 978-0-367-41833-5
(Edited by Joseph P. Forgas, William D. Crano and Klaus Fidler). Contributors:
Dana Atzil-Slomin, Hilary B. Bergsieker, H. Blanton, Shannon T. Brady, Pablo
Brinol, Christopher N. Burrows, Emily Butler, Akeela Careem, Susannah Chand-
hook, William D. Crano, Lianne De Vries, Suzanne Dikker, Klaus Fiedler, Joseph
P. Forgas, William M. Hall, Nathan Honeycutt, Lee Jussim, Sander L. Koole,
Margaret Bull Kovera, Dorottya Lantos, Norman P. Li, Mario Mikulincer, Esther
Papies, Richard E. Petty, Timothy Regan, Andrea L. Ruybal, Toni Schmader,
Philip R. Shaver, Anna Stefaniak, Sean T. Stevens, Wolfgang Tschacher, Mark
Van Vugt, Gregory M. Walton, Tom Wilderjans, Michael J. A. Wohl.
* Published by Routledge
** Published by Cambridge University Press
SSP 22. The Psychology of Populism ISBN 978-0-367-52381-7 (Edited
by Joseph P. Forgas, William D. Crano, and Klaus Fidler). Contributors: Peter H.
Ditto, Cristian G. Rodriguez, Daniel Bar-Tal, Tamir Magal, Michael Bang Petersen,
Mathias Osmundsen, Alexander Bor, George E. Marcus, Agnieszka Golec de Zavala,
Dorottya Lantos and Oliver Keenan Goldsmiths, Joachim I. Krueger, David J. Grün-
ing, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Arie W. Kruglanski, Erica Molinario, Gilda Sensales,
Klaus Fiedler, Michael A. Hogg, Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup, Joseph P. Forgas, Dorottya
Lantos, Péter Krekó, Eotvos Lorand, Leonie Huddy, Alessandro Del Ponte, Michele J.
Gelfand, Rebecca Lorente, Amber M. Gaffney, Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery, Robin
R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell, Stanley Feldman, William D. Crano and Klaus Fidler.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
POPULISM
The Tribal Challenge to Liberal
Democracy

Edited by Joseph P. Forgas, William D. Crano,

and Klaus Fiedler
First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Taylor & Francis
The right of Joseph P. Forgas, William D. Crano, and Klaus Fiedler
to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-52390-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-52381-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-05768-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS

List of Contributors xiv

Prefacexvi

1 The Psychology of Populism: The Tribal Challenge

to Liberal Democracy 1
Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

PART I
What Populists Want: Motivational and Emotional
Factors in Populism 21

2 Populism and the Social Psychology of Grievance 23

Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

3 Socio-Psychological Analysis of the Deterioration of

Democracy and the Rise of Authoritarianism:
The Role of Needs, Values, and Context 42
Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

4 Beyond Populism: The Psychology of Status-Seeking

and Extreme Political Discontent 62
Michael Bang Petersen, Mathias Osmundsen and
Alexander Bor
xii Contents

5 The Rise of Populism: The Politics of Justice, Anger,

and Grievance 81
George E. Marcus

6 Collective Narcissism and the Motivational

Underpinnings of the Populist Backlash 105
Agnieszka Golec de Zavala, Dorottya Lantos and
Oliver Keenan

PART II
The Populist Mind: Cognitive Aspects of Populism 123

7 Psychological Perversities and Populism 125

Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

8 Overconfidence in Radical Politics 143

Jan-Willem van Prooijen

9 Why Populism Attracts: On the Allure of

Certainty and Dignity 158
Arie W. Kruglanski, Erica Molinario, and Gilda Sensales

10 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism in

Psychological Science 174
Klaus Fiedler

PART III
The Tribal Call: Social Identity and Populism 195

11 Self-Uncertainty and Populism: Why We Endorse

Populist Ideologies, Identify With Populist Groups, and
Support Populist Leaders 197
Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

12 When Populism Triumphs: From Democracy to Autocracy 219

Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

13 Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge 240

Péter Krekó
 Contents xiii

14 The Rise of Populism in the USA: Nationalism, Race,

and American Party Politics 258
Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

15 Threat, Tightness, and the Evolutionary Appeal of

Populist Leaders 276
Michele J. Gelfand and Rebecca Lorente

PART IV
Populist Narratives and Propaganda 295

16 Social Psychological Contributions to the Study of

Populism: Minority Influence and Leadership Processes
in the Rise and Fall of Populist Movements 297
William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

17 Value Framing and Support for Populist Propaganda 319

Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery

18 Rapid Social Change and the Emergence of Populism 332

Robin R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell

19 Authoritarianism, Education, and Support for

Right-Wing Populism 348
Stanley Feldman

Index365
CONTRIBUTORS

Avery, Joseph, Princeton University, USA

Bar-Tal, Daniel, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Bor, Alexander, Aarhus University, Denmark

Cooper, Joel, Princeton University, USA

Crano, William D., Claremont Graduate University, USA

Del Ponte, Alessandro, Stoney Brook University, USA

Ditto, Peter H., University of California, Irvine, USA

Feldman, Stanley, Stony Brook University, USA

Fennell, Eli, Florida Atlantic University, USA

Fiedler, Klaus, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Forgas, Joseph P., University of New South Wales, Australia

Gaffney, Amber M., Humboldt State University, USA

Gelfand, Michele J., University of Maryland, USA

 Contributors xv

Golec de Zavala, Agnieszka, Goldsmiths, University of London, England

Gøtzsche-Astrup, Oluf, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Grüning, David J., University of Mannheim, Germany

Hogg, Michael A., Claremont Graduate University, USA

Huddy, Leonie, Stoney Brook University, USA

Keenan, Oliver, Goldsmiths, University of London, England

Krekó, Péter, Eotvos Lorand University of Budapest,

Krueger, Joachim I., Brown University, USA

Kruglanski, Arie W., University of Maryland, USA

Lantos, Dorottya, Goldsmiths, University of London, England

Lorente, Rebecca, University of Maryland, USA

Magal, Tamir, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Marcus, George E., Williams College, USA

Molinario, Erica, University of Maryland, USA

Osmundsen, Mathias, Aarhus University, Denmark

Petersen, Michael Bang, Aarhus University, Denmark

Rodriguez, Cristian G., University of California, Irvine, USA

Sensales, Gilda, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.

Vallacher, Robin R., Florida Atlantic University, USA

Van Prooijen, Jan-Willem, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands

PREFACE

We do live in interesting times. When, a few decades ago, Francis Fukuyama

famously declared the end of history and the inevitable triumph of Western lib-
eral democracy and market capitalism, few of us would have predicted the current
rise of authoritarian, populist political movements all over the world. Even within
the EU, leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán now declare that liberalism is the
enemy, and following Eastern autocracies, he now wants to establish an ‘illiberal
democracy’ (an oxymoron, if ever there was one).
How did this dramatic change come about? This book is an attempt to bring
together leading international researchers from the fields of psychology and polit-
ical science to help explain the strange psychological allure of populist politics.
What led to the unexpected rejection of the classical liberal values of enlighten-
ment humanism, individualism, and rationalism and the return to age-old habits
of collectivist and populist tribalism and ideological polarization? Ultimately, as
Plato and also John Stuart Mill suggested, political systems are expressions of
human nature and psychology. Accordingly, we believe that an explanation of
the recent rise of populism requires a psychological understanding of the mental
representations of its followers.
Unlike liberalism, which emphasizes the primacy of individual freedom, auton-
omy, and choice as the foundation of political systems, populism offers a collectiv-
ist, autocratic formulation that harks back to the ancient evolutionary history and
tribal instincts of our species. Populism ideas and practices now show a growing
influence on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The collection
of chapters in this book offers a comprehensive overview of what we now know
about the psychology of populism, and the reasons for its recent rise, analyzed
from a variety of theoretical and methodological orientations.
 Preface xvii

The book is divided into four parts. Part I deals with the motivational and
emotional factors that attract voters to populist causes, and the human needs and
values that populist movements satisfy. Part II analyzes the cognitive features of
populist appeals, especially their emphasis on simplicity, epistemic certainty, and
moral absolutism. Part III turns to one of the defining features of populism: its
offer of a powerful tribal identity and collectivist ideology that provide meaning
and personal significance to its followers. Finally, in Part IV the tactics used by
populist movements are analyzed, including the roles of charismatic leadership,
authoritarianism, and nationalism, and the use of conspiracy narratives and propa-
ganda strategies.
In selecting and inviting our contributors, we aimed to achieve a broad and
varied coverage that is nevertheless representative of the major new developments
in psychological research on populism. The chapters included represent some of
the best recent examples of clear theorizing and careful research in this critically
important area by leading international researchers.

The Origins of This Book: The Sydney Symposium of

Social Psychology Series
This book is part of the Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology series, now in
its 23rd year. Since 1998, this annual Series has covered a variety of important
topics in social psychology, with leading researchers invited from all over the
world. These are not simply edited books in the usual sense. The objective of the
Sydney Symposia is to provide new, integrative understanding in important areas
of social psychology by inviting leading researchers in a particular field to a three-
day residential Symposium.
Unfortunately, this is the first time that, as a result of the COVID-19 pan-
demic, our face-to-face meeting had to be cancelled. In order to compensate for
this loss, as editors we made every effort to integrate the various chapters and to
establish links between them where appropriate by inserting cross-references. The
volume is intended as a collaborative effort by a leading group of international
researchers to review what we now know about the psychological underpinnings
of populist political movements.
The Symposium has received financial support from a variety of sources
over the years, including the University of New South Wales and the Australian
Research Council, allowing the careful selection and funding of a small group of
leading researchers as contributors.
For more information on the Sydney Symposium series and details of our
past and future projects (as well as photos that show our contributors in more
or less flattering situations, and other background information), please see our
website at www.sydneysymposium.unsw.edu.au. Books of the Sydney Sympo-
sium of Social Psychology Series are published by Psychology Press, New York,
xviii Preface

an imprint of Taylor & Francis Publishers. All previous volumes of the Sydney
Symposium series can be inspected and ordered at their website, at www.crc
press.com/Sydney-Symposium-of-Social-Psychology/book-series/TFSE00262.
Detailed information about our earlier volumes can also be found on the series
page in this book, and also on our website.
The present book should be of considerable interest to the general public
wishing to better understand the basic psychological dynamics of recent populist
political movements. The book should also appeal to students, researchers, and
practitioners in wide areas of social psychology and political science as a basic
reference book, and as an informative textbook to be used in courses dealing
with social and political psychology. The book is written in a readable yet schol-
arly style, and students at both the undergraduate and the graduate level as well
as readers from all backgrounds should find it an engaging overview of the field.
We want to express our thanks to people and organizations who helped to
make the Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology series, and this volume in
particular, a reality. Producing a complex multi-authored book such as this is a
lengthy and sometimes challenging task. We have been very fortunate to work
with such an excellent and cooperative group of contributors. Our first thanks
must go to them. Because of their help and professionalism, we were able to fin-
ish this project in record time and ahead of schedule. Past friendships have not
been frayed, and we are all still on speaking terms; indeed, we hope that working
together on this book has been a positive an experience for all of us, that new
friendships have been formed, and that all our contributors take happy memories
with them about our time together.
We are especially grateful to Suellen Crano, who helped in more ways than we
could list here. We also wish to acknowledge financial support from the Austral-
ian Research Council and the University of New South Wales. Most of all, we are
grateful for the love and support of our families who have put up with us during
the many months of work that went into producing this book.
Joseph P. Forgas, William D. Crano,
and Klaus Fiedler
Sydney, October 2020.
1
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POPULISM
The Tribal Challenge to Liberal Democracy

Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

The first two decades of the 21st century were marked by a remarkable phe-
nomenon: the largely unexpected rise of radical populist political ideologies in
both well-established Western democracies and less-developed nations (Fournier,
2016). This book represents an integrated attempt to understand the psycho-
logical mechanisms underlying recent populist movements. Contributors include
leading international researchers from the fields of social and cognitive psychol-
ogy as well as political science, who seek to shed light on the psychological pro-
cesses and dynamics of political populism.
Understanding the mental precursors of populist ideation is especially timely
today, when populist movements increasingly represent a credible threat to
what has been arguably the most successful civilization in human history, lib-
eral democracy combined with market capitalism (Pinker, 2018; Shuster, 2016).
Understanding populist movements requires a systematic exploration of how
people think, feel, and mentally represent political reality. The idea that political
systems are fundamentally constrained by human nature and are expressions of
human psychology was first mooted two thousand years ago by Plato in his classic
Republic. The same core idea was reaffirmed by John Stuart Mill’s famous dictum
that ‘all phenomena of society are also phenomena of human nature’ (Mill, 1947).
Our book is predicated on the assumption that understanding political move-
ments like populism above all requires a psychological explanation of the mental
representations of its followers.

The Populist Challenge

Liberal democratic parties are currently under sustained attack by new populist for-
mations, from both the left and the right. The specter of becoming ungovernable
2 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

haunts several major democracies. In Germany, new populist parties decimated

voter support for both the SPD and the CDU/CSU. In France, the traditional
center parties have been replaced by Macron’s new movement, closely followed
by Le Pen’s populist party. In Italy, fragile governments alternate, and in Britain
following Brexit, populism has become mainstream. Spain saw repeated incon-
clusive elections in recent years. And, of course, Trump’s 2016 victory turned
the US political establishment upside down. Everywhere, the old certainties of
traditionally centrist parties and the values of civility, tolerance, and open debate
are challenged.
There are several reasons for these developments. In many liberal democra-
cies, there is a growing sense of resentment against the ‘elites’, a defining fea-
ture of populism. The rise of emotional, identity-based politics is replacing the
old norms of rational, analytical, and pragmatic decision making. Consensus and
compromise are supplanted by implacable animosity and tribal hatreds. On many
issues, the established parties are no longer able to channel voter preferences, so
the rise of various populist parties is inevitable.

Towards a Definition
Populism is a rather nebulous and hard-to-define term. Its current juxtaposition
with democracy can be confusing, since both democracy and populism actu-
ally mean the same thing, rule by the people (demos in Greek, and populus in
Latin). Then again, populist leaders are identified as demagogues, using the Greek
vocabulary. Whereas democracy as an ideology is supported by over two thousand
years of cultural evolution and refinement, populism remains a rough and superfi-
cial or ‘thin’ ideology (Mudde, 2004), focusing on the perceived conflict between
the romanticized concept of the people, who are good, virtuous, and kind, and an
opposing elite seen as corrupt, immoral, and exploitative.
Democratic systems throughout history evolved increasingly precise and
refined mechanisms to translate popular will into executive power. In con-
trast, populism mostly remains a simplistic and emotional tribal credo empha-
sizing the moral superiority of the people betrayed by those ruling over them
(Rooduijn, 2015; Krekó, this volume). Populist ideologies typically offer cog-
nitive certainty and simplicity, a positive identity, moral superiority, and the
promise of collective redemption (Kruglanski, 2004; see also Krueger & Gru-
ening; Kruglanski et al.; van Prooijen, this volume). Rather than offering real-
istic and rational explanations, populist leaders like Trump, Putin, Orbán, or
Kaczyński describe their opponents as enemies of the people or evil. The kind
of tribal animosity exploited by populists is also deeply rooted in human needs
and values, especially the universal desire to identify with meaningful and posi-
tive valued groups or collectives (Tajfel & Forgas, 2000; Hogg & Gøetsche-
Astrup, this volume).
 The Psychology of Populism 3

Anti-Individualism and Collectivism

Several chapters here argue that a key feature of populism is its fundamentally
collectivist and anti-individualist character. This presents a major challenge to the
individualistic and humanist philosophy of the Enlightenment that informs liberal
democracies. Democracy assumes that the basic units of society are free and auton-
omous individuals who can determine their fate. In contrast, populism is a collec-
tivist tribal ideology proposing a return to the romanticized pre-Enlightenment
communal paradigm where the collective rather than independent individuals
reign supreme. Populism assigns no inherent autonomy to the person, seen as a
subordinate unit of the group they belong to (nation, race, religion, etc.).
Classic and well-articulated populist ideologies such as Marxism offer a clear
illustration of such a thoroughly collectivist and deterministic system, where a
person’s status and even consciousness are externally determined by their eco-
nomic circumstances and class membership (Koestler, 1952). Those who lack
the required class consciousness are seen as suffering from a dysfunctional ‘false
consciousness’, or in Jost and Banaji’s (1994) more recent neo-Marxist terminol-
ogy, a system justification bias. Contemporary identitarian ‘social justice’ move-
ments also emphasize a strict collectivist and anti-individualist ideology, where
group membership is the primary source of a person’s values and preferences.
Individual deviations from the assigned norms of the identity groups are not rec-
ognized as valid. Examples abound: a black person who happens to be conserva-
tive (e.g. the economist Thomas Sowell) is not really ‘black’, a gay person who
deviates from LGBT ideology is not really gay (e.g. Douglas Murray), and a
feminist who challenges current orthodoxy is not really a feminist (e.g. Germaine
Greer; Murray, 2019).
Unlike sophisticated systems of democracy, populist ideology is often sim-
ple and indeed simple-minded, showing lack of subtlety and emphasizing moral
absolutism, certainty, collectivism, leadership, and authoritarianism (Krueger &
Gruening; Kruglanski et al., this volume). One of the core messages of this book
is that populism has a tribal character and presents a collectivist challenge to the
ideals of the Enlightenment, such as individualism, humanism, pluralism, and
rationality (Krekó, this volume).

Antecedents of Populism
Typically, in a democracy populist movements flourish when significant portions
of the population feel that the political elite no longer properly represents their
values and needs (Bar-Tal and Magal; Huddy & Del Ponte; Marcus, this volume).
This often occurs when economic crises, social changes, racial or ethnic rivalries
or pandemics destroy existing social conditions, and create frustration, uncer-
tainty, anger, fear, and resentment. In fact, all of these conditions have occurred
4 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

in the first two decades of the 21st century, so the current rise of populism is not
all that surprising (Fukuyama, 2018; Spruyt, Keppens, & Van Droogenbroeck,
2016; Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup; Ditto & Rodriguez, this volume). A less tangi-
ble trigger of populist revolt is the perceived threat to a group’s cultural identity,
when traditions, values, and way of life are undermined by cultural changes and
immigration (Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Murray, 2018; Zakaria, 2016; Golec de
Zavala et al., this volume).
However, these challenges are not in themselves sufficient for populist move-
ments to arise. What is also critical is a persuasive narrative that can turn dis-
satisfaction into a political force (Part IV; Cooper & Avery; Crano & Gaffney;
Vallacher & Fennell, this volume). There is good evidence that support for popu-
list politics is stronger among people with a well-articulated sense of perceived
relative deprivation, grievance, and resentment (Fukuyama, 2018). Thus, the
potential for populism is triggered by aversive economic, social, and cultural con-
ditions, yet populism does not reliably arise in response to such social stressors.
Historically, humans mostly lived in abominable conditions, yet populist revolts
were rare (Harari, 2014; Mudde, 2004; Pinker, 2018). Over time, people can
accept extremely adverse conditions without triggering revolt as long as they had
enough time and latitude to adapt (Vallacher & Fennell, this volume).
Despite mostly abject conditions throughout history, humans were generally
able to symbolically justify their existence as long as the conditions were stable,
reliable, and offered a coherent explanation for one’s life (Harari, 2014; Ditto &
Rodriguez, this volume). It is only when a previously stable context is disrupted
by rapid changes undermining one’s sense of stability and certainty that people
become receptive to populist narratives, exploiting the psychological states of
uncertainty, frustration, fear, anger, envy, and resentment (Crano & Gaffney; Gel-
fand & Lorente; Kruglanski et al., this volume).
The main purpose of our book is to offer a social psychological analysis of the
circumstances that promote populist political movements. One fruitful approach
to understand how deprivation turns into populism is by analyzing the various
human needs, goals, and values that have been challenged (see Part I). There are
many taxonomies of such needs, goals, and values, and when they are frustrated
a populist narrative may be adopted (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Fiske, 2010; Higgins,
2012; Maslow, 1943; Crano & Gaffney, this volume). The need for certainty, dig-
nity, status, and identity are especially important, and the higher a person’s need
for certainty and closure, the higher is their support for populism (see Part II).
From the perspective of the individual, populism offers a collectivist response and
a solution to perceived deprivation.

Populism on the Left and on the Right

While for historical reasons populism is most often identified with right-wing,
nationalistic, and nativist political ideologies, many of its psychological features
 The Psychology of Populism 5

are equally characteristic of left-wing radicalism (Cooper & Avery, this volume).
The contemporary concern about the rise of political populism was largely elic-
ited by events such as the election of Trump, Brexit, and the rise of right-wing
populist parties with illiberal, nationalist, and fascist ideologies in countries like
Germany, Austria, Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and Poland. However, these move-
ments did not emerge in a vacuum, at least in Western democracies. Similarly
close-minded, absolutist, and authoritarian left-wing populist movements have
long been a feature of the political landscape in many Western countries. It just
so happens that the appearance of right-wing populism is more likely to trigger
alarm in many observers.
Left-wing populism in contrast is often not accurately recognized, and is fre-
quently disguised by misleading, utopistic, and idealistic rhetoric. We are more
likely to give the benefit of doubt to extremist radical left-wing movements,
and assume that although possibly misguided, they are nevertheless committed
to improving the human condition. For obvious historical reasons, right-wing
populism is much less likely to escape adverse attention.
Yet, as several chapters here show, there is a close similarity in beliefs and strat-
egies between radical left-wing populism as manifested in the intolerant excesses
of political correctness and identity politics, and right-wing populism leading
eventually to the success of Trump, Brexit, and the AfD (Inglehart & Norris,
2016). The worrying rise of right-wing populism is partly explicable as a reac-
tion to the intolerant and autocratic ideologies of the radical left such as identity
politics and political correctness (Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Murray, 2019).
In our age, playing with identity as a political strategy is a very dangerous game
(see Part III). In the late 1960s, left-wing movements were among the first to
invoke identitarian ideologies in the alleged pursuit of social justice and equality,
and to use strategies that violated the classical values of liberalism, individualism,
and tolerance in pursuing these goals. It was perhaps inevitable that weaponizing
group identity based on gender, sex, race, or ethnicity eventually produced a pop-
ulist backlash by those groups singled out for attacks (Inglehart & Norris, 2016).
What may differ between left-wing and right-wing populism is the kinds of
narratives and value framing strategies employed to justify intolerant and abso-
lutist practices (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; Cooper & Avery, this volume).
Right-wing populism historically embraced a nativist ideology where threats to
the in-group and narcissistic beliefs in the group’s greatness were employed to
justify authoritarian practices and leadership. As Albright (2018) suggested, strat-
egies first invented by Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and Salazar are now routinely
employed by dictators like Erdogan, Putin, Orbán, and others (see Part IV).
Left-wing populism has slightly different roots. Perhaps the most enduring
populist ideology on the left is Marxism, featuring the same degree of authori-
tarianism, dogmatism, and intolerance also found in right-wing totalitarian
movements (Koestler, 1952; Popper, 1945). According to Marxist ideology, social
progress is the outcome of necessary and inevitable group conflict. Assignment to
6 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

antagonistic groups (classes) is objectively determined by economic factors with

no place for individual choice. Unrelenting group conflict is considered as the
necessary engine of progress and social justice, a political strategy that has changed
little since Lenin’s days.
Contemporary identity politics, perhaps the most influential recent reincarna-
tion of Marxist ideology, instead of ‘classes’ defines antagonistic identity group
membership in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, or minority status. The theory
of intersectionality further refines these group categories and assigns individuals
to privileged (e.g. White, male, heterosexual) vs. oppressed (non-White, female,
homosexual) identity groups. As in Marxist theory, conflict between these antag-
onistic groups is expected to drive the next phase of history.
Populists at both ends of the political spectrum also differ in the kinds of
grievances they focus on and the kinds of moral justifications they employ, while
displaying a similarity in terms of their tactics, strategies, and modus operandi
(Part IV; Cooper & Avery; Crano & Gaffney, this volume). Left-wing populists
are typically concerned with economic, ethnic, and racial injustice, while right-
wing populists tend to emphasize the importance of order, structure, predictabil-
ity, and the values of nationalism, authoritarianism, and conservatism (Feldman;
and Huddy & Del Ponte, this volume). Left-wing populist programs advocate
state power and redistribution (e.g. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Chavez’ Bolivarian
revolution, etc.), while right-wing populism emphasizes ‘tribal’ and nativist val-
ues, promoting xenophobia, nationalism, religion, and conservatism (e.g. Trump,
Berlusconi, Salvini, the Tea Party movement, Erdogan, Orbán and Kaczyński,
etc.; Kruglanski et al., this volume).
Marx’ traditionally populist class struggle ideology lost its attraction by the late
1960s as the horrors of the soviet communist system finally became recognized.
Many of its Western adherents turned to either postmodernism or ‘social justice’
movements as their new preferred system critical ideology (Murray, 2019). It
is paradoxical that Marxists who originally believed in the absolute truth and
determinism of their system, once it became unsustainable, went to the opposite
extreme and now believe equally fervently that there can be no truth at all. What
Marxism and postmodernism do still share is a strongly critical attitude to West-
ern liberal values, a romantic attachment to anti-Enlightenment communalism,
and a cold-eyed focus on power as the major social issue of interest.

Features of Populism
Although by its very nature populism is an elusive construct with rather fuzzy
boundaries, there are several key features that theorists commonly identify, such
as anti-elitism, moral absolutism, tribalism, and utopistic ideation. We shall briefly
consider these features next.
 The Psychology of Populism 7

Anti-Elitism
Anti-elitism is often suggested as one of the key features of populism. How-
ever, this theoretical notion is challenged by some research that shows that after
populists acquire power and become the new ‘elite’, the movement may continue
unabated, driven mostly by the tribal allegiances and moral fervor of its follow-
ers rather than anti-elitism (Forgas & Lantos; Krekó, this volume). Nevertheless,
there are many instances when ascendant populist movements can capitalize on
the notion that the ‘elites’ have betrayed the people by pursuing policies and val-
ues that are not fully representative of the population at large.
There may even be some truth in this claim. Part of the reason for the grow-
ing cleavage between ‘elites’ and many voters may be that the political agenda has
become increasingly dominated by various activist minority intellectual move-
ments that carried far more weight than their numerical support would justify
(Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018). When such a gap between the elites and mainstream
voters becomes too wide, new populist movements inevitably arise to channel
resentment, as was the case in countries like Germany (AfD), Austria (FPO),
France, Britain (Brexit), and the US (Trump).
Migration is a good case in point. Many voters in liberal democracies have
growing reservations about uncontrolled migration that might change their
familiar local culture too much and too fast. Yet, political elites in most European
countries have been unable to articulate this voter sentiment (Murray, 2018).
There now exists a conflict between the concerns of voters that conflict with
the dominant values of political elites informed by moral and ideological rather
than pragmatic considerations (Cooper & Avery, this volume). Virtue signaling,
political correctness, and the influence of identity politics constrain the elite’s
ability to respond to popular concerns. The long-lasting inability of the EU to
develop a coherent migration policy has been directly responsible for the rise of
populist movements in Europe. As philosophers like Roger Scruton and public
intellectuals like Douglas Murray (2018) argue, the political class in most Western
democracies has become captive to the ideological left and inclined to promote
more left-wing policies than the beliefs of the electorate at large.

Moral Absolutism
One of the defining hallmarks of populist movements is moral absolutism and
intolerance of open debate and different views. This Manichean stance is based
on the notion that representing ‘the people’ is unquestionably virtuous, and any
opposition is evil (Krekó, this volume). Populist intolerance stands in stark contrast
to the Enlightenment values of open, rational debate, and acceptance of divergent
opinions as the best way deal with reality. Even when in power, populists question
the legitimacy of any opposition (Forgas & Lantos; Krekó, this volume).
8 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

On the right, the moral imperatives are usually rooted in religious, national-
istic, or ethnic value systems. We do know from social psychology how easy it
is to fire up such tribal sentiments in the service of political objectives (Tajfel &
Forgas, 2000). This pattern of moral absolutism is a recognizable feature of earlier
populist movements led by Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and several latter-day auto-
crats, like Putin, Orbán, Erdogan, and others. Orbán, for example, after losing a
democratic election in Hungary in 2002, declared that the motherland (i.e. him
and his party) cannot be in opposition (Forgas & Lantos, this volume). In a similar
manner, when Democrat politicians in the US label Trump’s voters ‘deplorables’,
they also display moral absolutism, introducing a degree of ad hominem irrational-
ity and intolerance into political discourse that precludes reasonable compromise.
But tribalism is not the exclusive property of right-wing populist movements.
Left-wing ideologies, such as Marxism, are also replete with claims about absolute
moral superiority. An interesting historical example of this majoritarian and fun-
damentally anti-democratic ideology can be traced to the classic conflict between
the Bolsheviks (actually meaning majority in Russian) and the Mensheviks (actu-
ally meaning minority) during the Russian revolution. Bolshevik strategy, shaped
in no small measure by Lenin, asserted that anyone disagreeing with the Bolshevik
cause is an enemy of the people and must be vanquished (and many indeed were).
Some of the strident social justice movements that increasingly dominate the
political ideologies of the West also share the populist hallmarks of moral absolut-
ism, unquestioning belief in the righteousness of their cause, and the conviction
borrowed from Foucault that the struggle for power and dominance is morally
justified. The growing pattern of ‘wokeness’, detecting and taking offence at
opinions one disagrees with, and ‘cancelling’, or silencing and persecuting people
who express contrary opinions, are examples of absolutist populist intolerance
incompatible with liberal values (Murray, 2019).
In essence, populism represents a fundamental threat to democracy because it
denies the legitimacy of any view other than its own. The cause is absolute, and
those who fail to join the pre-ordained collective struggle are cast out. Fascists
and Marxists had no difficulty morally justifying mass executions of people clas-
sified as traitors and enemies. Today, populist leaders like Trump, Putin, Orbán,
or Erdogan habitually deprecate, humiliate, and sometimes poison perceived
enemies, just as social justice warriors have no compunction about silencing and
harassing individuals who dare to question their ideology (Murray, 2019).
In the current increasingly polarized clash between morally absolutist left-
wing and right-wing zealots, reasonable, rational, Enlightenment liberalism has
little chance to reassert itself. Populism is dangerous because it appeals to the
baser, emotional dimension of the human mind (Koestler, 1967). Those caught
in the middle between these warring camps, hoping to engage in rational dis-
course, are either attacked from both sides or ignored. The liberal preference
for open debate and compromise is fundamentally incompatible with populist
ideology that denies the legitimacy of differing opinions. Given the aggressive,
 The Psychology of Populism 9

authoritarian, and irrational political culture of both left-wing and right-wing

populists, we are in danger of losing the ability to communicate with each other
as public life becomes increasingly polarized. It is in this sense that populism
represents a tribal challenge to liberal democracy, as the next section will discuss.

Tribalism
Populists at both ends of the political spectrum also share a propensity for tribal hatreds.
In addition to reducing self-uncertainty, the powerful urge for group identification
has deep adaptive and evolutionary origins and offered important survival benefits to
our ancestors (Tajfel & Forgas, 2000). The ability of humans to identify with many
fictional and often absurd belief systems throughout history served to reduce uncer-
tainty and helped to integrate social groups (von Hippel, 2018). It is the uniquely
human capacity for symbolic thought that allows almost any belief system, however
bizarre, to serve as a powerful anchor for a tribal group identity (Harari, 2014).
The subordination of the individual to the interests of a group, real or fictional,
thus appears to be a human evolutionary universal. It was only very recently dur-
ing the Enlightenment that that the universal pattern of communal bondage was
broken in Western civilization as a result of the revolutionary rise of individual-
ism and humanism, with spectacular results for human flourishing, well-being,
health, wealth, and tolerance. However, the long established evolutionary human
needs for status, identity, and meaning that can be derived from immersion in a
primary group continue to have a visceral attraction that populism exploits. Many
anti-Enlightenment political and romantic philosophical movements hark back to
this primeval need for idealized communal engagement. Both fascist and Marxist
ideologies are fundamentally collectivist in idealizing the group (‘folk’ or ‘class’)
and questioning the primacy of individual freedom and choice. It is surprising
that whereas fascism as a credible ideology has few remaining adherents, Marxism
still retains an attraction for many Western intellectuals.

Utopian Thinking
Populist political movements often adopt a millennial ideology, invoking the
prospect of some final decisive battle or revolution which will usher in a golden
age for the ‘people’. Hitler’s thousand-year empire, or Mussolini’s claims to rec-
reate the greatness of the Roman empire, share the same utopian mindset. In a
similar manner, the Marxist prediction that the coming and inevitable proletarian
revolution will usher in a utopian communist society had very strong appeal for
many people, including many Western intellectuals. The prediction of utopian
bliss and the restoration of the true greatness and autonomy of ‘the people’ appear
irresistible siren calls for adherents of populist movements. White supremacist
movements in the US, ultra-nationalists in Russia, Turkey, or Hungary, or left-
wing radicals share in this utopistic vision of their glorious imagined future.
10 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

In addition to the partly overlapping features of populism we considered

earlier—and the list is by no means exhaustive—there are also several recurring
narratives and propaganda strategies that populist leaders and movements regu-
larly employ. We turn to this issue next (see also Part IV).

Strategies of Populist Leadership and Propaganda

Leadership
As many of the chapters here argue, leaders play a critical role in populist move-
ments, and leaderless movements rarely persist irrespective of the legitimacy of
their cause (Crano & Gaffney; Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume). Successful
populist leaders are often charismatic, exude self-confidence and certainty, and
are unwilling to allow disagreement. The more extreme the group, the more
likely that the leader exhibits these qualities (Petersen at al., this volume).
Populist leaders typically function as both the symbolic embodiment of their
cause and the ultimate arbiter of the group. Groups led by more than one leader
rarely succeed, because all communications central to group identity and entitativ-
ity need to be articulated consistently (Albright, 2018). To be effective, populist
communication must be persistent and unwilling to backslide or compromise, as
message consistency is a necessary feature of almost all successful persuasive com-
munication (Crano & Gaffney, this volume). Populism succeeds because it offers
epistemic certainty and simplicity in response to complex challenges (Kruglanski
et al.; van Prooijen, this volume). Inconsistencies are typically explained as unavoid-
able in response to unforeseen outside threats, conspiracies, fake news, and attacks
by out-groups.
Another common populist leadership feature is an endemic disrespect for the
truth. Appealing to lies and innuendo, conspiracy theories, and other propagan-
distic tactics work well with the faithful, and are a key feature of the armamentar-
ium of populist leaders. As many populist movements have illustrated, convenient
half-truths and outright lies remain unchallenged if consistent with long-term
positions. Trump has told thousands of untruths with no serious consequences.
Perhaps because of their close-minded allegiance to absolute and superordinate
moral values, populist leaders are less constrained by the normal standards of
honesty and suffer no shame or censure when dishonest behavior is uncovered
(Cooper & Avery, this volume), unlike mainstream leaders who often pay a large
price when caught.

Populist Narratives and Propaganda

Populist movements share a key feature—the ability to identify and mobilize the
causes of popular dissatisfaction and articulate ‘injustices’ and sense of deprivation
 The Psychology of Populism 11

(Ditto & Rodriguez, this volume). Narratives of grievance, feelings of anger and
fear, and assigning blame is a winning formula of many populist leaders (­Marcus,
this volume). The Nazis identified Jews as the cause of economic hardship, Trump
blames the Washington ‘swamp’, Orbán blames Jewish financiers and the EU—
playing to emotions and popular fears and resentment is more important than
truth. The emphasis is on unfairness and deprivation and identifying a common
enemy, drawing together an amorphous mass of complainants into a cohesive,
entitative group. The dissemination of such propaganda messages today is power-
fully facilitated by the widespread availability of the internet.
Populist group narratives often display a narcissistic sense of unrecognized
greatness and oppression by hostile adversaries (Golec de Zavala et al., this vol-
ume). To sustain a viable and entitative movement, there should be ‘others’,
an opposing out-group (Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume). Inter-group
conflict is typically presented in absolutist, Manichean terms, as a life-and-death
struggle for justice and survival (Krekó, this volume). Populist groups typically see
themselves as unquestionably virtuous (vs. the ‘moral majority’, Black Lives Mat-
ter, Antifa, the Tea Party movement), fighting against a corrupt and evil power
structure. Rectifying real or imagined past injustices and grievances and nostalgia
for returning to an idealized past are also common narrative features, especially
for right-wing populists.
A danger of this ‘us-vs.-them’ narrative is that it almost guarantees resistance
from the adversarial out-group that often leads to costly group conflict (Golec de
Zavala et al., this volume). Inter-group conflict necessarily involves pain and suf-
fering, often justified by the promise of a brighter future. Marxism is again a good
example of just this kind of ‘the end justifies the means’ populist ideology. The
promise of a perfect communist utopia just around the corner justifies almost any
sacrifice for its achievement (such as tens of millions of dead in Stalin’s or Mao’s
mindless campaigns). The manner in which populist groups achieve ascendancy
is understood reasonably well, but we know much less about why, once in power,
regression to the status quo ante frequently occurs (Crano, 2012; Forgas & Lan-
tos; Krekó, this volume). History indicates that populist success is more likely to
be long-lived if the leader is capable of persistently narrating the group’s sense of
moral superiority.
Populist narratives often employ simple, forceful, and controlling language
choices. Whereas low-controlling language uses phrases like ‘perhaps’, or ‘possi-
bly’, highly controlling language is definitive. Successful populist leaders often use
controlling and even militaristic language, and use messages that are ‘explicit, clear,
and efficient; however, it can be perceived as threatening, thus risking rejection’
(Staunton, Alvaro, Rosenberg, & Crano, 2020, p. 369). The language of irony and
deprecation is also frequently employed. Irony seems to diminish reactance on the
part of recipients, and in the case of controlling language makes a command seem
‘softer’, and hence more easily accepted (Crano & Gaffney, this volume).
12 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

Repetition is another key tactic of populist leaders. The message must be

repeated continually, with conviction and no retraction, as advised by the master
propagandist Goebbels (Albright, 2018). Social psychology experiments suggest
that the credibility of a message is increased almost as much by simple repetition
as by hearing the same message from several independent sources.

The ‘Big Lie’

A particularly perverse populist tactic is the ‘big lie’ strategy, as exemplified by
Adolf Hitler: the more implausible a lie, the less likely people believe that it could
have been invented. The big lie of blaming the Jews in justifying the Holocaust is
one of the most powerful historical examples (Herf, 2005, 2006). In Mein Kampf,
Hitler stated that

in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because . . . /

people/ themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be
ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their
heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others
could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.1

Truth in this case becomes irrelevant. Big lies abound in human history; indeed,
many successful religions also appear to benefit from the ‘big lie’ strategy, creating
myths and describing events that are so extraordinary that their very implausibility
inhibits skepticism (e.g. virgin birth, resurrection, hell, heaven, etc.).
Combatting the big lie is made more difficult by the fact that nobody likes to
see themselves as stupid and gullible. Changing one belief has implications for
many other, cherished beliefs that may even threaten the definition of the self.
Leaving the tribe of ‘true believers’ also produces epistemic uncertainty (Krueger
and Grüning, this volume). Faithful Nazis still believed in the final victory even
when Russian troops were closing in on Berlin, and communist ideologues con-
tinue to believe in Marxist dogma even when its failures are uncontestable.
Not coincidentally, ‘big lies’ and conspiracy theories abound in human his-
tory, suggesting that there may be a human propensity to believe in tall tales, and
that such stories may even have some adaptive value. Belief in the divine right
of kings, the creation myths of many cultures, revealed religious doctrines, and
many spiritual teachings fundamentally contradict our sense of reality yet survive
for centuries. The more outrageous the story and the more contrary to every-
day experience, the more likely that it will be effective in defining and bonding
together an identity group. In a paradoxical way, human gullibility appears to be
a universal feature of our species, perhaps because the survival value of a shared
belief in outrageous symbolic myths is greater than is the cost of falsifying reality
(Forgas & Baumeister, 2019; Harari, 2014; von Hippel, 2018).
 The Psychology of Populism 13

Fear
Arousing fear is also a common populist strategy, often combined with the big
lie. To be effective, the threat presented may be linked to a solution only the
leader can provide. One recent example was provided by Trump in his acceptance
speech at the Republican presidential nomination convention: ‘No one knows
the system better than me’, stopping to pause, smiling, then, ‘which is why I alone
can fix it’ (Peyronyn, 2016). Propaganda campaigns by Hungarian populist leader
Viktor Orbán have also played on this theme for years, casting the EU and liber-
als everywhere as mortal enemies of Hungary. In a similar way, Hitler not only
blamed the Jews for economic privations and Germany’s defeat in World War I,
but also for their plans to take over the country, amplifying the populace’s strong
sense of relative deprivation (Petersen et al., this volume). However, fear-arousing
communication needs to be handled carefully as it can easily elicit resistance and
skepticism (Crano & Gaffney, this volume).

Conspiracy Theories
In order to bolster and maintain the narrative of unquestionable moral certainty
and superiority, populist movements are particularly prone to invoke conspiracy
theories to explain why their ‘truth’ is not yet universally recognized (van Prooi-
jen, this volume). Conspiracy theories can be very effective in questioning the
credibility of any idea or empirical fact that does not agree with one’s preferred
view of the world. Nationalist politicians are prone to blame any failure on hos-
tile conspirators (Forgas & Lantos; Krekó, this volume). Combatting conspiracy
theories is made more difficult by the fact that by their very nature, the alleged
conspirators work in secrecy, so no reliable facts about their activities are publicly
available. A good example is the durability of fake news about Jewish conspiracies
that continue to circulate.
Another example touching on our discipline is the way right-wing populist
autocrats like Orbán are on record for seeing social science in general and psy-
chology in particular as a hotbed of liberal conspiracy to undermine the tradi-
tional values of religion, family, and nation. Paradoxically, on the left, some radical
scholars also cast social psychology as a conspiratorial and reactionary enterprise
privileging White men, designed to disempower other voices and ‘knowledges’.
As Fiedler (this volume) points out, populist thinking and conspiracy theories
are also present in science. Some psychologists see a conspiracy and question
the validity of any evolutionary evidence for the inheritance of human qualities
when such evidence is incompatible with their social engineering strategies (von
Hippel, 2018).
As this by no means exhaustive list illustrates, there is a wide range of prag-
matic strategies and narratives exploiting human psychological vulnerabilities that
14 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

are used by populist politicians to propagate their cause (see also Part IV). Our
book was designed to offer an overview of both the theoretical underpinnings,
and practical operation of populist movements, as the brief overview of the vol-
ume presented next will illustrate.

Overview of the Volume

Beyond this introductory chapter, our book is organized into four complemen-
tary sections. The five chapters in Part I explore what populists want: the role
of motivational and emotional factors in the spread of populism. Four chapters
in Part II examine the complementary domain of the populist mind: cognitive
aspects of populism. The five chapters in Part III turn to the one of the central
psychological variables that drive populism: its tribal character and the key role
of social identity processes in populist ideation. Finally, four chapters in Part IV
address the pragmatic question of the social psychology of leadership, propaganda,
and different narratives in promoting populist political movements.

Part I. What Populists Want: Motivational and Emotional

Factors in Populism
In Chapter 2, Ditto and Rodriguez propose that populist political move-
ments gain power by leveraging feelings of grievance. Evoking past grievances
produces political mobilization, moral judgment, and inter-group conflict as
aggrieved groups come to interpret past injustice as morally relevant and justify-
ing ‘payback’. Grievance-based political strategies escalate conflict and provoke a
self-reinforcing cycle of animosity.
Bar-Tal and Magal (Chapter 3) seek to understand the motivational and
emotional pull of populism from a Lewinian perspective. They suggest that social
events in recent decades led to a deprivation of primary needs and values, pro-
ducing feelings of frustration, dissonance, and mistrust of the political system.
The human search for a meaningful worldview increases the appeal of populist
and authoritarian leaders who offer anti-democratic strategies in their quest for
power.
Petersen, Osmundsen, and Bor (Chapter 4) argue that one of the main
drivers of extreme political discontent is motivations to achieve status via domi-
nance. Social status as an adaptive resource can be achieved either through service
producing privilege, or through aggression producing dominance. Populist discon-
tent often triggers aggression to achieve dominance. Research confirms that
extreme forms of political discontent correlate well with indices of dominance
through aggression.
Marcus (Chapter 5) suggests that support for far-right populist parties is
driven more by anger and a sense of injustice than fear. He presents empirical data
 The Psychology of Populism 15

showing that threat and fear produce very different cognitive reactions than do
anger and grievance. Whereas fear promotes more open and deliberative think-
ing, anger increases motivated reasoning and partisan certitude. Misinterpreting
the emotional foundations of populist appeal as fear-driven may compromise
effective responses.
Golec de Zavala, Dorottya Lantos, and Oliver Keenan (Chapter 6)
argue that feelings of collective narcissism, the belief that one’s own group is
exceptional but not sufficiently recognized, is a key feature in the current wave of
populism, promoting prejudice and group conflict. Collective narcissism driven
by a frustrated sense of self-importance is exploited by populist leaders to justify
the maintenance of group-based hierarchies, promoting homophobia, racism,
and sexism. Despite its overt claims, populism does not intrinsically value social
justice; rather, it is driven by a desire to feel better than others based on one’s
in-group’s status.

Part II. The Populist Mind: Cognitive Aspects of Populism

Krueger and Grüning (Chapter 7) argue that populist ideologies exploit com-
mon failures of inductive reasoning, essentially offering certainties where none can
be had. The aversion to uncertainty may contribute to social projection, self-
stereotyping, attributions of essence, and moralizing. Fighting populism requires
the cultivation of a skeptical and tolerant mindset, and the realization that much
of social perception, for better or worse, is biased.
In Chapter 8, van Prooijen shows that the epistemic certainty and over-
confidence of populist ideologies is based on the simplistic construal of com-
plex social problems. He presents evidence that simple radical political attitudes
held with high confidence are more resistant to change. As the internet provides
enhanced opportunities to collectively validate simplistic populist beliefs, a reduc-
tion in epistemic certainty is necessary before belief change can occur.
Kruglanski, Molinario, and Sensales (Chapter 9) identify common cog-
nitive mechanisms that underlie populist politics and identify the need for closure
and the need for personal significance and mattering as critical. The authors present
empirical support for this prediction, reporting the results of two studies of pop-
ulism in the US and Italy.
Fiedler (Chapter 10) argues that populism represents a fundamentally anti-
scientific cognitive stance characterized by the simplification, emotionalized dis-
cussion style, and irrational rejection of analytical, logical, and evidence-based
arguments. In that sense, some prevailing scientific practices also have a populist
character, including emphasis on significance-testing, the ongoing debates about
questionable research practices, and the persistence of some scientific myths. Fie-
dler points out that populism is not just a feature of public life, but may also be
discovered closer to home in our own ranks.
16 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

Part III. The Tribal Call: Social Identity and Populism

Hogg and Gøetsche-Astrup (Chapter 11) apply uncertainty-identity theory
to predict that self-uncertainty makes people more vulnerable to radicalization and
joining extremist groups with autocratic leaders. Populist tribalism involves beliefs
that the sovereignty of the people is actively subverted by outsiders (an elite). Con-
spiracy theories, collective narcissism, and narratives of victimhood are also important in
populist tribalism. Empirical evidence confirms that self-uncertainty attracts people
to populist groups and leaders who offer clear and often extremist identity narratives.
Forgas and Lantos (Chapter 12) explore the psychological strategies used
by populists, once in power, to install despotism and destroy democracy, using
Hungary as an example. The chapter traces the process of dismantling of demo-
cratic institutions and the establishment of a one-party state, and offers a theo-
retical and empirical analysis of the role of damaged national identity, feelings of
helplessness, collective narcissism, and populist propaganda in Hungary’s rejection
of democracy.
Krekó (Chapter 13) suggests that populist attitudes can lose their anti-elitist
character and become more tribal once populists come to power. He analyzes
the attitudes of voters of ruling populist parties in Hungary and Poland, showing
that once in power, populist voters are less anti-elitist than the liberal opposi-
tion. Instead of anti-elitism, ‘political tribalism’ and a Manichean worldview now
define ruling populist politics, focusing on divisive social identities and promoting
antagonisms.
Huddy and Del Ponte (Chapter 14) discuss the role of nationalistic country-
first propaganda in populist politics in the US. Based on data from the General
Social Survey, they show that in the US nationalism and patriotism are positively
correlated, stable, and equally prevalent among Blacks and Whites. However,
the link between nationalism and Republican identification has increased over
time among Whites but not among Blacks. The chapter suggests that although
nationalism is stable, its political relevance has increased over time but only among
White Americans.
Gelfand and Lorente (Chapter 15) propose that populist trends can be
partially explained by a cultural and evolutionary analysis of the strength (tight-
ness) or weakness of prevailing social norms. Ecological and social threats call for
stronger norms and leaders, and autocratic leaders harness the power of threat to
gain voter support to instill tighter cultural norms. Data from the US and France
confirms that people who feel threatened welcome tighter norms, explaining
their support for autocratic candidates.

Part IV. Populist Narratives and Propaganda

Crano and Gaffney (Chapter 16) suggest that effective populist propaganda
builds on perceptions of relative deprivation and insecurity to promote the strug-
gle against oppressive elites. The chapter discusses the role of social identity
 The Psychology of Populism 17

appeals in populist narratives and analyzes how minority influence and different
persuasion strategies shape partisan identities by creating cohesive groups whose
power often exceeds their numbers.
Cooper and Avery (Chapter 17) suggest that populist support depends on
how core values are framed. When framed in universal moral terms, populism
receives support from both the political left and right in the US. When framed as
a nativist issue instead, support from the left diminishes. Research confirms that
populist support for specific issues varied depending on framing them in moral
(e.g. fairness) or nativist (my group first) terms. Liberals support for the same poli-
cies declined when presented in a nativist rather than a moral framework.
Vallacher and Fennell (Chapter 18) argue that populist discontent may
remain unexpressed unless dynamic changes occur in the narratives producing
a collective movement. Populism thus is not inherently linked to rational self-
interest nor to specific ideologies; rather, its spread is attributable to dynamic
processes that arise when salient equilibria of a social system are destabilized.
This dynamic process model has implications for understanding, predicting, and
perhaps managing the ascendance of populist movements.
Feldman (Chapter 19) examines the joint role of education and authoritari-
anism on public support for right-wing populist leaders. He argues that authori-
tarianism captures many of the core elements of right-wing populism: opposition
to immigration, social/moral conservatism, nationalism, sexism, and ethnocentrism.
Accordingly, people high in authoritarianism are especially sensitive to threats to
group norms and status. Interestingly, a national survey of Americans finds that greater
education does not reduce the effects of authoritarianism on right-wing attitudes.
In summary, our aim with this book is to contribute to a better understanding
of the nature and psychological characteristics of populist movements. We hope
to highlight the fundamental threat that collectivist populist beliefs and strategies,
both on the left and the right of the political spectrum, present for the core val-
ues and the very survival of liberal democratic systems. We are confident that a
psychological approach can contribute to a better understanding of this complex
and intractable social problem. In this introductory chapter in particular, we tried
to survey some of the most important psychological features of populism, to be
elaborated in the chapters that follow. Contributions to this volume were selected
to offer a broad and representative overview of recent research on populism. As
editors, we are deeply grateful to all our contributors for accepting our invitation
to contribute to this, the 22nd volume of the Sydney Symposium of Social Psy-
chology, and sharing their valuable ideas with our readers. We sincerely hope that
the insights contained in these chapters will contribute to a better understanding
of the role of psychological processes in populist movements.

Note
1. Project Gutenberg of Australia—Mein Kampf tr. James Murphy. Archived from the
original on 19 July 2020.
18 Joseph P. Forgas and William D. Crano

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PART I

What Populists Want

Motivational and Emotional
Factors in Populism
2
POPULISM AND THE SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY OF GRIEVANCE1
Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. A grievance can almost serve as a substi-
tute for hope: and it not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their
allegiance to him who offers them a grievance.
Eric Hoffer (1955)
The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

The redress of citizen grievances is a core task facing any governmental system.
It is so central to participatory democracy that the right to it is enshrined in its
canonical founding documents, including the Magna Carta and the first amend-
ment to the U.S. Constitution. Governments develop elaborate systems of laws
and courts to allow ordinary people to seek redress of their grievances, against
both their government and their fellow citizens, and the time, effort, and some-
times even blood involved in developing, nurturing, and defending these systems
is testament to the importance people attach to the promotion and maintenance
of justice in their everyday lives (see also Bar-Tal & Magal; Kruglanski et al.; Mar-
cus; and Petersen et al., this volume).
Populist movements see the people and the elite in an antagonistic struggle,
with ordinary citizens portrayed as exploited for the benefit of a privileged few
(Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017). Rather than simply offering policies to
improve the lot of everyday people, populist politics infuses its messaging with
an explicitly moral tone (see also Krekó, this volume). The people are portrayed
as inherently good, a force of purity and wisdom, whose voice is ignored or
repressed by a corrupt elite that wields its political, economic, and cultural power
in service of its own self-preservation and enrichment. The power of populism as
a political strategy comes from elevating feelings of grievance to the raison d’être
24 Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

of the movement, harnessing the desire for justice deprived into a clarion call for
political and, quite often, extra-political action.
But why are appeals to grievance an attractive political strategy? Why do pop-
ulist leaders so often choose messages of blame and retribution over messages of
hope, and what are the effects of feelings of grievance on political thinking and
action?
The key to understanding grievance politics generally, and populist politi-
cal movements more specifically, is understanding the psychology that underlies
them. Accordingly, the focus of this chapter is to lay out a social psychological
analysis of the concept of grievance, our preoccupation with it, how feelings of
past injustice affect people’s moral calculus, and how these effects in turn toxify
intergroup relationships (see also Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume). We
suggest that political actors who adopt a populist strategy seek to capitalize on the
psychology of grievance to mobilize and galvanize political support, but that this
strategy has the important political sequalae of legitimizing extra-political action
and escalating political conflict.

Mobilization and Moralization

A central goal of politics is mobilization. To gain power, through election or
any other means, politicians need people to do more than just agree with them.
People have to be motivated to support you, and to act in ways that support you,
such as voting, volunteering, organizing, or protesting.
One way to motivate political action is to moralize it. Bauman and Skitka
(2009) define moral conviction as the subjective assessment that one’s attitude
about a specific issue or situation is associated with one’s core moral beliefs and
fundamental sense of right and wrong. Although associated with the perceived
importance of the attitude (Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, 2005), feeling morally
convicted about an issue has unique and important psychological and behavioral
effects beyond those of just feeling an issue is important. Compared to non-
moral attitudes, moral attitudes are likely to be experienced as universal truths
that should apply to everyone, regardless of circumstance or cultural differences
(Goodwin & Darley, 2008, 2010; Skitka et al., 2005). Moral attitudes are also
strongly associated with intense emotions, such as disgust or anger, more so than
even strong non-moral attitudes (Skitka et al., 2005). Perhaps most importantly,
merely construing an attitude as moral increases its strength, leading to greater
attitude-behavior correspondence and greater resistance to persuasion (Luttrell,
Petty, Briñol, & Wagner, 2016; Van Bavel, Packer Haas, & Cunningham, 2012).
For example, analyses of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections indi-
cate that strong moral convictions about the candidates and the issues of the
day uniquely predicted self-reported voting behavior (for both Democrats and
Republicans), controlling for a host of other factors (e.g., attitude strength and
 Populism & Social Psychology of Grievance 25

strength of party identification; Skitka & Bauman, 2008; see also Feldman; and
Huddy & Del Ponte, this volume).
Because moral conviction fuels political engagement, many politicians encour-
age citizens to moralize political issues to mobilize collective action. Marietta
(2008) contends that politicians often use “sacred rhetoric” to frame issues in
terms of nonnegotiable moral values rather than pragmatic assessments of costs
and benefits. Morally framed messages tend to contain strong emotional language,
which appeals to audiences that are likely to share the same emotional response
to a given issue (Brady, Wills, Jost, Tucker, & Van Bavel, 2017; Kreps & Monin,
2011). In the context of populist politics, using the simple, intuitive language of
moral right and wrong, rather than technical policy-centric cost–benefit analyses,
may also appeal to the populist’s desire to align themselves with the values and
vernacular of the everyday people they claim to champion.
Given these benefits of moral framing, it is no wonder that politicians often try
to use it to their advantage (see also Cooper & Avery, this volume). It is important
to note, however, that the benefits of moral framing do not come without costs.
Individuals who hold attitudes with moral conviction show greater intolerance of
people with opposing viewpoints, report less desire to interact with them (Skitka
et al., 2005), and hold more positive feelings about their political ingroup and
greater animosity toward, and even dehumanization of, political outgroup mem-
bers (Pacilli, Roccato, Pagliaro, & Russo, 2016; Ryan, 2014). Thus, moralization
as a political tool has the dual effects of mobilizing collective action by binding
political subgroups together in celebration and defense of a shared moral vision,
and driving a wedge between subgroups by highlighting the value differences that
separate them, degrading political discourse and hampering attempts by the sub-
groups to negotiate and compromise (Haidt, 2012; Skitka, Hanson, Morgan, &
Wisneski, in press). The collateral costs of moralization as a political strategy will
be a major focus of our of grievance politics moving forward.

What Is Grievance?
In the lecture hall, this video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg,
TED Blog Video, 2013) always provokes a huge laugh. Part of an early TED
talk, the clip begins with Frans de Waal, the famous primatologist and moral
psychologist, introducing his seminal series of experiments with Sarah Brosnan
(Brosnan & de Waal, 2003), in which two capuchin monkeys, side by side in
adjoining cages, are in turn offered a reward for performing a simple task. In the
crucial condition shown in the video clip, the first monkey performs the task hap-
pily for a piece of cucumber. She (female capuchins most clearly show the effect;
Brosnan & de Waal, 2014) then watches a second monkey perform the same task,
but be rewarded with a grape (a more desirable food item for capuchin monkeys).
The fun comes when the task is rerun and the first monkey is again offered a
26 Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

cucumber rather than a grape as reward. In contrast to her calm acceptance of

the watery gourd the first time around, this time the response is visible anger to
the proffered cucumber, immediately throwing it back at the experimenter and
violently shaking the cage in protest. In a closing quip, de Waal notes the similar-
ity between the capuchin monkeys’ behavior and the Occupy Wall Street protests
that were at that time ongoing in New York City.
We describe this video because it captures poignantly the phenomenon of
grievance and the kind of response it typically generates. The dictionary defini-
tion of grievance is “a real or imagined wrong or other cause for complaint or
protest, especially unfair treatment” (Dictionary.com, n.d.). Grievance, in other
words, is the sense that one has been wronged somehow, that outcomes are not
being distributed in a fair and equitable way, that oneself or one’s group has been
discriminated against or taken advantage of. One can feel aggrieved personally or
as a function of one’s membership in a group that has received unfair treatment,
and the sense of grievance can refer to a specific unfair act, like watching another
receive more reward for the same act than you yourself did, or it can refer to a
more diffuse sense of generalized injustice, a feeling that oneself or one’s group
has historically been subjected to unfair treatment in the past.
The idea that people have a fundamental concern with issues of fairness and
justice in everyday life is by no means new. Research on equity theory (e.g.,
DeScioli, Massenkoff, Shaw, Petersen, & Kurzban, 2014), procedural justice
(Clay-Warner, 2001), and belief in a just world (Callan, Ellard, & Nicol, 2006) are
all based on the notion that justice concerns are a central feature of social thought
and behavior. Justice concerns are also a central dynamic of the Kohlbergian view
of moral development (e.g., Kohlberg, 1975) and remain an important aspect of
lay morality in more pluralistic models of moral judgment (Gilligan, 1982; Gra-
ham et al., 2013; Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller, 1987). Cross-cultural research
suggests that concerns about fairness and justice are effectively universal in human
populations (Henrich et al., 2001), and while advantaged inequity aversion (i.e.,
discomfort that one is getting more than one deserves relative to others) seems
largely restricted to humans (Brosnan & de Waal, 2014; and perhaps chimpanzees,
Brosnan, Talbot, Ahlgren, Lambeth, & Shapiro, 2010), the disadvantaged ineq-
uity aversion demonstrated by Brosnan and de Waal’s capuchin monkeys has been
found in numerous species (Brosnan & de Waal, 2014), and thus the propensity
to experience feelings of grievance seems deeply embedded in human evolution-
ary history.
Important for our purposes here, grievance is a distinctly moral phenomenon.
Theoretically, feelings of grievance should not be experienced in response to just
any negative outcome, particularly a negative outcome that is perceived as just
and deserved. People should only feel aggrieved when the negative outcome is
perceived as unjust and undeserved, that is, when the outcome is perceived as
not just disappointing but morally wrong. Grievance involves a moral evalua-
tion of one’s state as fair (morally good) or unfair (morally bad), and evokes a
 Populism & Social Psychology of Grievance 27

prototypically moral response (anger and outrage rather than the disappointment
or self-criticism one feels after poor achievement in an ability context). Although
feelings of grievance should be expected to be most intense when the unfair
treatment happens to the self (more on this soon), humans also show many exam-
ples of grievance experienced in response to the unfair treatment of others—e.g.,
an unaffected member of a stigmatized group feeling aggrieved for the mistreat-
ment of other members of the group—and even in response to the mistreatment
of outgroup members. The substantial participation of White Americans in the
recent series of Black Lives Matter protests would seem a good example of other-
focused grievance.
Finally, the Brosnan and de Waal (2003) experiment is also important as an
elegant illustration of how feelings of grievance can be harnessed to moralize
and thus energize responses to a given situation. Initially, Brosnan and de Waal’s
capuchin subjects responded with equanimity to the cucumber reward. They
might have hoped for more than a tasteless vegetable as recompense for perfor-
mance, but they ultimately accepted the cucumber without complaint. It is when
the experimental procedure encouraged a moral interpretation of the cucumber
reward as unfair treatment (in comparison to the grape received for perform-
ing the identical task by the second monkey), that an emotional and behavioral
response was provoked. Therein lies the power of grievance as a political tool.
Promoting feelings of grievance is a form of moralization that triggers emotions
and mobilizes action. When populist political leaders encourage their followers to
blame poor economic or political conditions on the corrupt and selfish behavior
of an uncaring elite, they are transforming those conditions from undesirable to
unjust, and thus harnessing the power of grievance for political gain (see also Val-
lacher & Fennell, this volume).

A Temporal Analysis of Moral Judgment

Our analysis of grievance differs most from past treatments of similar phenomena
in its focus on how feelings of past injustice affect moral evaluations of current
acts and events. In fact, we see grievance as a neglected factor conspicuously
missing from past treatments of every day moral judgment. To illustrate this, let
us begin by briefly characterizing what we refer to as a temporal analysis of moral
judgment.
Psychological work on moral judgment has directed substantial attention to
the distinction between deontological and consequentialist approaches to moral
evaluation. The distinction is generally framed as a clash between moral evalu-
ations based on principles, rules, and the “means” of a given action (a deonto-
logical moral standard) versus evaluations based on the effects, consequences, or
“ends” of the action (a consequentialist or utilitarian moral standard). In philoso-
phy, this clash is often a normative one (which is the most appropriate approach
to moral evaluation?), but in psychology the distinction is treated descriptively, as
28 Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

two different psychological intuitions underlying moral judgment. For example,

classic moral dilemmas such as the Heinz dilemma, made famous by the seminal
work of moral developmentalist Lawrence Kohlberg (1975), ask people to choose
between a deontological or consequentialist standard for moral judgment. In the
scenario, Heinz is forced to decide whether to steal an overpriced drug that he
cannot afford but will save his seriously ill wife’s life. A deontological standard
posits that it is morally wrong for Heinz to steal the drug because the act of
stealing itself is morally wrong (and the ends of a moral act cannot justify the
means). A consequentialist standard, in contrast, argues that it is morally accept-
able (and potentially even morally required) for Heinz to steal the life-saving drug
because acts should be judged by the morality of their consequences, not the
morality of the act itself (thus the ends of an act can justify the means). Although
other standards of moral judgment have also been discussed (e.g., person-centered
approaches inspired by virtue ethics; Pizarro & Tannenbaum, 2012), psychologi-
cal research on moral judgment has been dominated by work placing the clash
between deontological and consequentialist intuitions at the center of human
moral dynamics (e.g., Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001).
But considering moral judgment from a temporal perspective suggests another
moral intuition active in moral judgment and moral conflict. Deontological judg-
ment can be said to have a present-focus in that its central concern is the inherent
morality of the act itself. Is the act the individual committed morally wrong (e.g.,
harmful, unfair, disloyal, disrespectful, or disgusting)? Does the act itself violate a
moral principle? From a deontological perspective, the morality of a given act is
determined in the present by the inherent moral qualities of the commission of
the act itself.
Consequentialist moral judgment, in comparison, has a future-focus. As the
name belies, the essential concern of a consequentialist morality is the future
consequences of the act. Will the future consequences of the act be positive or
negative? Can the morality of the act be justified by the positivity of its future
consequences? From a consequentialist perspective, then, the morality of a given
act is not solely a function of the moral quality of the act itself, but instead by
an analysis of whether the act, even if it is itself morally problematic (e.g., push-
ing a large man to his death to stop a trolley), is likely to produce morally good
consequences in the future (e.g., lowering the death toll of a trolley accident from
five to one).
What is missing, of course, is the past. Is there a moral standard that adopts a
past-focus on moral judgment? We suggest that grievance is just this sort of past-
based moral analysis. Following Lakoff (2002), we call this the moral accounting
approach and suggest that when evaluating the morality of a given act, in addition
to considering the moral qualities of the act itself and its potential to produce
good or bad consequences in the future, we also consider the moral history of
the act. In Lakoff’s analysis, the guiding metaphor for moral judgment is a balance
sheet, a tally of past moral debts, deposits, and repayments through which the
 Populism & Social Psychology of Grievance 29

acceptability of the current act is evaluated. People keep track of when someone
owes them a moral debt (e.g., they have wronged you or others in the past) or
alternatively has built up a moral surplus (e.g., they have treated you or others
more generously than necessary in the past) as it helps them decide how to behave
and who to trust. From a moral accounting perspective, then, the morality of a
given act is determined, not just by its present moral qualities or its future moral
consequences, but also by the legacy left by moral transactions of the past. Most
important for the current purposes, just as a consequentialist view suggests that
the morality of an act in the present can be justified by its consequences in the
future, a moral accounting view posits that the morality of an act in the present
can be justified as a redress of grievances experienced in the past. When populist
leaders encourage the framing of unfavorable conditions as the result of past injus-
tice, they seek to use grievance as a way to not just motivate political retribution,
but also to justify it.

The Collateral Costs of Grievance

To summarize our argument so far, evoking morality is an effective way to mobi-
lize action, and framing issues to highlight feelings of grievance is a form of mor-
alization used in populist movements. Feeling aggrieved is a natural and common
outcome of social exchanges, yet it can be encouraged by framing the morality of
current decisions in the light of past moral transactions. Just as we have the intui-
tion that morally questionable behavior can in some circumstances be justified
by future beneficial consequences, we have a similar intuition that it can also be
justified as a legitimate response to past injustice or inequity.
It is the power of grievance to evoke emotion and mobilize and justify action
that makes it attractive to politicians, but evoking grievance as a political strategy
has two clear collateral costs: it can be used to justify undemocratic means to gain
political power, and its evocation risks initiating a self-escalating cycle of inter-
factional political conflict (see also Forgas & Lantos; and Krekó, this volume). We
will discuss each of these in turn.

Grievance Defines Immorality Down

If in 2015 you had asked political liberals in the U.S. whether they thought it was
morally appropriate for a Democratic Senate to prevent a Republican president
from appointing the Supreme Court nominee of his or her choosing, the huge
majority would probably have said no. If you asked them today, the majority
would very well say yes. The difference, of course, is that in the meantime, a
Republican Senate refused to hold hearings to consider Democratic president
Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, ultimately
preventing Garland’s appointment to that august judicial body and leading liberal
Americans to feel deeply aggrieved.
30 Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

This anecdote illustrates a key way that grievance affects moral evaluation. Just
as a morally questionable act can be justified by its future positive consequences
according to a consequentialist moral view, it can also be justified by past griev-
ances according to a moral accounting perspective. Thus, when considered alone,
the thwarting of a president’s legitimate right to appoint Supreme Court Justices
seems to cross an obvious moral line. But when that line has previously been
crossed by the other side, then crossing it again only seems fair, as moral restitu-
tion, a way to balance the moral checkbook. Grievance in this sense can be said
to “define immorality down” (see Moynihan, 1993; Haslam, 2016); an act that in
the absence of grievance would have been seen as morally unacceptable becomes
more acceptable when it can be construed as payback for a previous injustice.
To illustrate this effect, we conducted a proof of concept study on 201 partici-
pants using short vignettes in which a target individual commits a minor moral
transgression, either after being victimized or with no mention of prior victimi-
zation. For example, one of the vignettes read:

Riley and Jordan have been dating for six months and have recently moved in
together. [Riley discovers that Jordan was unfaithful on a recent weekend trip. In
response,] Riley posts intimate and embarrassing pictures of Jordan on a social media
site. How morally wrong was Riley’s behavior?

Half of the participants received this full version mentioning Jordan’s infidel-
ity, while the other half read a version in which mention of it was deleted (the
bracketed portion above was not included). Across four vignettes of this kind,
we found a clear effect such that the identical moral transgression (e.g., keep-
ing the change from a cashier, violating a “no compete” contractual clause) was
seen as significantly less morally condemnable when the perpetrator of the act
had previously been victimized (see Figure 2.1). The idea here is that when it is
made salient that an actor has a prior grievance, untoward behavior by that actor
is evaluated less harshly, as if prior injustice provides some degree of “license” to
behave badly (Effron & Conway, 2015), that the world has a moral debt that has
to be made right again.
It should be noted that there is nothing particularly irrational about this effect,
especially if our participants were doing it through conscious (karmic) calcula-
tion (e.g., “this guy got a bad break, so it is understandable that he cut a moral
corner”). It makes good sense that people would maintain some form of moral
balance sheet—a tab of their moral expenditures and debts, of inputs and out-
puts, of what they owe others and, especially, what others owes them (Fiske,
1992). This point is even clearer in an explicitly financial context. It is wrong to
steal $500 from another person, but if that person steals $500 dollars from you,
it seems perfectly fair (i.e., moral) for you to steal $500 back from them. There
are also many real-world examples of grievance-based phenomenon that, while
sometimes controversial, are generally seen as reasonable policy proposals. The
 Populism & Social Psychology of Grievance 31

6
Moral Condemnation

3
Victim No Victim
Moral Transgressor

FIGURE 2.1 The effect of prior victimization on evaluation of moral transgressions.

best example perhaps is affirmative action, in which a prior grievance (a history

of government-sponsored discriminatory behavior toward African-Americans) is
used to argue that procedures typically viewed as fair (college admission based
solely on demonstrated merit) should be justly abandoned in favor of a process
that is clearly seen an unjust in other contexts (preferential treatment based on
race). Just as populist leaders evoke real or imagined past adversity to justify radi-
cal engagement (see also Golec de Zavala et al.; van Prooijen, this volume), past
injustice is often seen as justification for extraordinary measures that in other situ-
ations would not be tolerated.
But therein lies the problem. Feelings of grievance can lead people to feel
licensed to abandon previous moral and procedural constraints. Although some-
times these constraints feel arguably bendable (e.g., adding race to a list of other
factors considered for college admission), abandoning other moral rules, such as
adherence to democratic political tactics or prohibitions against violence, can be
substantially more problematic. Research on highly contentious and moralized
political environments has found them to foster an increased willingness to con-
done undemocratic means to achieve desired political ends (Ryan, 2017; Skitka
et al., in press), up to and including violence (Fiske & Rai, 2015; Zaal, Laar, Ståhl,
Ellemers, & Derks, 2011; Kalmoe & Mason, 2020). In the U.S., partisan anger is
associated with tolerance of cheating, lying, and voter suppression as acceptable
political tactics (Miller & Conover, 2015). Grievance-driven moralization seems
particularly likely to produce a similar moral licensing effect. Empirically, state-
level increases in abortion rates and female participation in the labor force have
been found to precipitate right-wing terrorist attacks (Piazza, 2017). Anecdotally,
the violence and looting that often occur as an early response to highly publicized
incidents of racial injustice seem a good example of how feelings of grievance,
32 Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

once inflamed, can fuel and justify behavior that would otherwise be eschewed
as unacceptable.

Grievance Escalates Conflict

“He hit me first!” “But he hit me harder!” Many parents have heard some variant
of these explanations emanating from the back seat of the car on a long fam-
ily drive. In important ways they represent the prototype of human intergroup
conflict: two sides locked in combat, each feeling their aggressive stance toward
the other is justified by legitimate grievance (one because they were attacked
first and the other because the response to their initial attack was disproportion-
ate). And whether it is a backseat skirmish between two children or the decades
long Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the fight seems unlikely to end spontaneously,
and instead seems likely to intensify with time. If you want the conflict to end,
someone is going to have to go back there and stop it (see also Bar-Tal & Magal,
this volume).
As described above, one important effect of grievance is a willingness to
endorse behavior that would otherwise be seen as morally unacceptable. This
effect is bad enough, given that it can lead to abandonment of democratic princi-
ples or even the endorsement of violence as a legitimate political strategy, but its
negative effects can be compounded if it sets off a self-escalating cycle of increas-
ingly immoral call and response from the two interacting parties.
Given the ubiquity of self and group favoring biases in human judgment (e.g.,
Sedikides, Gaertner, & Vevea, 2005; Stanovich, West, &Toplak, 2013; Tajfel,
1970; see also Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume), people should be expected
to be more likely to notice and account for situations when they themselves or
their ingroup has been aggrieved than to notice and account for situations that
are likely to aggrieve other individuals or outgroups. If people are more sensitive
to their own grievances than to the felt grievances of others, then attempts by an
aggrieved side to compensate for that grievance affirmatively are likely to be seen
by the non-aggrieved side as an inappropriate overreach. Now suppose that the
aggrieved side is successful in enacting the extraordinary measures they feel are
necessary to re-establish justice. These measures, while perceived as fair, just, and
appropriate by people who feel the grievance most strongly, are likely to be seen
as unjustified escalation by others.
And thus the cycle begins. Because each side feels its own grievance more
intensely than the grievances of the other, each side endorses remedies that they
feel fairly redress the grievance but that the other side sees as unfair and extreme
(Stillwell, Baumeister, & Del Priore, 2008). This cycle should not only be self-
reinforcing but also self-escalating because of differences in what each side sees
as a “proportionate response”. As the cycle continues, each side’s sense of vic-
timhood should increase, and with each exchange the standards for what counts
as a morally acceptable response becomes more lax. More and more extreme
 Populism & Social Psychology of Grievance 33

responses occur as each side pays back the other side “with interest” and a state
where both sides feel equity has been achieved becomes more and more elusive.
The point here is that while stoking feelings of grievance can be an effective
motivator of political action, it is also a strategy that is potentially corrosive to
political civility, compromise, and negotiation—and in the extreme even to the
adherence to the rule of law and the rejection of violence as a political tactic—by
lowering standards for what counts as morally appropriate behavior and initiat-
ing a self-escalating cycle of conflict, payback, and competitive victimhood (e.g.,
Young & Sullivan, 2016).

Grievance and Populist Politics

Now that we have presented the outlines of a general psychology of grievance,
let us return briefly to trace some additional connections between our analysis
and populist politics.
Among the multiple approaches to the study of populism existing in politi-
cal science, the ideational approach is particularly fit to engage in a dialogue with
moral psychology (Hawkins & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017). Unlike theories that
emphasize social and material conditions to explain social movements, the idea-
tional approach conceives of populism as a set of ideas, that is, political attitudes
and beliefs (Kriesi, 2020). Analyses inspired by this perspective focus on the way
populists and their followers construe their social situation, how populist lead-
ers develop a specific discourse to reflect and encourage this construal, and how
political decisions must be understood through that prism (Mudde & Rovira
Kaltwasser, 2017).
According to this view, populism does not have unique ideological content.
Instead, populism is seen as a “thin-centered ideology” that adapts to each cul-
tural and historical situation and becomes blended with “thick” ideological con-
tents like socialism, fascism, or nationalism. What examples of populism of every
ideological bent have in common, however, is the presence of a highly moral-
ized discourse, characterized by all-or-nothing thinking structured around the
dichotomy of a “pure people” versus the “corrupt elite” (Mudde & Rovira Kalt-
wasser, 2017). Whether they come from the political right or left, populist leaders
typically present themselves as the incarnation of the will of the people, while
elites are construed as the absolute other, the enemy, corrupt and self-interested
groups who are responsible for keeping power and resources away from the peo-
ple. Democratic processes, such as dialogue, dissent and compromise, are morally
regarded as a betrayal of the people and as an obstacle to the restoration of their
rightful dominance (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018).
In addition to this moralized view of politics, including a tendency to disre-
gard the formal niceties of democratic process in pursuit of moral ends, at least
three other connections can be seen between our analysis of grievance psychol-
ogy and the literature on populist politics.
34 Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

First, one of the core elements of populist rhetoric is the articulation of griev-
ances in order to mobilize followers and voters (Aslanidis, 2017). Grievance, of
course, is a common theme in politics generally. For example, analyses of Twitter
activity during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in response to the police killing
of a young African-American man named Michael Brown, yielded that roughly
40% of the tweets explicitly mentioned grievances against the police, the justice
system, and race relations (LeFebvre & Armstrong, 2018). Successful populist
leaders are able to politicize—and moralize—issues beyond traditional left–right
axes, in order to frame the entire political establishment as the dangerous group
for the people (Roberts, 2018).
The term “grievance” in political science is usually used to describe material
conditions of deprivation that might explain political processes. But grievance
is more than just objective deprivation. Siroky and colleagues (Siroky, Warner,
Filip-Crawford, Berlin, & Neuberg, 2020) analyzed different types of intergroup
conflict in 100 countries. Analyses showed that levels of violent conflict in a
country were better explained by the perceived unfairness of the between-group
inequality rather than the actual differences in material resources across groups.
And material and subjective grievances can sometimes interact. Three cross-
country experimental studies showed a significant effect of anti-elitist messages
on “pocketbook anger” (i.e., anger related to one’s own financial situation) that
interacts with socioeconomic status: pocketbook anger is more easily triggered by
populist prompts for individuals in the lower and middle classes than in the upper
classes (Marx, 2020).
Populist leaders often craft elaborate narratives in which grievances have a clear
source, the elite, who are responsible for the suffering of the people (Hawkins,
2018; Rivero, 2018), and a clear remedy, electing the populist leader. This blam-
ing narrative is especially visible in those discourses that hold salvific, redemptive,
or heroic characteristics, where the leader is offered as the only effective means
to redress historic injustices (da Silva & Vieira, 2018; P. Diehl, 2018; Montiel &
Uyheng, 2020; Schneiker, 2020).
A second theme connecting grievance psychology and populist politics is the
role of emotions. Moral grievances are related to feelings of frustration, anger, and
resentment, as they involve the appraisal of goals as being unfairly hindered while
others enjoy undeserved positive outcomes (Feather & McKee, 2009; Feather &
Sherman, 2002). An analysis of Facebook posts by German Bundestag candidates
in 2017 showed that messages including typically populist themes—i.e., anti-
elitism, exclusion of outgroups, and negative views on political actors—were
significantly more likely to receive “angry” user reactions than “like” or “love”
user reactions ( Jost, Maurer, & Hassler, 2020). A comparative analysis of the first
inauguration speeches of Obama and Trump yielded more expressions of anger
for the latter, with Trump almost doubling the number of targets of anger men-
tioned by Obama (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2018). Similarly, experimental manipulations
 Populism & Social Psychology of Grievance 35

of populist rhetoric have found that enhanced feelings of anger increase the per-
suasiveness of political messaging, over other feelings such as pride, hope, or fear
(Wirz, 2018). Anger and resentment are essential components of the collective
emotional dynamics of both left- and right-wing populist movements (Salmela &
von Scheve, 2018).
Finally, our analysis of grievance psychology argues that moral judgments
based on grievances are temporally anchored in the past, rather than in the pre-
sent or the future. A past-oriented mindset also seems to be a feature of populist
attitudes and discourse.
To illustrate this point, we retrieved data from the Global Populism Dataset
1.0 (Hawkins et al., 2019), which compiles hundreds of speeches from lead-
ers worldwide that have been rated on their level of populism. We collected
original speeches from leaders of Spanish-speaking countries, since it was the
language that offered a wider variance in levels of populism. In some cases, the
speeches were not available for analysis or there was not sufficient information
to be matched with its actual populism scores. Ultimately, we were able to suc-
cessfully match 185 speeches by 57 different presidents from 16 Latin American
countries and Spain.
Using the Spanish dictionary of LIWC 2015 (Pennebaker, Boyd, Jordan, &
Blackburn, 2015), we extracted the proportion of words related to present tense,
past tense and future tense. As can be seen in Figure 2.2, there is a tendency
for populist speeches to have more past-oriented language in comparison to
less populist speeches. The proportion of past-oriented language over both pre-
sent and future-oriented language also increases as a function of the degree of
populism of the speech. The past-focused temporal orientation might also tap
other psychological processes connected to populist attitudes. Research shows
that inducing collective nostalgia—i.e., feelings of longing and wistful affection
about a socially shared past—increases ingroup preference in the form of domes-
tic country bias (Dimitriadou, Maciejovsky, Wildschut, & Sedikides, 2019) and
outgroup-directed anger (Cheung, Sedikides, Wildschut, Tausch, & Ayanian,
2017).
Past-focused temporal orientation is also at the core of some processes of polit-
ical radicalization and populism. For instance, a study on Greek citizens in 2015
showed that willingness to be involved in protest and non-normative collective
action was driven by past-oriented values, such as respect for tradition and con-
formity, rather than more future-oriented values, such as stimulation, desire for
new experiences, or self-direction (Capelos, Katsanidou, & Demertzis, 2017).
Historical grievances also play an important role in contemporary populist move-
ments in countries such as Hungary and Poland (see also Forgas & Lantos; Golec
de Zavala et al.; and Krekó, this volume). Similar results were replicated analyzing
the European Social Survey over the years 2004–2014 (Capelos & Katsanidou,
2018). Interestingly, this effect was not restricted to political conservatives.
 36

Populism in Speeches and Past Tense

Text analysis of 185 speeches from 17 Spanish-speaking countries

Use of Past words Past in relation to Present Past and Future

2.0
1.5
0.20
1.5

0.15 1.0
1.0
Peter H. Ditto and Cristian G. Rodriguez

0.10
0.5
0.5
0.5

Proportions of past-tense words

0.0 0.0 0.0

Proportions of past-tense over present words

Low Middle High Low Middle High Low Middle High
Populism Populism Populism
Difference between % of past and future-tense words

Populism speeches ratings source:

Populism Global Dataset 1.0

FIGURE 2.2 Use of past-tense words in populist discourse.

 Populism & Social Psychology of Grievance 37

Conclusion
In this chapter, we presented a novel social psychological analysis of the concept
of grievance, and argued that feelings of grievance play an important role in pop-
ulist politics. Our treatment of grievance was largely theoretical, and many of the
contentions we offered here await more data to support them. A number of fas-
cinating questions remain, such as those surrounding the rationality of grievance
perceptions (e.g., might people overextend grievance, feeling aggrieved even in
response to non-moral situations like failure on a test of competence?), individual
differences in grievance sensitivity, and how grievance relates to other political
psychology phenomena like collective narcissism (Golec de Zavala & Keenan,
2020) and competitive victimhood (Young & Sullivan, 2016). Additional work
exploring the role of specific grievance-related themes in populist rhetoric is also
clearly needed.
A central message of this chapter was that evoking feelings of grievance moral-
izes politics, for both good and ill. Morality stirs emotion and action, and moral
language may be particularly effective with people who are unmoved by ideology
or the specifics of laws and legislation. For many voters, righting wrongs may
be a more compelling message than writing policy. This is the attraction of a
populist message. The downsides of moralization are equally clear, however, and
grievance-based appeals have the potential to cause substantial collateral damage
to political institutions and political civility. A fuller understanding of both the
social psychology of grievance and populist politics is clearly needed in a world
where democratic government is in decline, populist leaders with an authoritar-
ian bent are on the rise, and grist for grievance is all around. It is our hope that
this chapter makes some contribution to this fuller understanding.

Note
1. Chapter for 22nd Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology, The psychology of pop-
ulism. Correspondence should be sent to Peter Ditto, Department of Psychological
Science, 4201 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway, University of California, Irvine,
CA 92697–7085. Email: [email protected].

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3
SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
OF THE DETERIORATION OF
DEMOCRACY AND THE RISE OF
AUTHORITARIANISM
The Role of Needs, Values, and Context

Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

Introduction
The last few decades have witnessed a rise of authoritarianism in different coun-
tries that has signaled a dramatic change in the present era. Specifically, the trend
can be observed in Turkey, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, India, Poland,
Israel, and, more recently, in the Philippines and Brazil (Bochsler & Juon, 2020;
Lima, 2020; Reykowski, 2020; Wodak, 2019). The election of Donald Trump
with his authoritarian tendencies in the US clearly signaled a new world zeitgeist.
These authoritarian regimes came to power in mostly free and fair elections
(Burston, 2017; Knuckey & Hassan, 2020). Other European countries (such as
France Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, and Denmark) also have popular political
parties which advocate at least some of the principles of authoritarianism.
The leaders of these new authoritarian parties openly express views which
correspond with some or all of the following themes characteristically identified
with authoritarianism, and challenge the principles of liberal democracy. Anti-
democratic structural theme: interfering with the rule of law and democratic norms;
disrespecting rules and regulations; impairing and weakening the legal system
and law enforcement agencies; disempowering institutions that serve as guard-
ians of democracy; harming the checks-and-balance system. Anti-democratic values
theme: limiting freedom of expression and organization; violating human rights;
favoring use of force. Anti-pluralistic theme: inciting and delegitimizing opposition;
monopolizing patriotism; obliterating criticism, trying to control free media.
Discriminatory theme: instigating racism, prejudice, and discrimination of minori-
ties; encouraging ethnocentrism, sexism, and chauvinism; opposing immigra-
tion. Threatening themes: spreading a discourse of fear; using xenophobic messages;
focusing on external threats and enemies. Anti-structural societal themes: blaming
 Socio-Psychological Analysis 43

the so-called old elites for deterioration of society and adherence to power; blam-
ing past governments for corruption; blaming economic tycoons for exploiting
the wealth of the nation. Self-interest themes: appointing functionaries predomi-
nantly on the basis of loyalty to the leader; encouraging adoration of strong leader
with omnipotent rights; cultivating personal adoration. These themes have been
expressed by authoritarian leaders with the intention of implementing them as
directives and policies and enacting laws. Moreover, those who were elected to
highest office used them as guidance in their practice (Bonikowski, 2017; Kat-
sambekis, 2017; Rummens, 2017; Rupnik, 2007; see also Feldman: Forgas &
Lantos; Kruglanski; and Marcus, this volume).
Many reasons can be identified for these developments now reshaping the polit-
ical, societal, economic, and cultural nature of societies and the world in general.
In the attempt to understand this trend, we need explanations from a variety of
complementary approaches (Kriesi et al., 2006; Mudde, 2000; Reykowski, 2020;
Učeň, 2007). In the present chapter, we take a particular socio-psychological
perspective, trying to illuminate the psychological forces that play a significant
role in the unfolding of authoritarian forces in originally democratic countries,
where the elections are fair and free. We focus especially on cases in the Western
world, as well as Central and Eastern European countries which built democratic
regimes following the fall of the communist bloc in the late 1980s. After this fall,
all of them held democratic and more or less free and fair elections, but with time
authoritarian parties emerged and, in some cases, even won the elections (see
Forgas & Lantos, on Hungary’s slide to authoritarianism). However, the present
conceptual framework can also be used in the analysis of societies in other parts
of the world that hold free and fair democratic elections. In the present chapter,
we distinguish between authoritarianism and populism. Authoritarianism implies
limited reliance on democratic values, disregard of democratic formal mecha-
nisms and principles, and personalized forms of leadership (see for example, Linz,
2000), while populism denotes offering ideas and activities, regardless of their
feasibility, costs, and utility, with the goal of garnering the support of ordinary
people (see for example Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). We are well aware that each
of these two key concepts has a variety of definitions and conceptual frameworks.

Theoretical Basis
The basic foundation of the conceptual explanation lies within the seminal the-
ory of Kurt Lewin (1951), who proposed that human behavior is a function
of a perceived environment in which a person(s) operates with its physical and
social factors and his/her tendencies, including ideas, thoughts, intentions, and
fantasies. This theory means that, according to Lewin, what really matters in
social life is not what happens in reality, but what is perceived and interpreted
by human beings. Of special importance is Lewin’s application of the theory
to the group situation. He suggested that the behavior of a group, as that of an
44 Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

individual, is affected greatly by the collective perception of the situation and the
group’s characteristics (Lewin, 1947; see also Golec de Zavala: Kruglanski; and
Hogg and Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume). Of relevance to our conception is also
his proposal suggesting that the human system enters into a tension state when
a psychological need or intention appears. Tension is released when the need or
intention is fulfilled. On the basis of this classical theoretical framework, we sug-
gest that understanding collective political behaviors requires an analysis of the
psychological conditions in which the collective lives and the collective
psychological state of societies. This includes the key psychological repertoire of
the collective, as well as their immediate psychological response tendencies.

Context
We propose to differentiate between two types of context: lasting context and
transitional context (Bar-Tal, 2013). The former consists of relatively stable
features that include socio-political–economic systems and structures, institu-
tions, systems of beliefs and values, symbols, rules of behaviors, and cultural prod-
ucts. By contrast, transitional context by definition is limited to sudden major
events, processes, and/or specific major information, which exerts influence
on the views of society’s members. They are experienced directly or indirectly,
have relevance to the well-being of society’s members and of society as a whole,
occupy a central position in public discussion and the public agenda, and con-
tain information that forces society’s members to reconsider, and often change,
their long-held socio-psychological repertoire (Bar-Tal, 2013). Major informa-
tion provided by authoritative sources (for example, leaders or journalists) often
complements major events and processes, because they are not clearly observed
and understood, and often require explanation and clarification through their
framing (see the concepts in Halperin & Bar-Tal, 2007; and also in Gitlin, 1980;
Kinder, 2003; Mutz, 1998).

A Collective Psychological State

Individuals carry a psychological repertoire. Different psychologists emphasized
many distinct elements of the psychological repertoire (see also Ditto; Krekó; and
Marcus, this volume). We would like to focus on only two elements, which in
our view play a major role in guiding individual and collective behavior: needs
and values. Needs refer to the fundamental necessities that direct individuals,
while values signify an abstract compass which directs their behaviors. Needs
and values produce a strong drive to satisfy them, and when they are not satisfied,
individuals feel strong deprivation, frustration, and dissonance. Their functioning
is intimately involved in understanding the psychological roots of populism in
rhetoric, as we will show.
 Socio-Psychological Analysis 45

Human needs are internal psychological forces that direct to action for their
satisfaction. Deci and Ryan (2000) defined needs as “nutriments that are essential
for ongoing psychological growth, integrity, and well-being” (p. 229). Needs
are very important for human functioning, both as individuals and as a part of a
collective. Social scientists proposed different lists of needs that are based on dif-
ferent conceptions (Etzioni, 1968; Goldstein, 1985). We have drawn our own
list on the basis of known grand theories to include: Needs for understanding,
for predictability, for mastery, for meaningfulness, for positive esteem, for safety,
for justice, for belonging, and for identity (hence forth “basic human needs”).
Satisfaction of all these needs is a prerequisite for human beings to function well
in their societal system.
The notion of values appeared already in the writing of Durkheim (1897)
and then later of Vernon and Allport (1931). We use in our conceptual frame-
work the well-developed and widely accepted theory of Schwartz, who defined
values as trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding
principles in the life of a person or groups (Schwartz, 1992). Values point to the
desirable goals that motivate action, as well as guide the selection or evaluation
of actions, policies, people, and events. People decide what is good or bad, justi-
fied or illegitimate, worth doing or avoiding, based on possible consequences
for their cherished values (Schwartz, 1992, 1994, 2006). According to Schwartz,
values have the following functions: (1) They focus on attaining personal or
social outcomes, (2) express openness to change or conservation of the status
quo or (3) serve self-interests or transcendence of self-interests in the service of
others, and (4) promote growth and self-expansion, or protect against anxiety
and threat to self.
Schwartz first identified 10 basic values, later increased to include 19 val-
ues. We focus on the major ten values: Self-direction, stimulation, hedonism,
achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, and univer-
salism (Schwartz, 1992, 2017; Schwartz et al., 2012). Utilizing Schwartz’s dis-
tinctions, we would like to congregate the ten to two general types of values:
Particular and universal (Evanoff, 2004; Nussbaum, [1994, 2010]; Sznaider, 2007;
Turner, 2002). Particular values have an in-group/collective direction with the
emphasis on maintaining security, tradition, order, authority, well-being, collec-
tive identity, benefits, resources, and power of the in-group by strengthening loy-
alty to the collective, its continuity, and its stability. These values are based on the
primary evolutionary needs that directed human beings to care about their kin-
ship for survival through the ages. Universal values, in contrast, focus on the care
and concern for human beings in general, based on the universal principles of
equality, freedom, fairness, justice, and human rights (see also the work of Haidt,
2012; Haidt, Graham, & Joseph, 2009 on moral foundations). This distinction is
very relevant to our conception and enables us to better comprehend the sense of
“violation of values” experienced by part of the population.
46 Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

When the context prevents satisfaction of needs, unfulfilled needs give rise
to feelings of deprivation and dissonance, which produce negative attitudes and
emotions, such as frustration and distress (see also Ditto; Gelfand; Kruglanski;
Marcus; and Vallacher, this volume), triggering a search for new ways to satisfy
them. Need satisfaction can be achieved through real or symbolic means (narra-
tives), or a combination of both. It is at this point that the search can lead mem-
bers of a society to extremism—relying on authoritarian voices to satisfy their
frustrated needs and values. This portrayal also corresponds to Maslow’s theory
locating needs in a hierarchical order. Maslow also acknowledged the role of
the environment in the process of need satisfaction and recognized the relation-
ship between needs and values (Maslow, 1971). Similar processes take place
when contextual conditions violate dominant values of a society (Festinger,
1957), producing dissonance and distress, as well as a motivation to change the
situation.

Requirements of the Democratic System

After introducing the conceptual framework, it is possible now to return to the
subject of the chapter: the deterioration of democracy and the ascendance of
authoritarianism. The basic assumption is that a democratic system, in contrast to
other political systems (Gilbert & Mohseni, 2011; Wejnert, 2014; Wigell, 2008),
has a number of critical psychological requirements that are necessary conditions
for the proper functioning of the system. Democratic systems require knowledge
of the democratic principles and values, internalization of the democratic values,
motivation to maintain them, and involvement in their protection (Dahl, 1989;
Oppenheim, 1971; Shin, 2017; Sullivan & Transue, 1999). Democratic systems
require voluntary acceptance, understanding, and cooperation, and cannot be
taken for granted or imposed by force: It requires constant and continuous watch-
fulness by its citizens, organizations, institutions, and media, which will point out
violation of its principles and values, caused by steps taken by its functionaries that
harm democratic functioning. Many leaders, by their human nature, are often
inclined to violate democratic principles and values that often stand in their way
and limit their wants. Democracy involves progress on a narrow path where state
power and the competence of society finely balance each other (Acemoglu &
Robinson, 2020).
However, these requirements are rather demanding and can be considered as
idealistic. The alternative assumption claims that in reality, most of society mem-
bers do not possess comprehensive knowledge about the democratic system, do
not internalize the values, do not respect its principles, and in general do not have
an investment in its maintenance. Only a small layer of society is deeply personally
involved and cares greatly about the functioning of the democratic system. Some
of them are also concerned with its maintenance and protection. But, in most
cases, large segments of a society support the democratic system only as long as it
 Socio-Psychological Analysis 47

satisfies their basic needs, corresponds to their values, is trusted, and is managed
efficiently and reliably in their view (Chu, Bratton, Lagos, Shastri, & Tessler,
2008; Kluegel & Mason, 2004; Kotzian, 2010). When these conditions are bro-
ken, voluntary support for the democratic system is reduced or even vanishes,
and members of a society search for other leaders and systems that can meet their
needs, correspond to their values, and be trustworthy (Bochsler & Juon, 2020;
Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Ivarsflaten, 2008; Rupnik, 2007).

Democracies in the Western World Between

War World II and 2000
We would like to postulate that since the end of World War II (WW-II), the con-
text of the democratic systems satisfied the basic needs of society members most
of the time, in most of the countries of the Western world where there were free
and fair elections. There was a balance most of the time between the needs and
values of society members and the democratic system (see Evans & Whitefield,
1995; Lühiste, 2013; Sullivan & Transue, 1999). The satisfaction of these needs
was achieved through policies and actions and through persuasive messages that
were accepted as truthful and provided meaning to society (see Shiller, 2019).
During this time, the United States, Western Europe, and other countries
experienced unusually high and sustained growth, together with full employ-
ment. The recessions of the 1970s and the subsequent of recession of the early
1980s were relatively short-lived, and the Western world continued its prosperity
and expansion until the 2000s (Barro, 1999; Boix & Stokes, 2011; Dahl, 1971;
Reykowski, 2020). Of special note are Central and Eastern European countries,
which became separated from Western Europe following WW-II, with the crea-
tion of the “iron curtain” and communist totalitarian regimes (see also Forgas &
Lantos, this volume). These countries longed for democracy and, when the com-
munist regimes collapsed, almost all of them moved to establish democracy in the
early 1990s. However, in the last 20 years many of these countries have also begun
moving towards authoritarian rule, led by populist political parties and leaders
(for example, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia) (Bochsler & Juon,
2020; Karp & Milazzo, 2015; Rupnik, 2007; Učeň, 2007).

Contextual Changes Since 2000 and Consequences

The next step in our analysis suggests that a series of dramatically negative major
events, processes, and information significantly changed the context of Western
democratic societies, disrupted the satisfaction of basic human needs (such as loss
of security, predictability, stability, certainty, belonging (affiliation), social identity,
collective positive esteem, justice, and mastery), and violated widely held par-
ticular values. These major events, processes and major information changed the
collective psychological state of society members.
48 Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

Western liberal democracies experienced threats of terrorism, economic crisis,

globalization, fundamental challenges to the traditional news media, intra-societal
conflict and polarization, and threats of waves of immigrants and ethnic minori-
ties, and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic that caused powerful shocks
in every domain of human life, including immense detrimental economic crisis.
In other words, these events, processes and provided information greatly under-
mined the needs and values of certain segments of society members, and thus
subsequently disrupted their confidence in the shared narratives which allowed
the maintenance of the democratic system. Our central point suggests that, in
line with the Lewinian theorizing, what is of determinative importance in the
reaction of society’s members is the way they view and understand the events,
processes and the information. Experiences are comprehended on the basis of
their interpretation. The key experiences were perceptions of realistic and sym-
bolic threats (Stephan & Renfro, 2002; Stephan, Renfro, & Davis, 2008; see also
Ditto; Gelfand; Kruglanski; Marcus; Vallacher & Fennell;, this volume). Realistic
threats refer to the perception of possible loss of human lives, territory, resources,
economy, power, status, or general welfare. Symbolic threat deals with threats to
cultural purity, to national uniqueness, to religious homogeneity and especially
to exclusiveness of the collective identity (see also Golec de Zavala, this volume).
The experiences of threats have been the key experiences which ignited a chain
reaction that led to a loss of meaning, predictability, and meaningfulness; loss of
sense of security and justice; loss of belongingness, esteem, and social identity;
as well as loss of sense of control and mastery. On the general level, these threats
changed the collective psychological state of large parts of society members.
In sum, the experience of negative consequences led to disappointment and
loss of trust in the political system of democracy, and instigated a search for alter-
natives that will satisfy the experienced deprivations and dissonance. Trust in the
system is a pre-requirement for its successful and efficient functioning, legitimiza-
tion and acceptance by society’s members (Grimes, 2006; Kaase, 1999; Marien &
Hooghe, 2011; Reykowski, 2020).
In this part of the chapter we describe some of the major events, processes
and major information that shook the world since 2000, led to major changes in
the collective psychological state in different countries, and brought about the
ascendance of authoritarian leaders and parties. However, we should note that:
(1) The contextual effects of the same major events, processes, and information
have differed in various societies in their intensity, and frequency, (2) societies dif-
fered in the way their governments coped with the challenges, and (3) societies
also differ in their lasting cultural context and in their collective psychological
state, and therefore reacted differently. Obviously, these developments were not
universal. Not all society members experienced the crises similarly, and not all of
them felt disappointment with the democratic system and searched for a different
way of being governed. In some countries, authoritarian leaders won elections
(for example, in Hungary, Poland, USA); in other countries, authoritarian parties
 Socio-Psychological Analysis 49

gained votes (or example, in France, Italy, Germany, etc.), and in some other
countries the effects were minor (e.g. Australia, New Zealand). The delineation
of all the influencing characteristics is beyond the scope of this chapter.
We will describe now only several major events, processes, and informational
frameworks as examples that shook the world and point out their effects.

Terrorism
The first category of major events is terrorism. Although not a new phenom-
enon, its appearance in the 2000s shook the world because of its intensity,
frequency, global spread, and radical ideological Islamist origins.1 The most sig-
nificant terrorist attack, incomparable to any other in modern history, occurred
on September 11, 2001. This event included four civilian aircraft, hijacked by
Muslim militants, striking two singular symbols of American power on US soil:
The World Trade Center in NY and the Pentagon. This attack resulted in 2,977
fatalities, over 25,000 injuries, and at least $10 billion in property damages (CNN,
2019).
The attack on United States was followed by several major terrorist events car-
ried out in different parts of Europe by Islamic militants, including Madrid and
London (2004/2005) and then Paris (2015); Brussels, Nice, and Berlin (2016);
Manchester, London, and Barcelona (2017); Strasburg (2018); and London
(2019). These events left hundreds of people killed or injured.
Because they occurred in major cities in USA and Europe, they had great
effect on Americans and Europeans, far beyond the cities and countries where
they happened. They shattered the illusion of living in security for millions of
Americans, Europeans, and beyond. They signaled that there is no secure place
in the world, and that terrorists can penetrate into the most guarded places. The
attacks had immediate effects: They severely threatened basic human needs and
violated cherished values, while instilling a deep sense of injustice and victim-
hood (Arvanitidis, Economou, & Kollias, 2016; Godefroidt & Langer, 2018;
Marshall et al., 2007).
Studies have shown that terrorism produces higher levels of prejudice and
discrimination against minority groups, as well as lower levels of tolerance for
minorities and immigrants, especially for Muslims (Castanho, 2018; Echebarria-
Echabe & Fernández-Guede, 2006; Vellenga, 2008). Higher levels of uncertainty
and anxiety led to greater acceptance of severe restrictions on civil liberties that
contradict democratic principles (Cohrs, Kielmann, Maes, & Moschner, 2005;
Huddy, Feldman, Taber, & Lahav, 2005; Kossowska et al., 2011).

The Economic Crisis in 2008

The financial crisis of 2007–08, also known as the global financial crisis,
was a severe worldwide economic crisis, considered by many economists and
50 Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

opinion leaders to have been the most serious financial crisis since the Great
Depression of the 1930s. The crisis began in 2007 with a depreciation in the sub-
prime mortgage market in the United States, and developed into a full-blown
international banking crisis with the collapse of the major banks, such as Lehman
Brothers. The crisis had a tremendous downturn effect on the global and states’
economies, and severely affected the economic standing of many individuals
(Eichengreen & O’Rourke, 2010; Eigner & Umlauft, 2015; Reykowski, 2020)
The crisis instigated many revelations about its causes and processes, as well
as more general understandings about economic processes. The public learned
that (1) the gap between poor and rich grew considerably through the years,
(2) rich people accumulated incredible wealth—many through speculation and
unproductive ways, (3) the middle class did not prosper nor improve its economic
standing through the decades, (4) the federal system in the US had to bail out
irresponsible bankers at huge cost, and (5) the individuals responsible were not
punished (Patterson & Koller, 2011; Snow, 2011; Wolff, 2010). All this led to
loss of trust in governmental institutions, as well as deprivation of basic epistemic
human needs (Earle, 2009; Hernandez & Kriesi, 2016; Kroknes, Jakobsen, &
Grønning, 2015).

Waves of Immigration
The second decade of the 21st century was characterized by a significant influx
of immigrants to Europe, as well as to the US. The wars in Iraq and Syria, as well
as severe economic conditions and violence in several African countries (Sudan,
Eritrea, Libya), culminated in the migration of hundreds of thousands of people
towards Europe (BBC, 2016 Metcalfe-Hough, 2015; Sobczyński, 2019). At the
same time, a similar “wave” was taking place in Latin America, where people
from violent- and poverty-ridden countries—like Honduras, El Salvador, and
Mexico—migrated to the US, searching for better life (Kim, Carvalho, Davis, &
Mullins, 2011; Preston & Archibold, 2014).
The influx of immigrants caused a sense of threat among citizens of many
countries in Europe and the US (Brader, Valentino, & Suhay, 2008; Fetzer, 2000;
McLaren, 2003). It led to fear of losing uniqueness, particularity, distinctiveness,
and exceptionality, which characterize a national or an ethnic group and stand at
the core of its particularistic values. (Ben-Nun Bloom, Arikan, & Lahav, 2015;
Bruneau, Kteily, & Laustsen, 2018; Rydgren, 2008).
Additionally, immigrants threatened economic security, because money was
spent on their integration and welfare instead of on the societal needs of the citi-
zenry. Furthermore, society’s members perceived a potential employment threat,
despite the fact that most of the jobs taken by immigrants were shunned by locals
(Ben-Nun Bloom et al., 2015; Fetzer, 2000; Ivarsflaten, 2008; Oesch, 2008).
Indeed, a November 2018 poll found that the majority of citizens in European
 Socio-Psychological Analysis 51

countries (66% average) blamed migration for spike in local crime (Abraham,
2019). Furthermore, in an April 2016 survey, the majority of respondents in five
European countries believed Muslim immigrants threatened their job security
and economic benefits (overall average 50%) (Wike, Stokes, & Simmons, 2016).

Social Media and Veracity of Information

Credible factual political information is an essential ingredient for political par-
ticipation in a democracy (see also Cooper & Avery; and Krekó, this volume). It
is assumed that citizens make decisions and take action, on the basis of reasoned
arguments and careful consideration of different ideas and viewpoints, in the
“marketplace of ideas”. Throughout the 20th century, traditional forms of mass
media—newspapers, radio, and television—with their normative obligation to
professional standards of veracity and credibility, served as the main arena for
public deliberation. Additionally, friendship networks, social gatherings, and cul-
tural events also served as venues for the exchange of sometimes uncorroborated,
biased, and often misleading “word-of-mouth” information, which also influ-
enced political behavior. However, these two modes of transmission were very
distinct and separated from each other.
The Internet and “social media” revolution of the 21st century blurred the dis-
tinction between these two modes of information and cast significant doubts
on the credibility and veracity of traditional media-based political information.
Social media is an online platform which allows ordinary people to build social
networks with other people, to communicate and maintain relationships with
them, and to share own thoughts, experiences, and ideas. This platform opened a
completely new mode of interrelating, sharing, as well as disseminating, exchang-
ing, and receiving information across the world. Facebook and Twitter are among
the most commonly used (Shearer & Grieco, 2019).
However, the consumption of news and political information through social
media raises several threats to the democratic process: Live news feeds are custom-
ized for each user by mathematical algorithms, based on the probability the news
item would be liked by him. Such selection inhibits exposure to opposing views
and thus reinforces existing opinions (Dylko et al., 2017). This phenomenon,
termed “echo chamber” or “filtering bubble”, has been demonstrated in several
recent studies regarding the political effects of social media (Boutyline & Willer,
2017; Carpenter, 2010; Spohr, 2017). In a 2019 Pew study, 79% of respondents
agreed that social media services prefer news sources with a specific political
stance, while 53% agreed that one-sided and inaccurate news represented a seri-
ous problem on social media feeds (Shearer & Grieco, 2019). The echo chamber
effect is further compounded by the use of “likes” and re-posts, where users recy-
cle and distribute news items among their contacts and friends. Such practices
create networks of like-minded individuals that reinforce and radicalize political
52 Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

bias, as well as strangle any form of diverse political discussion (Bakshy, Mess-
ing, & Adamic, 2015; Barberá, Jost, Nagler, Tucker, & Bonneau, 2015; Spohr,
2017).
Another common problem with social media is the spread of unfounded,
uncorroborated, or even intentionally misleading information (fake news)
through these networks. There are no checks and verification procedures for
user-generated posts. It opens ways for knowingly disseminating misinformation
to large number of people, easily spreading inflammatory and defamatory mes-
sages of every kind, including racist, chauvinistic, and other radical views (Spohr,
2017). Propaganda and disinformation have been used in the past by govern-
ments, societal leaders, institutions, and other political actors in order to hide the
truth and provide misdirection that serves their goals. However, in the last few
years the spread of fake news became a normative and prevalent way of providing
untruthful knowledge (see also Krekó, this volume). Fake news undermines seri-
ous media coverage and makes it more difficult for journalists to provide truthful
knowledge, and for citizens to evaluate such knowledge and act accordingly.
This new phenomenon has had a remarkable influence on societies, further
undermining the legitimacy and trust in the democratic system, and especially
the watchdog capacity of traditional media (the fourth branch of democracy).
It normalized both extreme left-wing and right-wing views, including racism,
nationalism, sexism, chauvinism, homophobia, and other unacceptable violations
of democratic values and freedom of open exchange and debate.

The Effects of the Major Events,

Processes, and Information
We would now like to turn to the analysis of the effects of these processes. In
general, they caused the deprivation of primary human needs and the violation
of values, especially particularistic ones. They led to the deprivation of the major
needs of predictability, security, belongingness, self-esteem, identity, meaningful-
ness, or justice. In addition, they led to the violation of values such as security,
tradition, and self-direction.
In general, members of society do not know when the crises will end, or
when negative events will happen to them or to someone dear to them. They
live in a world that doesn’t always convey meaning for them. Doubts regard-
ing their well-being in political, economic, cultural, and societal spheres figure
prominently. They feel that they live in an unpredictable setting in which they
experience helplessness and hopelessness. In such a context, individuals often
have feelings of loss of control over the situation and loss of mastery over their
fate. Of special importance is the satisfaction of epistemic human needs. Indi-
viduals try to reduce uncertainty and ambiguity by creating a comprehensible
environment (see also Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup; and Kruglanski et al., this vol-
ume). Therefore, they strive to perceive and structure their world in a way that
 Socio-Psychological Analysis 53

events and people can be understood (Baumeister, 1991; Heine, Proulx, & Vohs,
2006; Reykowski, 1982).
Moreover, the major events we described often led to loss of personal and col-
lective safety. Safety needs are also of great importance, as individuals strive to feel
security, stability, protection, and freedom of fear and anxiety (Maslow, 1954). In
addition, individuals have a need for collective-positive evaluation, respect, and
esteem as individuals and members of a society, which defines their personal and
social identity (Maslow, 1954; Tajfel, 1981). These events also violated the need
for justice, which refers to the human tendency to believe that the world is man-
aged by fair rules and standards (Lerner, 1970, 2003). Thus, information about
speculation, corruption, and exploitation by vested interests such as bankers, busi-
ness people, government, academia, mass media, politicians, and the widening
gap between poor and wealthy, seriously violated the need for justice.
Many of these threats disturb the flow of normal life and cause psychological
reactions such as disappointment, distress, stress, alienation, frustration, anger,
fear, resentment, helplessness, hopelessness, uncertainty, loss of trust, hostility,
prejudice, and estrangement—amounting to a national crisis of identity. The
crises produce highly intense symbolic and realistic threats that touch various
layers of human beings’ life (Stephan & Renfro, 2002; Stephan et al., 2008).
The effects of these experiences should be evaluated in terms of their duration,
intensity, multiplicity, palpability, probability, and personal relevance (Milgram,
1986, 1993). Thus, it is possible to say that the more durable the crises, the more
intense they are, the more often they occur, and the more relevant they are for
the individuals. In most cases, society members cannot predict when a specific
crisis will end. Thus, the negative experiences are chronic. No society member is
exempt from their effect, at least vicariously.
These major events, processes, and information suggest that the democratic
system is unable to fulfill its promise of satisfying the needs and values of citizens.
The social “contract” has been broken and a vacuum was created. Such disap-
pointment occurred, especially to those who have low commitment to demo-
cratic system. In situations in which society members are deprived of their basic
needs, they may turn to a leader who will recognize the threats and enemies and
provide a solution.
Since political vacuum never exists for long, in exactly such a situation do
leaders, groups, organizations, and parties enter, which bring narratives that
promise satisfaction of needs and values. Populism usually enters at this point,
because the major goals of the leader are to provide messages that will ensure his
ascent to power, disregarding any other consideration. The mission of persuasion
and mobilization has to be carried in a clear, simple, comprehensible, and mor-
alistic way. It should be seen as a populistic narrative or as propaganda (see also
Crano & Gaffney, this volume). It is always first carried via rhetoric that helps
the political party and its leaders get elected. And only later, when in power, can
they realize the program. The narrative always refers to the deprived needs and
54 Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

the violated values. It is also based on group symbols, myths, narratives, collective
memories, and heritage that appeal to personal and collective identity, culture,
and worldview. Moreover, it is usually grounded in constructing threats, com-
ing from external and internal forces that arouse fear and insecurity, and also
constitute fertile ground for the presentation of the crises and the mobilization
of society members. It is always selective, biased, and distorted, presenting only
one-sided information and using emotional appeals to persuade and mobilize the
audience. The basic point is that only the party with its leader can save the nation
(Stanley, 2016).

The Emergence of Leaders and the Construction

of the Satisfying Narrative
The narratives of authoritarian leaders touch on at least six major themes, which
can be found in their speeches: They describe the present situation, the goals that
stand before the nation, the identity of the nation, the enemies, the leaders, and
the actions that have to be taken. The subthemes of every theme can vary widely
in scope and relate to different issues that concern a specific nation. We will pro-
vide only a number of illustrations as examples for each theme.

The Description of the Present Situation

Description of different threats to the nation (political, economic, cultural, soci-
etal, religious, and so on), injustice done, corruption, description of external ene-
mies that harm the nation, description of internal enemies that betray the nation.

The Goals That Stand Before the Nation

Defense of the nation from its external enemies, improving the economic situ-
ation, stopping immigration, dismantling old elites, returning to national great-
ness, and protecting the purity of the nation.

The Definition of “Us”

We are unique, we are strong, we are a proud nation, we have great history, herit-
age, and culture, we are the real patriots, we care about the nation.

The Definition of “They”

Identifying old enemies, nations that want to exploit us, the organizations that
want to dictate to us, minorities, immigrants, the old system, old elites, media
that disagrees with our way, legal systems that prevent the achievement of our
goals, opposition that is against us and the nation.
 Socio-Psychological Analysis 55

I as the Leader
l am loyal to the nation, I am part of you, I am can bring back greatness, I am
uncorrupted, I am able, I respect our history, heritage, and culture, I am a real
patriot, I am a savior, I can defend us.
Examples of speeches of the following leaders provide clear examples to the
presented theme: Donald Trump (https://factba.se/transcripts/speeche, www.
rev.com/blog/transcript-category/donald-trump-transcripts); Viktor Orbán (www.
kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches, http://about
hungary.hu/speeches-and-remark); Jarosław Kaczyński, (www.ft.com/content/
addc05f8-d949-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17, https://notesfrompoland.com/2019/
11/12/kaczynski-poland-has-historical-mission-to-support-christian-civilisa
tion/); or Marine Le Pen (https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/09/01/presi
dential-campaign-launch-march-9-2017/, www.france24.com/en/tag/marine-
le-pen/).
The populist narratives supply examples that satisfy the need for psychological
structure (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996; see also Kruglanski et al., this volume).
They provide information and motivate people for support and action. They
mobilize people by providing a feeling that their needs are or will be satisfied,
that the new leaders and system can be trusted and can serve as alternatives to the
past or present system.

Summary
The zeitgeist of deterioration of democracy and ascendance of populistic
authoritarianism—as exhibited with the strengthening of the authoritarian politi-
cal parties in Western Europe, in some countries in Eastern Europe, and in the
US—is not new. The same trend was observed in Europe in the second and third
decades of the 20th century. In both periods, through free and fair democratic
elections, authoritarian parties not only increased their strength but also took
power. We suggest a social psychological perspective to understand this process.
This approach argues that society’s members, when they encounter deprivation of
their fundamental human needs and violation of their central values, are vulner-
able to mobilization by political forces that promise to end their crisis by leading
the society in a new direction, even if it has authoritarian characteristics and
populistic promises. This mobilization is especially evident among those segments
of society that are less knowledgeable of, and less concerned and committed to,
the democratic system.
The major conclusions of this approach are that democratic regimes have
to invest much more heavily in the inculcation of democratic principles and
values in their citizens and motivate and teach them how to function in times of
crises, in order to defend the system against authoritarian forces. Also, the citizens
have to insist on the establishment of formal and informal institutions whose goals
56 Daniel Bar-Tal and Tamir Magal

are protection of the democratic principles of the system and free critical media as
a watch dog. The democratic system, in contrast to other regimes, needs continu-
ous safeguarding and commitment of its citizens—their care and involvement.
Without them, democracies deteriorate.

Note
1. We mostly refer to ideologically inspired terrorism, affiliated with radical Islamic
ideology.

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4
BEYOND POPULISM
The Psychology of Status-Seeking and
Extreme Political Discontent*

Michael Bang Petersen, Mathias Osmundsen and

Alexander Bor

Populist leaders and parties, such as Donald Trump in the United States, Viktor
Orbán in Hungary, and radical right-wing parties across multiple European coun-
tries, have recently gained electoral traction. This development is widely feared as
a central danger for modern Western democracies (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018), and
indeed, the emergence of these parties and leaders has co-occurred with a range
of troubling developments: Hateful debates on social media platforms (Grubbs,
Warmke, Tosi, James, & Campbell, 2019), intensified belief in and circulation of
conspiracy theories and other “fake news” (Miller, Saunders, & Farhart, 2016;
Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral, 2018), and even the onset of violent protests, for exam-
ple, in France and the United States (see also Bar-Tal & Magal; Forgas & Lantos;
Krekó; Marcus, this volume).
Correlation, however, is not causation. While the emergence of populism has
co-occurred with these developments, they may not necessarily spring from the
same psychological motivations. Specifically, while they are all forms of political
discontent, we argue that the most extreme forms of discontent—such as the
endorsement of political violence—emerges from a distinct set of motivations.
Building on psychological research on status-seeking, we argue that at the core of
extreme political discontent are motivations to achieve status via dominance, i.e.,
through the use of fear and intimidation (Cheng, Tracy, Foulsham, Kingstone, &
Henrich, 2013). Essentially, extreme political behavior reflects discontent with
one’s own personal standing and a desire to actively rectify this through aggression
(see also Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume). While populism also reflects
frustrated motivations, we argue that these are related to more submissive and pas-
sive forms of discontent. Finally, we argue that this understanding of the deeper
roots of extreme political discontent is important if modern democracies are to
move towards less polarization.
 Beyond Populism 63

The Psychology of Status-Seeking

For group-living animals, social status in the form of a higher placement in the
hierarchy is a key adaptive resource that promotes survival and reproduction.
Among humans, evolutionary psychologists and others have documented this in
a myriad of ways, using evolutionary psychology, historical data, ethnographic
data, and data from industrialized societies (Sidanius & Pratto, 2001). Higher
status individuals are more attractive and sire more and healthier offspring (von
Rueden, Gurven, & Kaplan, 2011). Extreme examples of this genetic and evo-
lutionary analysis suggest that substantial proportions of current populations in
specific regions can be traced back to single individuals such as, for example,
Genghis Khan in East Asia (Zerjal et al., 2003).
More broadly, we can conceptualize status as a meta-resource that deter-
mines the flow of other, more tangible resources, especially when access to these
resources is contested. For most animals, the allocation of contested resources
is determined by relative differences in physical strength and size. However, for
humans and other ultrasocial animals, the ability to mobilize conspecifics on your
behalf is even more important (Tooby, Cosmides, & Price, 2006). Two people
can almost always prevail over any single person, independently of their individual
strength. Consistent with this, a line of research has consistently demonstrated
that we intuitively think of individuals in well-coordinated groups as more formi-
dable adversaries (Fessler & Holbrook, 2016) and, hence, people to avoid engag-
ing in conflict with.
Social status is key in this respect. Social status implies social influence, and
individuals with higher status can more easily direct the course of action that oth-
ers take (von Rueden et al., 2011). This allows for mobilizing others on behalf
of the self and for demobilizing potential adversaries. Essentially, social status is a
resource that allows you to win contests without having to fight.
Because of the evolutionarily recurrent importance of social status, a large
number of psychological mechanisms in the human mind are specifically
designed for status-acquisition. These mechanisms underlie at least two broader
classes of strategies: Prestige and dominance (Cheng et al., 2013). Prestige-
based strategies involve the cultivation of talents and skills that are valuable for
others, and hence, prestige-based status is based on a reciprocal relationship
wherein status is granted in exchange for service. Dominance-based strategies,
in contrast, involves the use of “fear and intimidation” in order to get recogni-
tion from others.
A craving for status is universal, but individuals will differ in whether they
follow prestige- or dominance-based strategies to acquire it. For example, indi-
viduals with high physical formidability or low trait empathy are better able to
navigate conflicts pursuing dominance-based strategies (Petersen & Laustsen,
2019). This can be further reinforced by situational factors. Individuals with high
degrees of human capital, for example, can more easily utilize a prestige-based
64 Michael Bang Petersen et al.

strategy. Individuals with less socially valued skills, in contrast, are pushed towards
dominance-based strategies.

Political Discontent and the Tactics of

Dominance-Based Strategies
The psychology of dominance is likely to underlie some current-day forms of
extreme political discontent—and associated activism—for two reasons. First,
radical discontent is characterized by verbal or physical aggression, thus directly
capitalizing on the competences of people pursuing dominance-based strategies.
Second, current-day radical activism seems linked to desires for recognition and
feelings of “losing out” in a world marked by, on the one hand, traditional ­gender-
and race-based hierarchies, which limits the mobility of minority groups, and, on
the other hand, globalized competition, which puts a premium on human capital
(Kitschelt, 2002; Kriesi & Schulte-Cloos, 2020; see also Bar-Tal & Magal; de Zav-
ala et al.; Ditto & Rodriguez; Kruglanski et al.; this volume). Extreme discontent,
in other words, is a phenomenon among individuals for whom ­prestige-based
pathways to status are, at least in their own perception, unlikely to be successful.
Despite their political differences, this perception may be the psychological com-
monality of, on the one hand, race- or gender-based grievance movements and,
on the other hand, white lower middle-class right-wing voters (see also Feldman;
Huddy & Lorente, this volume).
Broadly speaking, dominance-based strategies for status-acquisition involve,
at least, two classes of aggressive tactics: Direct and indirect aggression. Direct
aggression is the use of verbal or physical violence, or threats thereof, directed
against the perceived adversary. In the context of current-day political discontent,
such adversaries can be authorities or opposing political groups, and the specific
tactics can cover a wide-range of behaviors from direct confrontations in the
streets to hostile social media interactions. Examples of the more extreme tactics
include the “Yellow West” movement in France, which has repeatedly clashed
with police; the anti-government protests in Chile, which has involved significant
rioting; and US extremist groups related to both left and right, which has clashed
violently with each other and the police in the context of the Black Lives Matter
protests.
Indirect aggression is an even more complex set of specific tactics. Indirect
aggression often involves gossiping with the aim of diminishing the value of the
target in the eyes of others (Archer & Coyne, 2005), but indirect aggression can
also take the form of attempts to mobilize others for aggression directed against
adversaries. Mobilization is an extraordinarily difficult process as it not only
requires the alignment of preferences (“we need to do X . . .”) but also the align-
ment of attention (“. . . and we need to it now!”) (Petersen, 2020; Tooby et al.,
2006; see also Vallacher & Fennell, this volume). Furthermore, mobilization for
 Beyond Populism 65

intergroup aggression is even more difficult, as the needed level of mobilization is

always relative to the enemy: You need your group not just to be well coordinated
but better coordinated than the outgroup (Laustsen & Petersen, 2015). Thus, in
group conflicts, the better coordinated group is more likely to prevail. Accord-
ingly, there are several lines of research that suggests that aggression from other
groups activates accelerated motivations to engage in mobilization processes (De
Dreu et al., 2016).
There are multiple ways to facilitate aggressive mobilization, but three have
received significant attention: Moralization, rumor-sharing, and followership
(Petersen, 2020). Moralization refers to the process of recasting or framing a posi-
tion as moral or immoral, i.e., either in accordance or discordance with the
group’s overarching social norms (see also Krekó, this volume). Moral principles
are principles that are just from the perspective of a neutral spectator, and hence,
moralization is a key strategy to draw otherwise neutral audiences into a conflict,
as moralization entails the message that the conflict is relevant from their perspec-
tive as well. Thus, a common mobilization tactic is to describe one’s own position
as moral and the position of an adversary as immoral (see also Cooper & Avery;
Crano & Gaffney, this volume). This can not only mobilize people on behalf of
one’s own position by inducing the perception that their interests are aligned with
the advocated position but can also have the additional advantage of demobilizing
people who might otherwise support the position of the adversary. If a position
is broadcasted as moral, fear of moral condemnation can demotivate others from
opposing it.
Rumor-sharing has always played a significant role in conflicts. For example, in
a systematic review of violent ethnic riots, Horowitz (2001, p. 74) observed that

concealed threats and outrages committed in secret figure prominently in

pre-riot rumors. Rumors are . . . embedded in the riot situation, because
they are satisfying and useful to rioters and their leaders. . . . Rumor is
likely to prevail over accurate information. . . . Rumor prevails because it
orders and organizes action-in-process.

Consistent with this description, psychological studies of conspiracy theories and

misinformation show that people are likely to both believe and share rumors that
portray enemy groups in a negative way (Miller et al., 2016; Osmundsen, Bor,
Vahlstrup, Bechmann, & Petersen, 2020; see also Krekó, this volume). This is
interpretable as instrumental or motivated attempts to broadcast information that
will mobilize audiences against the adversary. Thus, rumors used in intergroup
conflict from ethnic riots to modern politics are extraordinarily similar in that they
all emphasize that the adversary is evil, powerful, and about to act, creating a sense
of urgency in receivers to engage in counter-activities. One striking example was
the Pizzagate conspiracy shared by Republicans during the 2016 presidential US
66 Michael Bang Petersen et al.

election, arguing that leading Democrats were holding abused children hostage in
the basement of a named pizzeria in Washington DC. For one person, the sense
of urgency created was strong enough for him to come to the pizzeria with an
automatic rifle, intending to save the children.
Finally, leaders play a central role in mobilization processes. Whereas moraliza-
tion and information-sharing are attempts to organize groups from the bottom-
up, leaders are crucial vehicles for organizing groups from the top. Leaders can
facilitate collective action by sanctioning free-riders and by acting as first movers
(Glowacki & von Rueden, 2015). Importantly, however, leaders do not emerge
from thin air. Rather, in many if not most human groups, leaders emerge because
a substantial proportion choose to follow them. In this way, followership decisions
can play a central role. Essentially, individuals invested in mobilizing others for
aggressive projects can strategically choose to follow leaders who they believe will
escalate conflicts and endorse aggressive solutions. Converging lines of research
suggest that strong, dominant leaders cater to such motivations, and psychologi-
cal studies show that primes of intergroup conflict increases motivations to fol-
low dominant leaders (Petersen & Laustsen, 2020; see also Forgas & Lantos; and
Krekó; this volume).

Beyond Populism: Extreme Discontent

as a Dominance Syndrome
These arguments suggest that status-seeking motivations and, in particular,
dominance-oriented status-seeking could be at the center of a large number of
discontent-related forms of political activism, such as endorsement of political
violence, hostile interactions on social media, excessive moralization, sharing of
and believing in misinformation, and the promotion of aggressive leaders. Con-
sistent with this, past research has demonstrated that individual differences in
status-seeking or dominance motivations are highly predictive of participation
and support of political violence (Bartusevicius, van Leeuwen, & Petersen, 2020),
political hostility both online and offline (Bor & Petersen, 2019), moral grand-
standing (Grubbs, Warmke, Tosi, James, & Campbell, 2019), motivations to share
conspiracy theories (Petersen, Osmundsen, & Arceneaux, 2020), and preference
for dominant leaders (Laustsen & Petersen, 2017). Thus, based on the back-
ground of these existing studies, we contend that motivations to gain status via
dominance is the underlying syndrome, activated in the context of current-day
politics, that fuels these extreme expressions of political discontent.
These motivations are most likely distinct from some of the motivations
underlying populism, as this concept is commonly understood. Populism involves
a combination of elite-skepticism and a belief in wisdom of “the people” or
some form of common will (Marchlewska, Cichocka, Panayiotou, Castella-
nos, & Batayneh, 2018; see also Marcus; Bar-Tal & Magal, this volume). Some
studies suggest that populism correlates with a lack of agreeableness (Bakker,
 Beyond Populism 67

Rooduijn, & Schumacher, 2016), feelings of anger (Rico, Guinjoan, & Anduiza,
2017) and collective narcissism (see also Golec de Zavala et al., this volume).
These factors are also likely to be related to status-seeking motivations, and this
could lead to the expectation that there is some overlap between populist support
and status-seeking motivations. However, other studies have argued that the key
psychological precursors of populist support include authoritarianism (Norris &
Inglehart, 2019; but see Dunn, 2015; see also Feldman, this volume), traditional-
ism (Sniderman, Petersen, Slothuus, & Stubager, 2014), and the need to conform
to particular identities (Salmela & Scheve, 2017), as, for example, reflected in
the nationalism that is part of many right-wing populist agendas (Dunn, 2015;
see also Huddy & Del Ponte, this volume). Furthermore, and consistent with
the emphasis on “the people,” evidence suggests that populist voters often are
egalitarian and support redistributive policies (Malka, Lelkes, Bakker, & Spivack,
2020; Sniderman et al., 2014). The orientation towards both group conformity
and equality are in stark contrast to dominance motivations. In contrast to con-
formity, dominance leads to self-promotion. In contrast to equality, dominance
leads to support for steep hierarchies (see also Krekó, this volume). While many
extreme forms of political discontent are temporally correlated with the emer-
gence of populism in Western democracies (and, potentially, are linked to the
same underlying structural causes), we thus suggest that populism and extreme
political discontent are nonetheless psychologically distinct phenomena.

Status Seeking, Discontent, and

Populism: Empirical Evidence
To empirically explore these arguments, we collected data from a survey fielded
on the Lucid platform in March 2020. Lucid, the largest US marketplace for
online convenience samples, uses quota sampling to approximate national rep-
resentativeness. Researchers increasingly turn to online convenience samples to
test theories about human psychology, and while Lucid is a new and probably less
well-known source of online respondents, early results appear very promising:
“Demographic and experimental findings on Lucid track well with US national
benchmarks” (Coppock and McClellan, 2019, p. 1; see also Graham, 2020).
We recruited 1,030 US citizens to participate in our study. We excluded 233
participants who failed at least one out of three attention checks, and another
twelve participants with missing values on at least one of the central variables
described below. The attention checks were designed to capture (1) response set
(i.e., providing the same answer regardless of the question, sometimes referred
to as “straight lining”), (2) inattention to instructions, and (3) so-called survey
trolling, i.e., insincere reporting of extreme behavior (Lopez & Hillygus, 2018).
Given the nature of some of the questions, we deemed this three-fold approach
necessary. It should be noted, however, that the substantial conclusions do not
change if we include all respondents in the analyses.
68 Michael Bang Petersen et al.

Of the remaining 795 participants, 54% were females and the average age
was 46 years old (standard deviation (SD) = 17 years). In terms of education, 3%
reported “less than high school” as their highest completed degree, 15% were
“high school graduate[s],” 26% selected “some college, but no degree,” 12% had
a “two-year college degree,” 24% said “four-year college degree,” and 9% had
a “graduate or professional degree” category. The median household income
before taxes was “$40,000 to $49,999.” In the study, 75% of participants identi-
fied as white/Caucasian.
Our study had three main goals. The first goal was to test if status-seeking
is a driver of a range of manifestations of extreme political discontent. The
second goal was to directly compare the discontent-related correlates of status-
seeking and populism and to assess whether these are the same or different.
Finally, the third goal was to show that the association between status-seeking
and political discontent was the product of dominance strategies rather than
prestige. We asked all survey participants to answer questions related to these
key variables.

Status-Seeking Motivations
Our key independent variable is status-seeking motivations, which we measure
with a validated Status-Driven Risk-Taking scale from Ashton and colleagues
(2010). Informed by evolutionary psychological research on competitive risk tak-
ing, the authors developed the scale to measure the pursuit for money, power, and
social prestige (ibid. 734). The Status-Driven Risk-Taking scale asks participants
to indicate on 7-point scales if they agree or disagree with fourteen statements
like “I would enjoy being a famous and powerful person, even if it meant a high
risk of assassination” and “I would rather live a secure life as an ordinary person
than risk everything to be ‘at the top’” (reverse coded). The statements formed a
reliable battery (α = .91) and were summed and rescaled to form an index rang-
ing from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating greater status-driven risk taking
(M = .30, SD = .21).

Populism
To measure populist attitudes, we asked participants to complete the short, six-item
version of the populist attitude scale developed by Castanho Silva and colleagues
(2018) (e.g., “The government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking
out for themselves”; response on 7-item scale: 0 = Strongly Disagree; 1 = Strongly
Agree; α = .73, M = .50, SD = .14). To enable us to isolate the distinct effects of
status-seeking, all analyses adjust for this populism measure. In addition, we adjust
for a comprehensive set of sociodemographic factors: Gender, age, educational
level, income level, and ethnicity.
 Beyond Populism 69

Dominance and Prestige

As previously discussed, humans can follow two distinct paths to social status,
where the dominance path uses intimidation, aggression, and fear to attain status
while the prestige route leads to social status through the possession of skills and
resources that others value. Our argument entails that expressions of political
discontent—especially its extreme forms, which we examine here—flows from a
desire to obtain status through dominance rather than prestige. To assess this, we
measure both dominance- and prestige-related motivations, using slightly modi-
fied forms of two scales from Cheng, Tracy, and Henrich (2010). The domi-
nance scale asks participants how accurately eight statements describe them (e.g.,
“I enjoy having control over others,” “Others know it is better to let me have my
way”; response on 7-point scale: 0 = Strongly Disagree; 1 = Strongly Agree; α = .80,
M = .36, SD = .19). The prestige scale asks about the accuracy of nine items
(“People I know respect and admire me,” “Others seek my advice on a variety
of matters”; response on 7-point scale: 0 = Strongly Disagree; 1 = Strongly Agree;
α = .76, M = .61, SD = .6).

Political Discontent
Political discontent, our key dependent variable, can take many forms. As dis-
cussed above, its more extreme manifestations include a variety of attitudes and
behaviors: Support for, and participation in, violent political riots and protests;
political sympathies for “strong” leaders with a distaste for democratic rules of
conduct; the sharing of political misinformation and blatant lies about political
elites; and disruptive behavior in online political discussions. To fully grasp the
nature and shape of extreme political discontent, we included as many of these
different strands as possible.
We first measured political violence intentions with a revised 10-item version
of the scale from Moskalenko and McCauley (2009; see Gøtzsche-Astrup, 2019;
e.g., “I would attack police or security forces if I saw them beating members of
my group”; response on 7-point scale: 0 = Strongly Disagree; 1 = Strongly Agree;
α = .91, M = .29, SD = .22). We next measured strong leader preferences with
Sprong and colleagues’ (2019) 3-item scale (e.g., “We need strong leadership in
order to overcome societies’ difficulties”; response on 7-point scale: 0 = Strongly
Disagree; 1 = Strongly Agree; α = .88, M = .83, SD = .19). Next, we included
measures of beliefs in and intentions to share hostile political rumors from Petersen
et al. (2020). Their measures ask participants to read six rumors denigrating main-
stream political actors from both the political left and right, and then to state
whether participants agree (1) the rumors are true, and whether (2) they would
want to share the rumors on social media. We combined participants’ responses
into additive scales measuring beliefs the rumors were true (response on 7-item
70 Michael Bang Petersen et al.

scale: 0 = Strongly Disagree; 1 = Strongly Agree; α = .63, M = .39, SD = .20) and

measuring intentions to share the rumors (response on 7-item scale: 0 = Strongly
Disagree; 1 = Strongly Agree; α = .88, M = .26, SD = .25).
Our final two measures of political discontent came from Grubbs and colleagues
(2019): moral grandstanding and political/moral conflict. Moral grandstanding—
the use of moral talk in debates to enhance one’s social status and belittle others—
was measured with a 4-item scale (e.g., “I share my moral/political beliefs to make
people who disagree with me feel bad”; response on 7-item scale: 0 = Strongly
Disagree; 1 = Strongly Agree; α = .90, M = .27, SD = .25). Grubbs et al. (2019)
originally created two subscales to measure moral grandstanding motivations. We
focus on their Moral Grandstanding: Dominance striving subscale, which is the theo-
retically relevant one. Furthermore, we measured political/moral conflict—the
tendency to launch into online political fights with others—with Grubbs and
colleagues’ (2019) 7-item scale (e.g., “Over the past twelve months, I have . . .
gotten into fights on social media because of my political/moral beliefs”; response
on four-item scale: 0 = Never/Not at all; 1 = Several times; α = .91, M = .24,
SD = .27).

Status-Seeking, Populism, and Extreme

Political Discontent
We begin our exploration by asking: Were status-seeking motivations associated
with extreme political discontent? Did people with a desire to improve their
social status express stronger political discontent and dissatisfaction than people
without that same drive for status? In a word: Yes. The motivation to attain status
was strongly associated with the majority of ways extreme political discontent
manifests itself. Figure 4.1 presents the results. It shows estimated ordinary least
squares regression coefficients from models that regress the six measures of politi-
cal discontent on status-seeking motivations and our set of sociodemographic
covariates. To conserve space, the figure only includes the coefficients for status-
seeking motivations and populist attitudes. We scale all variables to range from
0 to 1, which allows us to interpret the coefficients as the change in percentage
points of the full scale of the dependent variable as we move from the low to the
high extreme of the independent variable.
Figure 4.1 reveals that participants with a desire for status expressed higher lev-
els of political discontent on five out of the six measures compared to participants
with low status aspirations. Status-seeking was positively associated with inten-
tions to engage in political violence (βviolent activism = .50, p < .05), beliefs that hos-
tile political rumors about mainstream politicians are true (βbelieve hostile rumors = .21,
p < .05), intentions to share those same hostile rumors on social media
(βshare hostile rumors = .45, p < .05), the inclination to demonstrate moral and political
superiority in online discussions (βmoral grandstanding = .40, p < .05), and, finally, readi-
ness to fight over political and moral questions online (βsocial media political conflict = .31,
 Beyond Populism 71

Status−Seeking, Populism, and Political Discontent

Status−Seeking

Model
Violent Activism
Share Hostile Rumors
Moral Grandstanding
Political Conflict
Believe Hostile Rumors
Strong Leader

Populism

−0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6

Estimated Regression Coefficient

FIGURE 4.1 Estimated regression coefficients from models that regress six measures
of political discontent on status-seeking motivations and populist attitudes. Unstand-
ardized OLS regressions coefficients with 95% confidence intervals. All variables are
scaled to range from 0 to 1, allowing us to interpret the unstandardized regression
coefficients as the change in percentage points of the full scale of the dependent
variable as we move from the low to the high extreme of the independent variable.
The models adjust for gender, age, educational level, household income level, and
ethnicity.

p < .05). In substantive terms, these associations were consistently strong: Moving
from the lowest to the highest level of status-seeking aspirations was associated
with a 20–50 percentage point increase in political discontent, varying slightly
depending on which of the five aspects of discontent we focus on. Together, these
findings are consistent with our claim that status-seeking motivations are critical
for understanding citizens’ political dissatisfaction and disengagement.
Figure 4.1 also offered one result that runs counter to our hypothesis. High-
status participants disapproved of one particular manifestation of political discon-
tent: Strong political leaders (βstrong leader = −.13, p < .05). A theoretically derived
possibility is that those who crave status hesitate to endorse strong leadership,
because strong leaders may hamper their chances of climbing the social lad-
der. At the same time, it should be noted that the scale of leadership prefer-
ences is a highly skewed distribution of leadership preferences—almost all of the
72 Michael Bang Petersen et al.

participants preferred strong political leadership—which leaves us with little vari-

ation to explain. Of note here is that we gathered the data in the midst of the
coronavirus epidemic where strong leadership was in high demand.
Finally, consistent with our argument, Figure 4.1 shows that only a limited
variety of political discontent is widespread among citizens who support populist
ideas. Populist attitudes were only positively associated with three of six mani-
festations of political discontent, and not the ones that arguably reflect the most
“extreme” discontent, like support for violence. One noteworthy finding that we
highlight here was that populism—unlike status-seeking—was positively associ-
ated with preferences for strong political leadership. This comports with earlier
work highlighting how approval of strong leadership is one characteristic that
various conceptions of populism have in common (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2014),
and it suggests that populism may indeed be associated with such narrow, moder-
ate forms of political discontent.
This latter finding notwithstanding, we maintain that the results presented
so far firmly support our hypothesis. The drive for attaining status seems to be
at the nexus of various manifestations of extreme political discontent that many
democracies currently witness. Further, the results make clear that status-seeking
motivations may be a more important mechanism in understanding political
dissatisfaction and political polarization than other usual culprits, like populist
sentiment.

Dominance, Prestige, and Extreme Political Discontent

The analysis so far has shown that status-seeking motivations are associated with
political discontent. We devote the remaining part of the analysis to determine
if extreme political discontent—with its emphasis on individual and collective
action involving aggression and antagonistic encounters with political foes—
reflects a drive for status rooted primarily in dominance motives rather than
prestige.
To understand whether self-perceived dominance rather than self-perceived
prestige contributes more to explaining variation in political discontent, we now
turn to Figure 4.2. It presents estimated ordinary least squares regression coeffi-
cients from models that regress the six measures of political discontent on domi-
nance, prestige, and a set of covariates, including populist attitudes. Like before,
we facilitate interpretation by scaling the variables to range from 0 to 1.
What is most striking in Figure 4.2 is how differently dominance and prestige
mapped onto political discontent. While Status-Driven Risk-Taking and domi-
nance motivations were not perfectly correlated (r = .55), results for dominance
were almost identical to those from the analysis on status-seeking motivations:
Participants who viewed themselves as dominant expressed much stronger politi-
cal discontent on five out of the six measures than low-dominance participants;
βviolent activism = .45, p < .05; βshare hostile rumors = .35, p < .05; βmoral grandstanding = .48,
 Beyond Populism 73

Dominance, Prestige, and Political Discontent

Prestige

Model
Moral Grandstanding
Violent Activism
Political Conflict
Share Hostile Rumors
Believe Hostile Rumors
Strong Leader

Dominance

−0.6 −0.3 0.0 0.3 0.6

Estimated Regression Coefficient

FIGURE 4.2 Estimated regression coefficients from models that regress six measures
of political discontent on dominance and prestige. Unstandardized OLS regressions
coefficients with 95% confidence intervals. All variables are scaled to range from 0 to
1, allowing us to interpret the unstandardized regression coefficients as the change in
percentage points of the full scale of the dependent variable as we move from the low
to the high extreme of the independent variable. The models adjust for gender, age,
educational level, household income level, populist attitudes, and ethnicity.

p < .05; βbelieve hostile rumors= .20, p < .05. Tellingly, the one exception was that domi-
nant participants were more disapproving of strong leaders (βstrong leader = −.13, p <
.05). Again, a likely interpretation is that dominant individuals do not view the
appointment of strong leaders as a viable strategy for them to attain status.
What about prestige and political discontent? Results were almost a mirror
image of the dominance findings. Prestige-oriented individuals were much less
discontent and expressed higher political satisfaction on four out of six mani-
festations of political discontent—moral grandstanding (βmoral grandstanding = −.30,
p < .05), support for violent activism (βviolent activism = −.20, p < .05), political
and moral conflict βpolitical conflict = −.15, p < .05), and sharing of hostile rumors
(βsharing hostile rumors = −.09, p = .076). They also generally supported strong political
leadership (βstrong leadership = .23, p < .05). While these findings suggest that pres-
tige may indeed play a role in affecting political discontent—with high prestige
dampening discontent—the size of the estimated coefficients for prestige were
74 Michael Bang Petersen et al.

generally smaller than the coefficients for dominance. This implies, in line with
our assumptions, that dominance, not prestige, is the more relevant mechanism
in understanding how status-seeking can translate into various forms of extreme
political discontent (the exception being preferences for strong leadership).

Active and Passive Forms of Extreme Political Discontent

Overall, dominance motivations have a unique, strong and positive relationship
to support for political violence, moralizing, and the sharing of hostile politi-
cal rumors. Populism has a unique positive relationship to support for strong,
authoritarian leaders. Beliefs in hostile political rumors and engagement in politi-
cal conflict on social media are related to both populism and dominance-seeking.
These divisions cohere with the patterns of intercorrelations between the
forms of discontent presented in Figure 4.3. First, there is a highly correlated
cluster of forms of discontent involving extreme and highly active forms of
behavior: Violent activism, moral grandstanding, and rumor-sharing. Then there

Violent Activism 1
0.8

0.6
Moral Grandstanding 0.57 1

0.4

Share Hostile Rumors 0.51 0.46 1

0.2

Believe Hostile Rumors 0.38 0.3 0.63 1 0

−0.2

Political Conflict 0.38 0.35 0.38 0.22 1

−0.4

Strong Leader −0.28 −0.29 −0.18 −0.07 −0.15 1 −0.6

−0.8
Violent Activism

Moral Grandstanding

Share Hostile Rumors

Believe Hostile Rumors

Political Conflict

Strong Leader

−1

FIGURE 4.3 Pearson’s r correlation between six manifestations of political discontent.

 Beyond Populism 75

is a cluster with lower but positive intercorrelations involving belief in hostile

political rumors and involvement in political conflicts on social media. Finally,
support for strong, dominant leaders is negatively related to all the other forms
of discontent.
One possible interpretation of these observations is that populism fuels a clus-
ter of more passive forms of discontent. Populists privately believe that the politi-
cal system is corrupt and they promote strong leaders who can take care of that
problem for them (see also Bar-Tal & Magal; Marcus, this volume). They do
become engaged in hostile interactions on social media but, perhaps, they are less
likely to initiate those themselves and rather become disentangled in them when
they are called out by other social media users. Dominance-motivated individu-
als, in contrast, are motivated to take on the source of their discontent themselves,
and this fuels the most active forms of dissent: Behavioral intentions to fight the
police; a willingness to not only believe that the system is corrupt but to share
information about it with wide audiences on social media; and a habit of actively
using moralization to suppress the views of others.
Psychologically, this seems to reflect two very different strategies of navigating
hierarchies. As discussed, dominance reflects motivations to reach the top of the
hierarchy by the use of force and intimidation. These motivations stand in con-
trast to motivations to use prestige as a way to gain status. Importantly, however,
dominance motivations also stand in contrast to a depressed level of status-seeking
motivations altogether. Thus, while the evolutionary sciences suggest that status is
an adaptive resource that is universally beneficial, this line of work also acknowl-
edges that there are trade-offs involved. For individuals with limited possibilities
of advancing in the hierarchy, it may be advantageous to accept a subordinate
position in exchange for social harmony and favors from higher-ranking individ-
uals (Dawkins, 1976; De Waal, 1996). Such dynamics may lie at the core of the
psychology of populists: They are discontent with the current system but their
alternative political vision is not one in which they personally are placed at the
top of the hierarchy. Rather, they seek to promote those others to a top position
that they believe will selectively benefit them and people like them. In contrast,
those who engage in more active forms of discontent are fueled by a personal
craving for power. Consistent with this, we find that populism and Status-Driven
Risk-Taking is only weakly (and negatively) correlated at r = −.08.

The Deep Roots of Extreme Discontent

There is evidence that extreme forms of political discontent are on the rise in
at least some Western democracies (Turchin, 2016). Examples include protests
that turn into riots, terrorism in both its religious and political forms, and other
frustration-based extreme events such mass shootings. Psychological research
demonstrates that the use of aggressive status-seeking strategies is a reflection of
both personality and situational factors (Gøtzsche-Astrup, 2019). It is unlikely
76 Michael Bang Petersen et al.

that a rise in extreme discontent reflects a general increase in dominance person-

ality dispositions, but multiple lines of research present evidence for an increase in
situational factors that could potentially lead to more aggressive activism.
Media studies point to changes in the media landscape. For example, some
studies argue that an increasing reliance on cable TV has created political content
bubbles that could lead to a lack of understanding of political adversaries and, as a
consequence, an increased political polarization. In the United States, Fox News
has received significant attention, and some studies do suggest that exposure to
Fox News is related to polarization (Martin & Yurukoglu, 2017; Morris, 2005).
Other studies focusing on more recent media development argue that the advent
of social media increases aggression and lowers empathy, due to the lack of face-
to-face interaction (Baek, Wojcieszak, & Delli Carpini, 2012).
Studies in political science often point to the role of political leaders in creat-
ing an increasingly uncivil public discourse (Mutz, 2016) and find evidence that
leaders in the United States, specifically, have used increasingly aggressive rhetoric
(Neal, 2020). Other political science studies point to a process called sorting that
entails that there is an increased convergence of partisanship with sociodemo-
graphic factors such as race or religiosity (Mason, 2015). Sorting fuels political
polarization as animosity between partisan groups map onto pre-existing and
potentially deeper cleavages between sociodemographic groups.
All these explanations are important and have theoretical value and undeni-
able empirical leverage. Yet, at the same time, they may fail to provide a gen-
eral understanding of the roots of current-day discontent. Some are US-centric,
highlighting idiosyncratic features such as Fox News. Some are focusing on very
recent events, such as the advent of social media, even though polarization has
been increasing for several decades (Neal, 2020; Turchin, 2016). Finally, explana-
tions focusing on political mobilizations along racial or religious lines could plau-
sibly be perceived as symptoms rather than causal drivers of increasing discontent.
When looking beyond the surface to the potential deeper structural fac-
tors that could push discontent upwards across countries and decades, research-
ers have especially focused on inequality. It is a fact that economic inequality
has been rising across Western democracies over the past decades (Alderson &
Nielsen, 2002). While inequality is sometimes argued to induce a conflict
between those at the bottom and those at the top of the hierarchy, it is impor-
tant to understand that inequality also creates conflict at every step of the soci-
etal ladder. Essentially, inequality “stretches” the hierarchy and, hence, increases
status-competition for all (Turchin, 2016). Consistent with this, psychological
research shows that perceptions of inequality fuel status-seeking motivations
(Sibley, Wilson, & Duckitt, 2007). Furthermore—and consistent with the link
between status-seeking and extreme forms of discontent—analyses of historical
data demonstrate that rising inequality and increased status-competition among
elites are highly predictive of the level of political instability in a given time
period (Turchin, 2016).
 Beyond Populism 77

Inequality shifts public discourse from rationalism towards dominance because

of two interrelated processes. First, it is difficult to reach the high levels of steep
hierarchies, especially if they are competence-based. In such a situation, the tar-
geting of high-status individuals using force can accelerate status advancement
because it is easier than the alternative: To accrue the necessary competences
in order to advance through prestige. Second, as status-competition intensifies,
group-based competition becomes more important. To facilitate this, group
members may come to highlight (or “essentialize”) group differences, which in
itself will make rational exchange of argument less likely. Thus, a key requirement
for liberal discourse is the recognition of a shared faith and a common humanity
(Popper, 1945).

Towards Depolarized Societies

Understanding the psychological and structural roots of extreme discontent is key
if we are to move towards more peaceful societies. An exclusive focus on pop-
ulism might lead to the expectation that the roots of discontent are value-based
(see Bar-Tal & Magal, this volume). For example, the rise of right-wing populism
may suggest that frustrations are rooted in a decreasing respect for authorities and
traditional forms of life (see also Gelfand & Lorente, this volume). If that was
indeed the case, a depolarized society might be reached only if non-populists
were willing to compromise on important political values and to a larger extent
to embrace tradition and authority.
In contrast, the present arguments and results suggest that the true roots of
the most extreme forms of discontent are based less on a conflict of abstract
political values and more on a lack of social status and recognition. If so, the
path towards depolarization lies in more inclusion and more equality, for exam-
ple, based on an affirmation of the classical liberal doctrine of the importance
of open, non-dominant exchange of arguments (Popper, 1945). Unfortunately,
this is not something that can be fixed quickly, as would be the case if discontent
was rooted in transient factors such as the behavior of social media algorithms.
Rather, depolarization requires difficult structural changes that alleviate the onset
of dominance motivations.
Inclusive structural changes can take two different forms (Iversen & Soskice,
2019). Inclusion can be facilitated economically by investing in universal access to
public education. Inclusion can also be facilitated politically by including margin-
alized and frustrated voices in the political process. Educational investment gener-
ates opportunities for the marginalized, and the embrace of discontented groups
allows for political representation, in turn de-radicalizing the groups and their fol-
lowers. It will always be difficult to reach out to those with extreme viewpoints,
and this is especially true in an environment of intense political polarization. In
essence, the key challenge of our time is to recognize the frustrations of extremists
and to do so in a way that stands firm on democratic principles.
78 Michael Bang Petersen et al.

Note
* Chapter prepared for The Psychology of Populism, eds. Joseph P. Forgas, Bill Crano, and
Klaus Fiedler. Routledge.

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5
THE RISE OF POPULISM
The Politics of Justice, Anger, and Grievance

George E. Marcus

Introduction
For a very long time, human communities have faced periodic threats such as
disease, violent attacks, terrorism, economic threats, and financial crises. There is
considerable research which shows that people facing threats demand that those
in authority exhibit strength and a forceful commitment to protecting the pub-
lic (McCann, 1997; Doty, Peterson, & Winter, 1991). In sum, threats drive the
public to demand protection (Feldman & Stenner, 1997; Feldman, this volume).
Long before the term populism became popular, the role of collectivizing emotions
in driving public reactions to social events has long been a concern for democratic
governance (Weiner, 2012; Jasper, 1998; Jasper, 2011; Barsade & Knight, 2015;
see also Golec de Zavala, this volume). But which emotions drive social solidar-
ity? And as group integrity is a variable, what role do emotions play in reducing
group cohesion?
The emotion that connects threat to the threat response is widely claimed to be
fear. It has long been believed that fear signals the presence of threat and increases
support for strong, even authoritarian, parties, leaders, and their programs (Nuss-
baum, 2018; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; see also Kruglanski, this
volume). This straightforward argument is presented in Figure 5.1. A corollary
holds that some are more sensitive to disorder than others. This individual dif-
ference then informs where on the ideological spectrum people align (Adorno,
Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Castano et al., 2011). The long
lineage of this story has encased it in invisible certitude.
The belief that fear drives the threat response is very ancient. A famous line in
Psalm 23 extolls the faithful to “fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy
staff they comfort me.” Hobbes in The Leviathan (1968, p. 186) states that “where
82 George E. Marcus

FIGURE 5.1 The standard view.

every man is enemy to every man” life is “worst of all, continual fear, . . . solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Absent sovereign authority, nature and human
nature combine to generate a world of perpetual fear. The idea that fear identifies
threat and in turn drives the response to threat has been the predominant account
for millennia well, before it received scientific affirmation (Robin, 2004). The
scientific literature on threat includes alternative accounts, among them: Terror
Management Theory (Burke, Kosloff, & Landau, 2013); the incivility literature
(Gervais, 2019); and the authoritarianism and threat literature (Feldman & Sten-
ner, 1997). None of these, to date, have had much purchase in the public forum
or our understanding of political processes.
My argument is that fear is not the sole emotion linked to threat, and that
threat-induced fear is often not the principal cause of people offering submis-
sive fidelity to authority, generally, or specifically to authoritarian programs and
leaders. This standard account is largely wrong because it ignores the influence of
anger as a fundamental element in the evaluation of threat and political behavior.

What Is at Stake
First, addressing the public’s fear is a viable solution to threats only if it is true that
threat engenders fear and fear alone. If not, then the common political response
of efforts to “keep the public safe” is likely to prove ineffective because other fac-
tors are in play.
Second, the public’s susceptibility to passion has long been a central charge
in anti-democratic critiques. Indeed, the first aristocratic critique of democracy,
as too often besotted by passion and opinion to make legitimate decisions, was
birthed shortly after democracy was invented by the Athenians (Plato, 1974).
Of late, it has again become a popular claim (Caplan, 2007; Brennan, 2017).
It is argued by some that only the “epistemically able” should command public
authority (Davies, 2019).
The presumption of reason’s position as the highest achievement of the human
species rests on the belief that rationality is and should be the sole foundation
for making wise choices. Thus, reason alone can produce fairly, expressly, and
accurately calculated judgments (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982). It has
long been preached that the subordination of reason to emotion is irrational and
detrimental.
 The Rise of Populism 83

Testing the Standard Account

The primacy of fear account has considerable evidence to sustain it ( Jost et al.,
2003; Jost, Stern, Rule, & Sterling, 2017; Onraet, Alain, & Cornelis, 2013), yet
much recent research also challenges this account (Skitka, Bauman, Aramov-
ich, & Morgan, 2006; Marcus, Valentino, Vasilopoulos, & Foucault, 2019). What
explains this discrepancy? The following results suggest that the standing view is
sound but only when anger is ignored.
Nick Valentino, Pavlos Vasilopoulos, Martial Foucault, and I use two matched
studies of the 2017 national elections in France and Germany to examine the
roles of fear and anger on voting preferences (Marcus et al., 2019; Vasilopoulos,
Marcus, Valentino, & Foucault, 2019). Survey participants were asked how they
felt about: the state of the nation; the state of the economy; the political system;
and the state of immigration. We then examined how these feelings impacted
on the probability of voting for Le Pen in 2017 and voting for the far-right
party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), in the 2017 German national parliamen-
tary election. While populism is a confounded complex cluster of elements, these
two far-right parties serve, by most accounts, as exemplars of the phenomenon
(Wuttke, Schimp, & Schoen, 2020; see also Krekó, this volume). The results are
shown in plots derived from multinomial logistic regressions models. Rather than
focusing on fear associated with singular high-threat events, such as terror attacks
(Finseraas & Listhaug, 2013; Sniderman, Petersen, Slothus, Stubager, & Petrov,
2019), we explored how feelings about recurring political topics influence voting
preferences. As the results for the four targets are near similar, I show only two,
that for the nation, a topic of general interest to all, and immigration, a topic that
is of special interest to populist parties.
I begin by demonstrating that fear has indeed been shown to generate support
for the far right, but only in analyses that fail to consider anger and focus solely
on fear (Figure 5.2). All plots derived from: French Election Study, N = 6152;
Germany IPSOS Pre-election Study, N = 633. Next, I show what happens when
the influence of anger is taken into account in the usual way, by multivariate
analyses (Figure 5.3).
The four plots shown, as well as those not shown, show greater fear leads to
greater support for far-right parties. But the validity of this result is dependent
on the unproven presumption that it is fear alone that is relevant to the public’s
response. Figure 5.3 shows the influence of fear when anger is taken into account.
Across the board, controlling for anger flattens—one even reverses—the slopes
(compare the slopes in Figure 5.2 to those in Figure 5.3). But anger does more than
reduce the influence of fear. It has its own effect on voting for the far right (Figure 5.4).
Greater anger clearly generates robust support for Le Pen and for the AfD. This
is hardly the first analysis to show that ignoring anger leads to the wrong conclu-
sion about what fear does (MacKuen, Wolak, Keele, & Marcus, 2010).
 84 George E. Marcus

FIGURE 5.2 Threat-induced fear and support populist parties, France and Germany, 2017.
 The Rise of Populism 85

FIGURE 5.3 Fear and support for the far right, controlling for anger, France and Germany, 2017.
 86
George E. Marcus

FIGURE 5.4 Anger and support for the far right, controlling for fear, France and Germany, 2017.
 The Rise of Populism 87

In sum, a fear-only account of how people respond to threat misses the robust
influence of anger. Also, the fear-only account misattributes effects of anger to
fear, and so misrepresents what threat-elicited fear actually does. Anger’s robust
influence challenges the common understanding of populism as being driven by
fear. Anger is the collectivizing emotion, not fear.
Inattention to anger is, in part, a result of the common presumption that peo-
ple, at any given moment, feel but one dominant emotion. Hence, if people are
fearful, then they are only fearful. And, so, anger does not need to be considered.
But that presumption has been repeatedly shown to be false, as in most circum-
stances people report, when the methods enable, multiple emotions (Abelson,
Kinder, Peters, & Fiske, 1982; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).

When Under Threat: Should We Look to the

Past or to an Unknown Future?
Much of the early work on emotion in psychology began with the presump-
tion that perception preceded cognition and that in turn informed emotion
(Schachter & Singer, 1962). This understanding of perception has been a crucial
foundation of cognitive appraisal theories. It places emotion as a consequence
of both perception and cognition. On the other hand, the theory of Affective
Intelligence has been expressly premised on the recognition that multiple precon-
scious affective appraisals provide swift ongoing vital strategic and actionable anal-
yses (Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000; Marcus, 2002). This theory has been
the dominant account of emotion in political science and political psychology
for some decades. It should not be confused with the similar sounding but not
comparable concept of emotional intelligence familiar to psychologists. Affective
appraisals are a primary feature of preconscious neural processes (Siegel, Worm-
wood, Quigley, & Barrett, 2018). In sum, AIT describes emotions as strategic and
contemporaneous appraisals that precede and guide seeing, thinking, and acting.
Consciousness does not see the world as it is. Populist thinking, as is true for
all political thinking, often contains a measure of irrationality (see also Krekó;
Golec de Zavala; Forgas & Lantos, this volume). The brain presents the world
in conscious awareness as the brain constructively interprets it. Central to these
interpretive processes are affective processes. To accomplish successful engage-
ment with the world and with others, the brain has access to multiple systems of
memory, one of which, procedural memory, makes available the rich complexity
of past experiences. Additionally, the brain relies on emotional and propriocep-
tive information to manage our actions.
Although cognitive appraisal accounts presume that affect comes at the end of
the cognitive assessment of the perceived world, there is considerable evidence
to challenge this view (Zajonc, 1980; 2000; Maratos, Senior, Mogg, Bradley, &
Rippon, 2012; see also Golec de Zavala, this volume). Studies show that affec-
tive appraisals produce a correct decision well before consciousness (Bechara,
88 George E. Marcus

Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1997; Gelder, De Haan, & Heywood, 2001).
Often, the affective reaction is primary and essential to choosing correctly, while
cognition is not. The swift preconscious role of emotion also applies to politi-
cal assessments (Spezio et al., 2008; Todorov, 2017) and moral decisions (Haidt,
2001).

Human Brains Evolved a Specific Solution to the

Lack of Foresight
Psychology has largely focused its considerable attention on uncertainty (Kahne-
man et al., 1982). In this fashion, the disciple has acknowledged that humans lack
foresight. Here, foresight is understood as having certain knowledge of the future.
The conventional focus of social psychology has long been on human bias and has
neglected to consider whether such biases may be instrumental in how human
manage the lack of foresight.
The evidence is abundant that the ever-changing world poses deadly threats
to entire species, including the human species (Darwin, 1966; Diamond, 2005).
Because of the absence of certain knowledge of what is to come, humans have
found a number of ways of managing, such as the active use of imagination to
anticipate possible actions and their possible consequences (Hippel, 2019). Also
among them are institutions that regularize the world into predictive patterns.
The practice of science and the rule of law are important examples.
But, far earlier, human brains evolved another means to address our lack of
foresight. We learned to switch between holding tightly to long-held practices or
shifting to devising new ones. When we adopt the view “today is like yesterday,”
it follows that what worked yesterday will likely produce equally good outcomes
tomorrow. But, when we accept “today is unlike yesterday,” we must instead rely
on individual and collective deliberation to generate more promising solutions.
The first approach rests on the powerful role that habituated thought and action
play in human life (Bargh & Pietromonaco, 1982; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). But
the soundness of this option is based on the expectation that habits will repro-
duce past results in situations that match those previously experienced. Populist
programs are typically premised on the universal soundness of that expectation.
But if today is not sufficiently similar to the past, the predicted outcomes are
far less likely. A better outcome might result from putting aside our habitual ways
of evaluating a course of action. A better result might come from rejecting the
vast inventory of proven practice, so we are free to seek out and then deliber-
ate on the options advanced by others. Still, putting aside received wisdom may
not necessarily lead to a better outcome (Scott, 1998). Since we lack foresight,
whether we choose to keep to our habits of thought and action or reject them in
favor of considering other options, we are making a most consequential bet, the
outcome of which we hope we can survive to judge.
 The Rise of Populism 89

The Enlightenment project looked on reason as central to the success of the

world that would emerge after the constraining grip of rigid hierarchies of faith,
tradition, and monarchical rule was ended. That new order would be revealed
by increasing numbers of autonomous reasoning individuals (Kant, 1970). Such
individuals would, by relying on freely and rationally formed assessments, create a
more commodious, cosmopolitan, peaceful, and democratic social world (Smith,
1986; Pinker, 2018).
However, some psychologists have come to the conclusion that reasoning is
most commonly used in a biased manner described as “motivated reasoning”
(Kunda, 1990; Mercier & Sperber, 2017). The motivated reasoning model of
human consciousness presents a dismal view of human capacity. According to
the Wikipedia entry on motivated reasoning (searched 2020): “Motivated rea-
soning . . . stands in contrast to critical thinking where beliefs are approached
in a skeptical and unbiased fashion.” If that is commonly the case, reason seems
ill-suited to serve as the foundation for a more enlightened world but well suited
to populist movements.
Many will be familiar with the dual process model of judgment (Chaiken &
Trope, 1999). Psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s popular book, Thinking, Fast and
Slow, draws attention to this feature of human nature (Kahneman, 2011). Basi-
cally, one mode of judging and acting, “thinking fast,” describes how humans
rely on fast intuitive means to produce effective results (Gigerenzer, Todd, &
Group, 1999; Haidt, 2001). One the other hand, it has long been understood that
humans can also avail themselves thinking harder, slower, and deeper when they
are so motivated (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). While there is general agreement
on the features of the two decision orientations, scholars have offered differing
accounts of this dual capacity (Sherman, Gawronski, & Trope, 2014; Van Bavel,
Xiao, & Cunningham, 2012).
Recent work on Affective Intelligence theory holds that humans evolved these
two states of consciousness to make life without foresight more manageable (Mar-
cus, 2002). Motivated reasoning is not a case of “irrationality,” but rather should
be understood as an adaptive response in many, perhaps most, common circum-
stances of life. Neuroscientist Jeffrey Gray identified the neural mechanisms that
enabled both reliance on what was previously learned via habituation and what
can be acquired through fresh deliberative analyses (Gray, 1987). That is to say,
humans have the ability to rely on what they have previously learned and the
ability to set aside old lessons to generate new solutions when new solutions are
needed. And, to do so, they must engage a second state of conscious awareness,
motivated deliberation. As I shall show below, fear and anger play guidance as to
which of these states of consciousness we present. And these orientations then
shape how people respond to political threats.
It is fear’s fundamental task to select the state of consciousness best suited to the
moment (Marcus, 2002). When fear is low, we comfortably rely on habituated
90 George E. Marcus

thoughts and actions that in familiar circumstances yield expected results. How-
ever, when we are more fearful, relying on learned and trusted habits of thought
and action is not likely to produce predicted results, so we turn to motivated
deliberation (Marcus & MacKuen, 1993; Brader, 2006). Here, the human capac-
ity to engage the active use of imagination, speculation, and contemplation—
both private and public—becomes the means to finding new solutions, new
allegiances, and new outcomes. Fear weakens our reliance on standing practices,
thereby setting the stage for new collective ventures.
The ability to have a vivid representation in one’s mind enables it to be self-
consciously viewed and then shared with others via words and pictures. It is
such explicit shared representations that enable democracy to serve as a collective
error correcting space. Public deliberation is constrained if thought and action
are tightly interwoven and embedded in deeply engrained partisan habits. When
consciousness is in its “error-correcting” mode (Gray, 2004), human judgment
turns to reliance on deliberate consideration and reflection. Diverse reflections
on alternative understandings is democracy’s principal advantage over more rigid
regimes (Ober, 2008).
The availability of dual processing is advantageous for evolutionary fitness,
especially with regard to managing threat. What does this new psychology of
perception offer to our understanding of the role of fear and anger in populism
and political behavior?
I turn to answering that question in the section that follows.

The Theory of Affective Intelligence and Threat

The theory of Affective Intelligence addresses the two alternating states of con-
sciousness, motivated reasoning and motivated deliberation. The first of these, moti-
vated reasoning, is familiar to psychologists. The second, motivated deliberation,
is roughly comparable to motivated cognition as, for example, described by the
elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The common treatment
of greater or less open attentiveness and reflection are too often described as
spatial metaphors (higher and lower, inside or outside). AIT holds that temporal
descriptions are more apt, early and later. The two states are briefly described in
Table 5.1.
There is an important distinction between Affective Intelligence theory and
the cognitive appraisal school. AIT presents emotion as involved in the precon-
scious processing of sensory and soma-sensory information, while the cognitive
appraisal school focuses on the conscious experience of emotion. AIT predicts
that unconscious emotional appraisals are not hiding beneath the surface of con-
scious awareness; they function hiding before conscious awareness. Preconscious
systems operate constantly and concurrently as they swiftly monitor potential
threats, deploying anger and fear to direct the most apt response.
 The Rise of Populism 91

TABLE 5.1 Two motivated states of conscious awareness—an overview.

Two States of Mind

Motivated Reasoning Motivated Deliberation

Default Departure from default

Driven and executed by preconscious Driven by preconscious affective appraisal
affective appraisals of enthusiasm and of fear.
anger.
To: achieve efficacious reliance on To: engender a form of autonomous
habits of thought and behavior agency by increasing motivation for more
(“Automaticity”, Bargh, 1999; James, information freed from reliance on habits
1890). of thought and action to instead rely on
deliberation.

The rules of social interaction and exchange are well understood, most often
grasped intuitively (Haidt, 2001). These are well described in the many books
by Erving Goffman (1959, 1971, 1981). Changing levels of anger reflect chang-
ing levels of norm violation. For a minor breach, people might display disdain
towards offending persons. For more serious breaches, people may shun those
believed responsible or demand serious punishments (Skitka et al., 2006; Giner-
Sorolla & Maitner, 2013). Populists, leaders and followers alike, see injustice all
around them (Norris & Inglehart, 2018). And injustice fuels anger, and anger
strengthens the inclination to engage in motivated reasoning. The greater our
anger, the more robust the spontaneous defense of collective convictions. Anger
serves as the watchdog of justice and, as such, is a foundational antecedent of
populist movements.
Anger, then, is focused on the perception of norm violation. Fear, on the
other hand, identifies threats that are unexpected or unfamiliar. And it is here we
find another contrast between how fear is understood with the cognitive appraisal
school and how it is understood within AIT. The cognitive appraisal school holds
that fearful people seek to avoid risky choices. This interpretation of fear has a
long tradition (Kahneman et al., 1982; Lerner & Keltner, 2001; Lerner, Gonza-
lez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2003).
In contrast, AIT holds that the fundamental role of fear is to identify uncertain
and unexpected circumstances. Fear then acts to inhibit spontaneous, and default,
reliance on motivated reasoning and to shift the state of conscious awareness
to deliberative thinking. The state of motivated deliberation enables more open
consideration of options and coalitions best suited to address whatever the uncer-
tainty presents. Fear thus causes a radical attentional shift. In the absence of threat,
we rely on our received learning that assures us of the safety of our status quo. But
when threat triggers fear, we turn abruptly to active, engaged learning to see how
92 George E. Marcus

we might obviate that threat (Marcus & MacKuen, 1993; Groenendyk, 2016;
Brader, 2006). Thus, the preconscious affective appraisals of anger and fear serve
cognitive tuning functions (Forgas, 2013).
In the next section, I present three experiments to test whether fear and
anger focus attention on different features of threats. I also examine whether, as
predicted by AIT, threat-elicited anger recruits motivated reasoning and threat-
elicited fear recruits motivated deliberation.

Testing the Framework: States of Political Consciousness

When Facing Menace
Figure 5.5 displays a path model derived from Affective Intelligence theory, here
with Partisan Certitude as an operationalized facet of motivated reasoning and
Political Open-Mindedness as an operationalized facet of motivated deliberation.
Included in the model is ideological identification (conservatism/liberalism). This
account builds on a longstanding view that conservatives evince a different stance
towards threat then do liberals ( Jost & Krochika, 2014; Schreiber et al., 2013).
However, as I shall show below, ideological identification’s influence on populism
and managing threat may well depend on whether or not the threat is one that
has been politicized (Petrocik, 1996; Crawford, 2017).
To test this model, I and my colleagues, W. Russell Neuman and Michael B.
MacKuen, chose three political threat topics well known to most Americans:
terror attacks; an economic crisis that unfolded in 2006–2008; and food threat
(stores selling contaminated foods).
The data come from two national surveys, each representing the broad diversity
of American adults, drawing on the GfK Custom Research’s sampling base. The
first survey collected in late 2009 (n = 1545) included study 1. The second set of
data, collected late 2009 and early 2010 (N = 2,583), included studies 2 and 3.
Each study features three different stimulus stories: one presenting the threat
as benign; one emphasizing unknown and unpredictable elements; and a story

FIGURE 5.5 Research design—the shifting states of conscious awareness.

 The Rise of Populism 93

FIGURE 5.6 Three segments from the nine treatment stories.

emphasizing key actors violating core norms. Figure 5.6 shows snippets of
three of these nine stories (for the complete stories, see https://www.research
wgate.net/publication/342919199_The_Rise_of_Populism_The_politics_
of_justice_anger_and_grievance/addSupplementaryResources).
The two judgmental styles, motivated reasoning and motivated deliberation,
were measured with two items each, averaged to create two simple summated
scales. The items are listed in Table 5.2.
The two scales are very weakly correlated (r = .04; n = 4122). These orienta-
tions are not mutually exclusive (MacKuen et al., 2010). Details of the validity and
reliability of these items can be found in Marcus, Neuman, and MacKuen (2017).
Fear and anger were measured using multiple indicators (Marcus et al., 2017).
After reading their assigned story, participants were asked: “How does what you
have just seen make you feel?” This was followed by ten items in randomized
order, with three measuring fear (scared, worried, and afraid, α = .91) and four
94 George E. Marcus

TABLE 5.2 Operationalizing motivated reasoning and motivated deliberation.

Motivated Reasoning: Partisan Certitude (i.e., “my way is the only way”)
• These issues and events provide no room for compromise.
• I am certain that my point of view on these issues and events is the right one.
Motivated Deliberation: Political Open-Mindedness (i.e., “it takes a village”)
• To solve these sorts of issues and events, everyone’s concerns should be heard.
• These sorts of issues and events are best resolved by listening to everyone’s concerns.

Note: Response options: extremely true; very true; moderately true; slightly true; or not at all true.

measuring anger (hateful, angry, bitter, and resentful, α = .90). The three other
emotion indicators, enthusiastic, hopeful, and proud, were randomly interspersed,
but as they do not impact on results below they will not be further discussed.
Relying on Andrew Hayes’s PROCESS procedure (2018), path models were
generated. I report the standardized path coefficients in the following figures.
I am grateful to Profs. Alan Lambert and Ken Savitsky for running these analyses.
The experimental treatments serve as the independent variable (X). Partisan Cer-
titude and Political Open-Mindedness each serve as dependent measures, Y1 and
Y2. The path models place two mediating variables, fear (M1) and anger (M2),
between the experimental treatment and each of two dependent variables: Y1,
Partisan Certitude; and, Y2, Political Open-Mindedness. Each figure presents the
results of all three experiments to facilitate direct comparison. Figure 5.7 presents
the mediation model with Partisan Certitude as the dependent variable (Y1).
Figure 5.8 presents the mediation model with Political Open-Mindedness as the
dependent variable (Y2).
The analyses answer particular questions that address the central claims of AIT:

(1) Does anger promote greater steadfast reliance on partisan views? Figure 5.7
shows these results. Panel A shows these results when the Normative Viola-
tion treatment is contrasted to the Benign treatment; Panel B shows these
results when the Uncertainty treatment contrasted is contrasted to the Benign
treatment; and Panel C shows these results when the Normative Violation
treatment is contrasted to the Uncertainty treatment, i.e., when both fear
and anger are both rampant.
(2) Does fear initiate a willingness to listen to the voices of others outside one’s
own partisan alignment? Figure 5.8 shows these results. Again, the three pan-
els show what happens with anger is heightened, when fear is heightened,
and when both fear and anger are heightened.

Significant path estimates (p < .05) are shown as bold. The thickness of the
path lines, as one, two, or three points, indicates whether one, two, or all three
experiments produced significant results for that path.
 The Rise of Populism 95

FIGURE 5.7 The influence of fear and anger on Partisan Certitude.

The results across all three experiments are quite consistent. Exposure to a
threat story activates both heightened anger and heightened fear. Heightened
anger promotes reliance on motivated reasoning. The paths from anger to Parti-
san Certitude are significant and robust in seven of the nine analyses. At least two
of these paths are robust and positive in each of the three panes of Figure 5.7.
96 George E. Marcus

FIGURE 5.8 The influence of fear and anger on political open-mindedness.

Fear does not seem to initiate a “rally to the group” orientation, as but three of
the nine path analyses are significant, two paths positive and one negative spread
across the three studies.
Conservatives do tilt to Partisan Certitude, but only in the two partisan threat
experiments, terror attacks and the economic crisis. It is worth further exploring
whether partisan bias in judgment orientations may be evident only for topics
that have previously been presented as partisan. To date, food safety has not been
treated as a partisan issue in the United States. Moreover, there is precious little
 The Rise of Populism 97

evidence that conservatives are different from liberals in their affective appraisals
to each of the three experimental treatments.
In sum, though the nine stories are very different, the evidentiary pattern is
clear. When people are angry, their convictions are strengthened and they turn a
deaf ear to “outside” voices.
Does uncertainty shape how people respond to threat? Figure 5.8 tells that
tale.
Threat-elicited fear does initiate a shift to deliberative reasoning, as all nine
path coefficients between fear and Political Open-Mindedness are statistically sig-
nificant, with but two of the nine paths from anger to Political Open-Mindedness
significant, but modest in impact. As to ideological identification, liberals are
more inclined to adopt Political Open-Mindedness, while conservatives are more
resistant and this pattern is not driven by affective evaluations. Further, the liberal
propensity to adopt Political Open-Mindedness is evident only for the two politi-
cized topics, terrorism and economic crisis. Liberals and conservatives appear
equally likely to be moved to anger by Normative Violations and to be freed from
their convictions by fear.
The results reported above are not definitive, as they must be replicated by
other scholars and subjected to the full array of scientific challenge. I believe,
however, that they are sufficient to assert that we indeed gain a better understand-
ing of how people identify and respond when under threat if we pay attention to
how angry as well as to how fearful they are. Those who have become angry will
show robust motivated reasoning (Suhay & Erisen, 2018). On the other hand,
those who find themselves more fearful express greater willingness to adopt delib-
erative reasoning (Marcus & MacKuen, 1993; Brader, 2006).
Notwithstanding these further inquiries and what they may reveal, the com-
monly voiced claim that people experience fear and only fear when faced with
threat and, further, that threat-driven fear accounts for how threatened people
react is insufficient to understand the emotional predicates of populist thinking
(Lambert et al., 2010; Lambert, Eadeh, & Hanson, 2019).

Ramifications
I close by considering three topics for further consideration. Why have far-right
parties and their charismatic leaders been gaining power? Second, how should
the robust influence of preconscious affective appraisals modify our normative
conceptions of democratic citizenship? And, third, perhaps unexpectedly, given
the growing appeal of populism, what should be the role of justice in liberal
societies?

Causes of the Rise of Populism

In the public arena, the dominant explanation of attraction of populist messages
is that they are driven by fear: fear of immigrants; fear of economic loss; fear of
98 George E. Marcus

living in a dangerous world; and so on. The focus on fear is reflected in our lan-
guage: xenophobia, i.e., fear of strangers, and homophobia, i.e., fear of gays. It is
revealing that we don’t have proper words for threats that elicit anger. This may
partly explain why so many accounts credit fear and not anger as the cause of the
rise of populism and support for extreme candidates.
The robust influence of anger shown in these studies tells us that those moti-
vated to support populist parties are driven by grievances. And grievances do not
flow from fears, but from a sense of injustice (Norris & Inglehart, 2018; Oesch,
2008). Anger is the means by which we identify breaches in the web of deftly
aligned behaviors that make a viable social order.
Ignoring anger generates a profound misunderstanding of how people respond
to threats (Petersen, 2010). Anger is not some extraneous irrational intrusion that
disrupts our otherwise rational mind. Rather, it is the mechanism by which we
gain swift preconscious warning that we face a direct challenge to norms that
sustain the social order. The rapidity of that warning advances our evolution-
ary fitness. But to the extent that fear is presented as the principal force in play,
consideration of populist grievances will be absent in public discussions. And
blindness to the importance of anger will prevent due consideration about which
grievances are valid and how best to resolve them. Trying to calm people’s fears
when we should be addressing their anger about grievances will leave the angry
among us with an increasing sense that our leaders, and our governments, are
“out of touch.”
Indeed, calming the public’s fear may prove to be detrimental, especially when
a specific threat is largely unfamiliar. Novel threats are likely best dealt with by
engaging the public in open inquiry rather than by seeking to calm their fears.
A pernicious and often intentional consequence of calming a fearful public is to
insulate authorities from public scrutiny and oversight.

Human Nature—Old and New

The ancient challenge to democracy, first launched by Plato (1974), is the claim
that passions drive the public to irrational endorsement of charismatic lead-
ers. The Enlightenment proposed autonomous reason as the antidote to this
fragility in human nature. The social sciences were tasked with mapping the
anticipated success of enlightened modernity (Marcus, 2008). This new venture
predicted that society would become ever more populated by self-determining
individuals. Modernity anticipated that people would willingly leave behind a
world constructed to secure prosperity through reliance on stable hierarchies and
well-practiced traditions. That many willingly valued social responsibility over
individual autonomy was taken as evidence of human frailty (Fromm, 1965).
Affective Intelligence theory offers a new view of democratic citizenship (Mar-
cus, 2002; Marcus, 2013). Rather than adopting the Enlightenment model of
people ruled by rationality, the theory of Affective Intelligence describes people
 The Rise of Populism 99

making good use of their emotions and of their capacity to reason to address the
challenges of an unseeable future.
Discourse on citizenship has focused on two seemingly mutually exclusive and
antagonistic conceptions. Some argue that deliberation is the sole proper norma-
tive basis for citizenship (Benhabib, 1996a, 1996b; Fishkin, 2009). Other equally
confident voices claim that democratic citizens are best served steadfast com-
mitment to collective action (Sanders, 1997; Shapiro, 1999). While each stance
has particular benefits, the protean capacity to shift from one and back in the
circumstances best suited to each offers greater evolutionary fitness than would a
singular reliance on either.

Justice in the Liberal Project

The influence of anger suggests that creating a just society is a task profoundly central
to the enduring ability of social life to sustain community. This task has long been
understood as central to ensuring a stable liberal democratic order. The American
Founders placed that task by design in the Constitution’s first words, in the Preamble:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect

Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the com-
mon defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Lib-
erty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.

The Preamble begins by stating its goal: to create a more perfect union. What
follows is a list of actions necessary to achieve it, arranged in proper order, each
necessary for the execution of the next: only by establishing Justice is a society
able to insure domestic Tranquility. Domestic tranquility then makes it possible
for society to provide for the common defense, which in turn enables the govern-
ment to promote the general Welfare. Only such a government can then secure
the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
Creating a more just society must have an enduring place on the public agenda
of the enlightened world. Living in an ever-changing world inexorably presents
new challenges to existing conceptions and practices of justice. At any given
moment, justice must be directed towards a continuing past and an emergent
future. Some will favor the forms of justice that protect and seek to extend the
past into the future. Anger that urges us to defend traditional practices provides
an important foundation for such endeavors. Some will be more open to seeking
approaches to justice best adapted to our evolving society. And here, fear provides
a foundation for more open consideration of both old and new claims. Emotion
serves both approaches to justice.
Doing justice in large, diverse democratic societies requires that we confront
conflicting views of justice. What exactly is the “just order” and where oppression
100 George E. Marcus

remains will remain topics for ardent debate (Young, 1990). And doing so effec-
tively requires taking the hidden and making it visible. Fear, rather than anger, is
best suited to awaken a sleeping, complacent, and self-satisfied public. Creating
justice is a never-ending obligation for democratic citizens.
In the effort to establish a more just society, both motivated reasoning and
motivated deliberation each have their distinct advantages and their distinct
vulnerabilities. The first tilts human judgment to defend practices that have
proven worth. The second encourages the reconsideration of settled practices.
Each stance has its fallibilities. It is useful that each is available in circumstances
best suited to its strengths. Grasping the different contributions of fear and
anger, and how each checks the fallibilities of the other, leads to better under-
stand when and why the public and their leaders give voice to their fears and
to their angers. Philosopher David Hume put forward a famous thesis (Hume,
1984, p. 462): “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and
can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” Humans
make better use of reason by having anger and fear direct to what purpose
reason is put.

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6
COLLECTIVE NARCISSISM
AND THE MOTIVATIONAL
UNDERPINNINGS OF THE
POPULIST BACKLASH
Agnieszka Golec de Zavala, Dorottya Lantos and
Oliver Keenan

Collective Narcissism and the Motivational

Underpinnings of the Populist Backlash
Populist parties and politicians have become significant political players in many
democracies worldwide (Brubaker, 2017). The ultraconservative populist Law
and Justice has been in power in Poland since 2015. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán
and his Fidesz party have been elected to govern for the third consecutive time
in 2018 (see also Forgas & Lantos; Krekó, this volume). The Alternative for
Germany (AfD), the first far-right party in the German Parliament since WWII,
has been gaining popularity since its founding in 2013. Donald Trump was elected
president of the United States in 2016. The same year the populist referendum
brought about the vote to leave the European Union in the United Kingdom.
The defining feature of populism is its anti-elitism, which contrasts the ‘demo-
cratic will of the people’ with the ‘self-interested will of the elites’. Any ideologi-
cal content can be used to clarify who the elites are and what makes their will less
valuable than that of ‘the people’. Thus, populism exists in different elaborated
variants integrating different ideological positions and leaderships (Mudde, 2017).
The current wave of populism is predominantly inspired by ultraconservative,
right-wing ideology. In addition, despite regional differences the common char-
acteristic of the contemporary populism in Europe and North America is its
narrow construal of national identity associated with open rejection of pluralistic
democracy, the rule of law, equal rights, diversity, and social progress (Golec de
Zavala & Keenan, 2020; Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017; Müller, 2016). The
rhetoric of contemporary populism often evokes the concept of national re-birth
(‘Make America great again’, ‘Take back control’ in the UK, ‘Stand up from one’s
knees’ in Poland); a collective nostalgia for idealized national past (Mols & Jetten,
106 Agnieszka Golec de Zavala et al.

2017; Wohl & Stefaniak, 2020; see also Bar-Tal & Magal; Marcus, this volume)
to justify the narrow inclusion criteria to the entitled group, ‘the people’. Those
criteria are based on the concepts of national purity (Betz, 2018) and autoch-
thony, being born in and having ancestry within a nation (Dunn, 2015). Current
populist rhetoric contrasts such narrowly defined ‘true’ nationals or ‘the people’
with liberal, internationally oriented ‘elites’ motivated by universal and human
rather than specific and national values.
In this chapter, we argue that national collective narcissism—a belief that the
nation is exceptional but not sufficiently recognized by others (Golec de Zav-
ala, Dyduch-Hazar, & Lantos, 2019; Golec de Zavala & Lantos, 2020; Golec de
Zavala & Keenan, 2020)—defines a key feature of the contemporary populist
narrative about the national identity. Similarly, as populism can adopt any ideol-
ogy to justify the division between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’, collective narcis-
sism may use any excuse to claim the nation’s uniqueness and entitlement to
special treatment (Golec de Zavala, Cichocka, Eidelson, & Jayawickreme, 2009).
As noted, the current populist narrative in many countries uses the exaggerated
importance of autochthony and ethnic purity to justify the narcissistic claims of
national exceptionality. Such claims provide a clumsy ideological justification for
the attempts to sanction people’s sexuality and women’s reproductive rights char-
acteristic of the contemporary populism (see also Cooper & Avery, this volume).
Many anecdotal examples point to the associations among populism, sexism,
and sexual prejudice. In Poland, since the populist government came to power in
2015, women have faced the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in Europe and
homosexuality has been construed as ‘ideology’, ‘civilizational invasion’ antago-
nistic to traditional family values rooted in the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Supported by the Polish Catholic Church and the Pope’s declaration that educa-
tion on ‘gender ideology’ can be dangerous, the Polish government limits access
to sexual education and care and stigmatizes sexual minorities and feminists,
along with men and women who refuse to conform to traditional gender roles
(Ayoub, 2014; Korolczuk & Graff, 2018). In 2019, a Polish archbishop publicly
labelled the LGBT community a ‘rainbow plague’ (Reuters, 2019), several Polish
cities declared themselves ‘LGBT free zones’ (Noack, 2019), and a Polish news-
paper announced its intention to distribute ‘LGBT free zone’ stickers nationwide
(Giordano, 2019).
The COVID-19 pandemic was used by many populist governments to con-
solidate their authoritarian power and intensify their attacks on dissenters to tra-
ditional sexual norms: non-traditional women and sexual minorities (Golec de
Zavala, Bierwiaczonek, Baran, Keenan, & Hase, 2020). Viktor Orbán banned
gender studies from universities across Hungary (Apperly, 2019), and during the
pandemic, he blocked access to legal gender recognition for transgender people
(Walker, 2020). Across Europe, countries with highly prevalent populist parties
and politicians noted decreases in pro-LGBT legislation but increases in cases
of hate speech against women and sexual minorities (ILGA-Europe, 2020). In
 Collective Narcissism & Populist Backlash 107

the USA, mass-shooting was perpetrated by an American ‘Incel’ (a misogynistic

online community of self-proclaimed ‘involuntary celibates’), who proclaimed
the act as vengeance on behalf of all sexually frustrated men, encouraged by
notable public expressions of sexism by populist politicians (Beauchamp, 2019).
Several southern states in the USA used the COVID-19 pandemic to ban abor-
tion (Hernandez & Barnes, 2020).
Such examples open the question as to why contemporary populism is so
obsessed with sexuality, and what its associations with sexism and sexual prejudice
tell us about its psychology. We argue that those associations reveal an important
motivation underlying populism: a desire to fortify those group hierarchies which
provide traditional criteria for some people to feel superior to others (Golec de
Zavala & Keenan, 2020; see also Crano & Gaffney; Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup;
Kruglanski et al., this volume). These group hierarchies have been increasingly
undermined since the war by processes of globalization, and the cultural shift
towards post-material values of self-expression, equality, and tolerance (Ingle-
hart & Norris, 2017). Via propagating collective narcissism as a definition of
national identity, right-wing populism elevates frustrated expectations regarding
self-worth to a collective level. It makes deservingness and a desire to feel bet-
ter than others defining features of national identity. Its policies increase existing
inequalities, boost personal entitlement, and undermine solidarity among mem-
bers of a national community, also in times such as the outbreak of the pandemic
that particularly require national solidarity (Federico, Golec de Zavala, & Baran,
2020). It is not a coincidence that the countries with the highest death-counts
due to the COVID pandemic are those governed by a populist government, most
notably the USA and the UK. In order to support our argument that populism is
about individual deservingness and protection of traditional hierarchies, below we
review psychological research on populism and collective narcissism.

Collective Narcissism and Support for Populism

Supporting our claim that national collective narcissism may link self-centered
motivations to support for populism, research links national collective narcissism
to the support of populist parties and politicians in various countries around the
world. National narcissism is assessed by people’s agreement with items of a short
Collective Narcissism Scale (Golec de Zavala et al., 2009). Those items pertain
to a belief that a national group deserves a special treatment, its true value is not
recognized by others, and group members need to fight for their group’s recogni-
tion as the world will be a better place when their group has a more important
say in it.
Studies indicate that American collective narcissism was the second strongest
predictor, after partisanship, of voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 US presi-
dential election. Its role was greater than other factors, such as economic dissatis-
faction, authoritarianism, sexism, and racial resentment, in explaining support for
108 Agnieszka Golec de Zavala et al.

Trump’s candidacy (Federico & Golec de Zavala, 2018). In the UK, two studies
found collective narcissism to be associated with a self-reported voting to leave
the EU and positive emotions associated with the outcome of the Brexit vote.
The rejection of immigrants, perceived as a threat to economic superiority and
the British way of life, lay behind the association between collective narcissism
and the Brexit vote (Golec de Zavala, Guerra, & Simão, 2017). In addition, col-
lective narcissism predicted support for the populist government and its policies in
Poland (for review, Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020) and in Hungary (Forgas &
Lantos, this volume).
As noted above, the exact reason for the narcissistic claim to the nation’s excep-
tionality and entitlement vary depending on the country and its particular history:
power and relative status, the group’s morality, cultural sophistication, God’s love,
even exceptional loss, suffering, and martyrdom or the in-group’s benevolence,
tolerance, or trustworthiness (Golec de Zavala et al., 2019). Whatever the reason
to demand privileged status, a collective narcissistic belief expresses the desire for
one’s own group to be noticeably distinguished from other groups coupled with
the concern that fulfilment of this desire is threatened (Golec de Zavala & Lantos,
2020). Below we discuss how findings regarding conditions of populism comply
with recent research on national collective narcissism to suggest that national col-
lective narcissism is used to justify the populist claims. Next, we discuss how our
findings regarding motivational undermining of collective narcissism help explain
psychological motivations behind support for populism.

Conditions of Populism: Collective Narcissism and

‘Losers of Globalization’
The structural conditions facilitating support for populism have been grouped
into two categories: economic (‘losers of globalization’, Mudde & Rovira Kalt-
wasser, 2018) and cultural (‘cultural backlash’). The ‘economic anxiety’ or ‘losers
of globalization’ thesis argues that increasing economic inequalities push certain
social groups to feel betrayed and vulnerable, and susceptible to the populist rhet-
oric. However, evidence suggests it is not the actual worsening of economic
conditions or objective lack of economic means that crucially inspires populism.
It is the subjective perception of one’s own economic situation as threatened or
worsening relative to ‘the rest of society’: the perception of unfair disadvantage in
comparison to others (Crano & Gaffney; and Vallacher & Fennell, this volume;
Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2018) as well as ‘status anxiety’, i.e., fear of losing
one’s relative standing in a social hierarchy ( Jetten, 2019; Nolan & Weisstanner,
2020; Mols & Jetten, 2017) that motivate support for populism.
The interpretation of economic changes as a threat of losing established
grounds for favorable comparisons with others is produced by political leaders
who create and manage a sense of social identity around it (Crano & Gaffney;
Krekó, this volume; Mols & Jetten, 2017; Reicher & Haslam, 2017). Analyses
 Collective Narcissism & Populist Backlash 109

suggest that populist leaders reinterpret even economic prosperity in a way that
inspires perception of unfair relative deprivation among the advantaged groups.
In populists’ speeches in economically prosperous countries, such as Australia or
Netherlands, the economic prosperity has been portrayed as not sufficiently ben-
efiting the ‘ordinary people’ (the in-group defined by populists), instead benefit-
ing the minorities that ‘demand more than they deserve’, ‘corrupt elites’, ‘fortune
seeking’ immigrants, and liberals who ‘betray traditional moral values’ (and are
excluded from the national in-group defined by populists). Thus, the ‘true’ in-
group members, ‘the people’, are threatened to become ‘second-class citizens in
their own country’ (Mols & Jetten, 2017).
Such findings comply with results indicating that collective narcissism as a key
feature of populism is inspired by perceived intergroup threat (Guerra et al., 2020)
and our analysis suggesting that collective narcissism is motivated by frustrated
self-importance (Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020). Also in line with those analy-
ses, recent results obtained from a national representative sample in Poland indi-
cate that perceived individual relative deprivation increases collective narcissism.
The data were collected in two waves with three weeks in between the waves.
The first wave was collected online among 1060 Polish adults (568 women; 492
men) ranging in age from 18 to 94 years old (M = 45.09; SD = 16.00). The
second wave collected responses from 932 of the same participants (500 women;
432 men) ranging in age from 18 to 93 years old (M = 45.62; SD = 15.79). The
data collection was supported by the Ariadna Research Panel (ariadna.pl). Rela-
tive deprivation was assessed by subtracting participants’ responses to the question
‘How do you evaluate the economic situation of your family?’ (responses ranged
from ‘1’ very bad; ‘2’ bad; ‘3’ rather bad; ‘4’ difficult to say, bad and good; ‘5’ rather
good; ‘6’ good; ‘7’ very good) from participants’ responses to the question ‘How
do you evaluate the economic situation in the country?’ (responses were provided
on the same scale; Mt1 = −0.56; SDt1 = 1.55 and Mt2 = −0.52; SDt2 = 1.54).
National collective narcissism was measured by the Collective Narcissism Scale
(Golec de Zavala et al., 2009).
The results presented in Figure 6.1 come from the cross-lagged panel analy-
sis using the T1 and T2 measures of relative deprivation and collective narcis-
sism (Finkel, 1995). By controlling for lagged values of the outcome variable,
this approach provides estimates of the hypothesized predictor that corrects for
feedback effects and allows for inferences about the causal order of the vari-
ables. We regressed the T2 score of each variable on its own lagged T1 value, as
well as the T1 value of the other variable. We allowed the disturbance terms for
the T2 measures to inter-correlate, and we did the same for the T1 exogenous
measures of the variables. The model is saturated (with zero degrees of freedom).
The results indicate that perceiving one’s own economic situation as worse than
the economic situation in the country predicted an increase in collective narcis-
sism three weeks later. However, higher scores on collective narcissism did not
predict an increase in perceived relative deprivation. Thus, perceived economic
110 Agnieszka Golec de Zavala et al.

FIGURE 6.1 A cross-lagged model of the relationship between perceived relative eco-
nomic deprivation and collective narcissism in T1 and T2, N = 932.

deprivation with relation to others in the country increases collective narcissism

and complies with the findings indicating that not an objective but perceived
economic social status inspire support for populism.

Conditions of Populism: Collective Narcissism and

‘Cultural Backlash’
The ‘cultural backlash’ interpretation of the rise of contemporary populism claims
that the post-WWII economic prosperity in Western Europe brought about a
cultural shift towards post-material values of self-expression, equality, and toler-
ance. It allowed relative emancipation of previously disadvantaged social groups
such as women and ethnic, cultural, or sexual minorities, thus undermining the
traditional group hierarchies (see also Feldman; Huddie & Del Ponte, this vol-
ume). Along with the traditional left- and right-wing parties concerned with
economic redistribution, Green parties started to appear across Western European
countries by the 1980s. Such parties were concerned with not only environmen-
tal conservation but also ethnic diversity and gender equality. Post-materialists
have supported cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, secularism, LGBT rights,
same-sex marriage, and greater gender fluidity. They have supported suprana-
tional organizations like the UN and the EU with a view to international coop-
eration and humanitarianism. They have endorsed movements promoting peace,
environmental protection, and human rights (Inglehart & Norris, 2017).
Under this cultural shift, traditional sex roles and marginalization of diverse
expressions of sexuality became less stable. Feminist ideologies started to emerge,
suggesting interchangeable sex roles at home and the workplace and arguing for
increases in women’s role in politics and wider society. Some opportunities for
self-advancement (such as a college education) proliferated, and globalization
 Collective Narcissism & Populist Backlash 111

processes took hold (with concomitant increases in immigration, for instance).

Immigrants engaging in higher education had a chance of securing jobs with
higher income than less educated citizens. With this, traditionally privileged
groups, often from older generations, started to feel betrayed and perceive their
positions in society as being threatened. They reacted with anger, political dis-
satisfaction, and resentment towards those gaining more equal treatment, like
women and sexual minorities, perceiving them as jeopardizing their own previ-
ously secure status and cultural predominance. Contemporary populism is a reac-
tion to this shift, a ‘revolution in reverse’: a backlash against the changes towards
greater equality between social groups (Inglehart & Norris, 2017). Similarly, our
findings link national collective narcissism as a key feature of the current wave
of populism to sexism and homophobia. They align with our proposition that
national collective narcissism exemplifies how the definition of national identity
is used to support the cultural backlash.

Collective Narcissism and Homophobia

Collective narcissism is robustly associated with intergroup hostility. It pre-
dicted support for terrorist violence in radicalized social networks inspired by
Islam ( Jasko et al., 2019) and support for American retaliatory war with Iraq
in 2003 (Golec de Zavala et al., 2009). Poles who endorse collective narcis-
sism withdraw help from Syrian refugees because they perceived Syrian refu-
gees as hostile towards them (Dyduch-Hazar, Mrozinski, & Golec de Zavala,
2019). Collective narcissists exaggerate intergroup threat and believe that their
in-group alone faces hostility from others (Golec de Zavala, 2020). They retali-
ate with excessive hostility in situations they perceive as a threat or deliberate
provocation (Golec de Zavala, Cichocka, & Iskra-Golec, 2013; Golec de Zavala,
Peker, Guerra, & Baran, 2016). Research also indicates that collective narcissism
is associated with prejudice towards in-group members. For example, Polish col-
lective narcissism predicts prejudice towards Poles of Jewish ethnic origin (Golec
de Zavala & Cichocka, 2012). American collective narcissism predicts prejudice
towards American ethnic minorities (Lyons, Kenworthy, & Popan, 2010). Recent
evidence also indicates that in Poland, national collective narcissism is associ-
ated with prejudice towards women and lesbians and gay men (Mole, Golec de
Zavala, & Ardaq, 2020).
Previous reports indicated that national collective narcissism is associated with
homophobia (Górska & Mikołajczak, 2015). More in-depth studies into this
association clarify that national collective narcissism is associated with homopho-
bia via the belief that people whose sexuality is not conventional threaten the
moral purity of the nation. This belief is derived from traditional gender beliefs
grounded in traditional Catholic religious teachings. Those who go beyond the
conventional definitions are a threat to religious values and the moral fiber of
the national community. In other words, Catholic religious teachings bound to
112 Agnieszka Golec de Zavala et al.

the national identity justify the group-based hierarchy which allocates hetero-
sexuals and men to dominant positions (Mole et al., 2020).
The association between national collective narcissism and homophobia exem-
plifies the in-group over-exclusion effect derived from social identity theory, a
process through which non-prototypical members of the in-group are targeted
and rejected. It predicts that group members categorize ambiguous or nega-
tively valued in-group members as an out-group to protect the in-group (and,
thus, their positive social identity) from undesirable outsiders (Leyens & Yzerbyt,
1992). By doing so, they fortify the existing group hierarchies within the in-
group. People who reported that their social identity was important to them
(Leyens & Yzerbyt, 1992) and people who reported a desire for positive in-group
identity (Rubin & Paolini, 2014) were more prone to exclude ambiguous group
members. Results of our research indicate that, for national collective narcissists,
lesbians and gay men are easier to categorize as an out-group, especially when
their non-normative sexuality can be attributed to their immorality (Golec de
Zavala, Mole, & Lantos, 2020).
Importantly, sexual prejudice serves to justify the group-based hierarchy in
which heterosexual people see themselves as more representative of national
identity and therefore better than non-heterosexual people. Studies confirm that
collective narcissism with reference to heterosexual in-group predicts lack of soli-
darity with the LGBT community’s collective actions against sexual prejudice
(Górska et al., 2019). Research on the association between collective narcissism
and sexism further supports the conclusion that collective narcissism is associated
with beliefs that justify traditional group-based hierarchies (Golec de Zavala &
Bierwiaczonek, 2020).

Collective Narcissism and Sexism

In Poland, male, religious (Catholic) and national collective narcissism are associ-
ated with sexism, a prejudice towards women (Golec de Zavala & Bierwiaczonek,
2020). Such findings indicate that sexism can be seen both as an intergroup and
intragroup problem. Accordingly, in order to maintain their privileged position
in the traditional gender hierarchy, men narcissistic about their gender in-group
engage in discriminatory treatment of women, who they regard as an out-group.
Indeed, male collective narcissism is negatively related to solidarity with women’s
collective actions against gender inequality. This association is driven by men
perceiving women as a threatening out-group (Górska et al., 2019). In addition,
the association between male collective narcissism and sexism is explained by col-
lective narcissistic men regarding the status of their masculinity as uncertain and
attempting to ground it in traditional gender beliefs that promote male domi-
nance over women (Golec de Zavala & Bierwiaczonek, 2020).
However, sexism is not only a problem of collective narcissistic men. Among
men and women, Catholic collective narcissism predicts acceptance of domestic
 Collective Narcissism & Populist Backlash 113

violence against women over and above religious fundamentalism (a belief that
religious teachings are infallible and must be obeyed in accordance with tradi-
tion; Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992) and in contrast to intrinsic religiosity
(treating religious faith as an intrinsic end in itself; Batson, Flink, Schoenrade,
Fultz, & Pych, 1986). Catholic collective narcissism also predicts a belief that
proponents of ‘gender ideology’ conspire against the traditional family values
at the core of the national identity (Marchlewska, Cichocka, Lozowski, Gór-
ska, & Winiewski, 2019). In addition, national collective narcissism in Poland
is associated with benevolent sexism more strongly among women than among
men (Golec de Zavala & Bierwiaczonek, 2020). As sexism is an important
feature of the current wave of right-wing populism, it is important to under-
stand how social sciences understand its forms and its appeal among men and
women.
As defined by Glick and Fiske (2001), benevolent sexism encompasses protec-
tive paternalism (the belief that women should be protected by men), comple-
mentary gender differentiation (the belief that women, rather than men, have
empathetic and domestic qualities), and heterosexual intimacy (the belief that
women should fulfil men’s romantic needs). Although positive in tone, benevo-
lent sexism is positively associated with hostile sexism (overtly derogatory and
antagonistic treatment of women; Glick & Fiske, 2001), acceptance of sexual
harassment (Fiske & Glick, 1995), negative evaluation of female rape victims
(Abrams, Viki, Masser, & Bohner, 2003), and acceptance of domestic violence
against women (Glick, Sakalli-Ugurlu, Ferreira, & Souza, 2002). Endorsement
of the beliefs defined by Glick and Fiske (2001) as benevolent sexism by women
is associated with their lower resistance to gender inequality ( Jost & Kay, 2005)
and their lower aspirations for independence in education and career (Barreto &
Ellemers, 2005). This opens a question why do women endorse sexism and sup-
port the social hierarchy that disadvantages them?
Like any prejudice, sexism is a function of normative beliefs held in a
society (Crandall, Eshleman, & O’Brien, 2002). Thus, men and women are
likely to endorse sexism when they perceive it as normative and desirable
according to dominant societal norms (Sibley, Overall, & Duckitt, 2007). In
Poland, the claim to national uniqueness that inspires the support for the
populist government is based on Poland’s attachment to traditional Catholi-
cism. As a consequence, the current official narrative about national identity
attributes national prototypically to Catholic, heterosexual men (Graff, 2010).
This creates a normative climate in which traditional gender hierarchy seems
appropriate, and sexism (especially benevolent due to it superficial positiv-
ity) is used to justify this hierarchy ( Jost & Kay, 2005; Sibley, 2007). The
more people identify with their nation, the more they are likely to adhere to
its norms as expressing their national identity (Ellemers, Pagliaro & Barreto,
2013). Positive identification with a superordinate identity is associated with
acceptance of intergroup inequality by members of the dominant (Lowery,
114 Agnieszka Golec de Zavala et al.

Unzueta, Knowles, & Goff, 2006) and the disadvantaged groups within the
superordinate group (Dovidio, Gaertner, & Saguy, 2009).
However, the results from Poland indicate that only national collective narcis-
sism is associated with sexism among women. Polish women, who are satisfied
with (but not narcissistic about) being Polish reject sexism as ideology justifying
gender inequality (Golec de Zavala & Bierwiaczonek, 2020). Indeed, women
who sympathize with the Polish populist government actively support its oppres-
sive policies regarding women rights. For example, the women representing the
Life and Family Foundation proposed the ‘Stop abortion’ bill (Shukla & Klosok,
2020—the most restrictive abortion law penalizing any case of abortion—and
publicly undermined proponents of reproductive women’s rights as ‘fans of kill-
ing babies’ (Davies, 2016). On the other hand, women activists associated with
opposition to the current government self-organize to protect women’s rights and
act towards gender equality. For example, the famous Black Friday nationwide
protests that forced the government to retract the proposed total abortion ban was
organized by activists by the Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet (Nationwide Women’s
Strike). Again, this brings about the question: why do some women (and men)
endorse national collective narcissism, the key component of populist politics in
Poland? The response to this question has implications for our understanding of
the motivational underpinnings of national collective narcissism as a key feature
of the current wave of populism.

Motivational Underpinnings of Collective Narcissism

The findings we reviewed above, especially those indicating that male collective
narcissists endorse sexism because they feel men are threatened by women, align
with research suggesting that collective narcissistic intergroup hostility is subjec-
tively defensive. It is a response to perceiving the in-group as constantly threatened
and most of the out-groups as hostile and threatening (Golec de Zavala, 2011;
Golec de Zavala & Lantos, 2020). Those findings support our understanding of
collective narcissism as a compensation for the frustrated sense of self-importance
elevated to a collective level (Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020).
It is not a coincidence that the phenomenon of collective (or group) narcis-
sism was first described by scholars of the Frankfurt School, who analyzed the
conditions and beliefs that gave rise to another wave of right-wing populism
over 80 years ago. Those authors suggested that changes in economic and social
conditions undermined the traditional criteria according to which people evalu-
ated themselves, resulting in an increase in national collective narcissism, which
ultimately gave rise to the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930s (Adorno, 1997;
Fromm, 1973; but see also Vallacher & Fennell; Gelfand & Lorente; Kruglanski
et al., this volume). Along with Theodor Adorno’s (1997) and Erich Fromm’s
(1973) claims that collective narcissism is a response to conditions that increase
‘ego fragility’, evidence indicates that collective narcissism is motivated by a
 Collective Narcissism & Populist Backlash 115

combination of low self-worth and narcissistic self-importance (Golec de Zavala

et al., 2019; Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020).
Studies show that low self-esteem reliably predicts collective narcissism. In
two longitudinal studies, low self-esteem resulted in higher collective narcissism
several weeks later, but collective narcissism did not improve self-esteem several
weeks later. In an experiment, self-esteem was lowered experimentally by asking
participants to watch their in-group being excluded from a social interaction.
Analyses indicated that the decrease in self-esteem, not any other of the psycho-
logical needs threatened by exclusion (personal control, meaningful existence, or
belonging), was responsible for the increase in collective narcissism following the
experimental manipulation of exclusion. Low self-esteem was related to various
forms of derogation of out-groups (including social distance, hostile behavioral
intentions, and symbolic aggression) via collective narcissism (Golec de Zavala
et al., 2020).
The results reported by Golec de Zavala and colleagues (2020) indicated that
personal control, the belief in one’s ability to influence the course of one’s own
life, was not uniquely associated with collective narcissism after self-esteem was
also taken into account. Further evidence suggests that collective narcissism is
associated with support for the use of violence and terrorism as a means to assert
personal significance (i.e., the desire to matter, to ‘be someone’, in the eyes of
others) elevated to a collective level. The ‘quest for significance’ can be seen as a
form of self-love contingent on social recognition as it is seen as stemming from
a perceived discrepancy between expected and experienced levels of positive self-
evaluation ( Jasko et al., 2019). This complies with the definition of individual
narcissism as exaggerated sense of self-worth contingent on external validation
(Crocker & Park, 2004; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Indeed, further evidence
indicates that individual narcissism predicts collective narcissism (Golec de Zavala,
2018; Golec de Zavala et al., 2019; Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020).
Collective narcissism is associated with both presentations of individual nar-
cissism currently differentiated by personality science: vulnerable and grandiose.
They differ with respect to how narcissistic self-importance, antagonism, and
entitlement are expressed (Krizan & Herlache, 2018). Vulnerable narcissism is
defined by frustration, and passive resentment in face of the lack of confirmation
of perceived self-importance (Krizan & Herlache, 2018). Grandiose narcissism
is associated with self-enhancement, self-confidence, forceful assertion of self-
worth, and exploitation of others. Vulnerable narcissism becomes salient when the
grandiose expectations regarding the self are not confirmed by external factors.
The association between vulnerable and collective narcissism is more robust
than the association between grandiose narcissism (Golec de Zavala, 2018;
Golec de Zavala et al., 2019). Longitudinal and experimental studies clarify that
grandiose narcissism predicts collective narcissism but collective narcissism pre-
dicts vulnerable narcissism. Instead of fortifying the undermined sense of self-
worth, endorsing collective narcissism increases a sense of frustrated individual
116 Agnieszka Golec de Zavala et al.

entitlement. Such findings clarify the misunderstandings surrounding motiva-

tional underpinnings of collective narcissism, as some authors still seem to claim
that collective narcissism is motivated by undermined sense of autonomy (cf.
Cichocka & Cislak, 2020). We disagree and argue that it is very important to
precisely characterize the underpinnings of collective narcissism in order to
differentiate the psychological needs that inspire people to act collectively for
greater equality and social justice (like need for autonomy and dignity) from
motivations that inspire people to support policies and politicians that are pro-
tecting established group hierarchies and existing social inequalities (like self-
importance and a need to feel better than others; see also Bar-Tal & Magal, this
volume).
Such findings also suggest that investing undermined self-esteem and self-
importance in collective narcissism is futile and, indeed, damaging. Instead of
providing relief and improvement, it fuels a self-reinforcing mechanism via which
deservingness at the individual level of the self becomes implicated in the defini-
tion of social identity and, thus, in intergroup relations. Addressing expectations
regarding self-worth by endorsing collective narcissism perpetuates rather than
alleviates the aggravation for frustrated self-importance.

Implications for Understanding of the Motivational

Underpinnings of Populism
As argued above, there is now a substantial body of evidence indicating that
collective narcissism does not express a need to regain collective autonomy and
control; nor does it express a desire for dignity, social justice, and equality, where
all individuals have equal chances to exercise their freedom and feel valued. Frus-
tration of those needs could stimulate collective actions of disadvantaged groups
for recognition of their identity and equal rights (e.g., Fritsche et al., 2017).
Instead, collective narcissism is a belief that expresses a desire for the in-group’s
dominant position that can be used as basis to feel better than others. We believe
findings regarding the conditions of populism and the results regarding motiva-
tional underpinnings of collective narcissism similarly indicate that the support for
populist parties, politicians, and populists, despite often using justice and equality
for self-presentation, has in fact been driven by a motivation to protect the estab-
lished group hierarchies.
Despite its overt claims, populism does not express a desire for social justice
for those ‘forgotten’ by globalization and growing prosperity. It rather expresses
a demand for protection or restoration of the traditional group-based hierarchies
and a right to openly express prejudice towards lower status groups (see Crano &
Gaffney, this volume). The emerging conclusion from our analyses is that sup-
port for populism is motivated by a perceived threat to established grounds that
bolstered people’s sense of importance and entitlement. Populist leaders instigate
and take advantage of such threat. They formulate and propagate a narcissistic
 Collective Narcissism & Populist Backlash 117

vision of national identity that validates those whose self-worth and sense of
self-importance has been threatened by external conditions undergoing (actual
or perceived) changes. This new social identity is organized around shared resent-
ment for those changes that question old dimensions on which people could
compare themselves to others and feel superior. Populist rhetoric suggests that
those who feel wronged and resentful are ‘the people’; the ‘righteous and true’
representatives of the nation. This rhetoric provides a coherent and appealing
narrative explaining why their privileged status is being undermined and how it
should be restored. Thus, it offers new dimensions for positive comparisons to
others and the promise of restoring the sense of self-importance. This promise is
likely to produce an engaged followership (Reicher & Haslam, 2017).
National collective narcissism provides the essence of the populist definition
of national identity. It defines the central feature of the group-based entitlement
underlying the current rise of right-wing populism worldwide. It is associated
with hostility towards emancipating minorities that threaten the traditional,
group-based hierarchies (Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020). The robust asso-
ciation between collective narcissism and prejudice towards traditionally disad-
vantaged groups like women and sexual minorities clearly shows that populism
is about providing new justification for the established group-based hierarchies
traditionally providing claims to self-importance. Psychological research indicates
that undermined self-esteem and a sense of personal entitlement motivate col-
lective narcissism (encompassing the concepts of ‘ego fragility’ in the classic work
on collective narcissism, Adorno, 1997; Fromm, 1973, or ‘quest for personal sig-
nificance’ in more recent work using the present conceptualization of collective
narcissism, Jasko et al., 2019; Kruglanski et al., this volume). We argue that such
findings provide a theoretical framework to explain psychological motivations
behind support for populist parties, politicians, and policies. This framework
examines conditions of populism around the concept of expectations regarding
self-importance.
Collective narcissism is associated with escalation of internal tensions, inter-
group hostility, and a lack of solidarity with those who are disadvantaged by
group-based hierarchies within national identities. Instead of satisfying personal
entitlement, endorsing collective narcissism intensifies the sense of its frustration.
We argue that collective narcissism is propagated by populists as it justifies why
dominant groups in a group-based hierarchy should keep those positions. Those
inclined to protect the dominant positions of their groups gravitate towards this
definition of national identity as a means to boost their personal sense of self-
worth. Thus, the concept of collective narcissism elucidates how psychological
processes from individual levels of striving for individual significance (Kruglanski
et al., this volume), positive self-esteem (Golec de Zavala et al., 2020), and per-
sonal entitlement (Golec de Zavala & Keenan, 2020) are involved in intergroup
processes such as intergroup struggle to protect versus attenuate group-based
hierarchies (see also Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume).
118 Agnieszka Golec de Zavala et al.

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PART II

The Populist Mind

Cognitive Aspects of Populism
7
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERVERSITIES
AND POPULISM
Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

Aquí está . . . peleando para sobrevivir a las perversidades de la incertidumbre.

[Here it is, fighting to survive the perversities of uncertainty]
—Gabriel García Márquez, Doce cuentos peregrinos, prólogo

If you were omniscient, how would you know?

—First corollary to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem; apocryphal

Gabriel García Márquez, the shaman of magical realism, knew that uncertainty, in
literature and in life, has its perversities. Here, we explore some facets of uncer-
tainty, the human desire to escape from it, and its implications for populism (see
also Kruglanski et al., this volume). Populism, rooted in the Latin term populus,
is concerned with ‘the people,’ often a demographic majority, struggling against
an élite or ruling minority (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). Populism is psycho-
logically attractive because it supports fragile group identities, licenses a sense of
high morality, and gives permission to think less (Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this
volume). What is perverse is that populism can hijack otherwise harmless or even
adaptive psychological inclinations and capacities and abuse them for ideological
gain. We begin with a look at the role of uncertainty in the inductive sciences,
including psychology, and then discuss some of the elements of inductive reason-
ing and their role in the acceptance of populist beliefs.

Uncertainty in Enlightened Science

A basic perversity of science is that while its goal is to demystify nature and to
reveal its laws and regularities—what Heraclitus called the logos—the project must
126 Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

remain forever incomplete (Popper, 1962). Some problems are too difficult to be
solved, such as predicting ‘Black Swan’ events, that is, very rare occurrences with
a high impact on life and society (Taleb, 2007). Other problems are recognized
as unsolvable in principle, such as finding the perfectly executed game of chess
(Steinitz, 1889), a game where “white is to play and win,” as the saying goes
(Adams, 1939). Today we know that indeterminacy (Heisenberg, 1927), incom-
pleteness (Gödel, 1931), and chaos (Lorenz, 1963) lurk at the edge of knowledge.
Mature sciences acknowledge their epistemic limitations (Fiedler, this vol-
ume). Once the hopes that theoretical questions could be settled by verification
(Ayer, 1936) had died, Popper (1962) argued that rational science can all but
move toward truth by testing hypotheses, rejecting them, and replacing them with
bolder ones. The history of science may look like a march away from ignorance,
myth, and falsehood, while its future cannot reveal the ground that remains to be
covered (Meehl, 1978). The unknowability of the remaining distance between
conjecture and truth is a matter of irreducible uncertainty, which leaves the ques-
tion of scientific ‘progress’ open.
If Popper thought he had slain inductivism, the recent resurgence of Bayesi-
anism falsifies that hypothesis. Still, the logic of Bayesian belief updating (e.g.,
Wagenmakers et al., 2018) shares some common ground with Popper’s falsifica-
tionism. Both view epistemic certainty with skepticism. Bayesians have no need
for evidence if they believe a hypothesis is certainly true or false. A prior prob-
ability of the hypothesis of 1 or 0 entails a posterior probability of 1 or 0. Accord-
ing to legend, the Reverend Bayes declined to publish his treatise on probability
because, despite being a triumph of mathematics, it failed to find an inductive
proof of the existence of God. Bayes realized that the only way he could be
certain of God’s existence was to assign it a prior probability of 1 (Stigler, 1986).
Certainty requires faith. Strong evidence can at best yield beliefs held with ‘moral
certainty.’ The door remains open for the erosion of such beliefs (Lindley, 2006).
Only faith can close this door. Likewise, populist assertions often demand faith to
protect themselves from evidence.
While Popperians reject the idea that truth can be verified, they struggle to
defend the logic of falsification. A lack of evidence for events of type ‘X’ does
not imply no X will ever be observed. When an X appears, the hypothesis that
X cannot occur is falsified. If falsification works only when proofs of existence
refute hypotheses of non-existence, learning reduces to a counting of anomalies
(or beans). Few scientists would be content with exclusively showing that there
is not nothing.
The uncertainties pervading science extend to everyday cognition. It has been
claimed that ordinary people think like scientists or that scientists think like ordi-
nary people. The former claim—which unsurprisingly has been more popular
among scientists—feeds the populist imagination, as it suggests that scientists set
a standard that the folk fail to meet (Ross, 1977). If the folk think like scientists,
it remains to be seen which scientists. As some Bayesians have claimed that we
 Psychological Perversities and Populism 127

are in the midst of a revolution in the Reverend’s name (e.g., Olshausen, 2004),
it has become trendy to assume that ordinary people are naïve Bayesians (e.g.,
El-Gamal & Grether, 1995). How do the folk then still depart from rigorous
scientific thinking? Our presumably elitist hypothesis is that ‘the people’ wish to
diminish uncertainty more so than most scientists do (Frenkel-Brunswik, 1949).
The pursuit of certainty is a robust psychological tendency, disrupted only by
exceptions, as when people deliberately remain ignorant of information (Bar-
Tal & Magal, this volume). Leaving data on the table is not necessarily irrational
or unethical (Krueger et al., in press).
We propose that uncertainty aversion compromises inductive reasoning in a
way that presents an opening for populist penetration. As a result, groups, socie-
ties, and the individuals they comprise find themselves in a world that betrays
their hopes of freedom and dignity (Ditto & Rodriguez; and Gelfand & Lorente,
this volume). Enlightened societies cultivate a respect for evidence and a tolerance
for uncertainty. When these efforts flag, the quality of reasoning is reduced and
the quality of life suffers. We now review some cognitive and motivational factors
affecting, and impairing, reasoning about uncertainty. Along the way, we ask how
populism progresses by capitalizing on the perversities of uncertainty (Krekó; and
Marcus, this volume).

Ellsberg’s Perversity
Elias Canetti (1960/1962, p. 15) asserted that “there is nothing that man fears
more than the touch of the unknown.” If Canetti was right, people should be
willing to pay for opportunities to avoid uncertainty. Indeed, Ellsberg (1961)
showed that people prefer a risky bet (with a high probability of losing) to an
uncertain bet (with an unknown probability of losing) even when the latter has
a higher expected value. This preference is perverse because it violates the ‘sure-
thing principle’ enshrined in subjective expected utility theory (Savage, 1954). To
rationalize the preference for certainty, one would need to assume that it carries
its own utility (Loewenstein & Molnar, 2018). Such a rationalization risks being
circular or running afoul of Hume’s Guillotine (1739/1978). From the finding that
most people are averse to uncertainty, it does not follow that they should be. Alas,
when choosing between Ellsberg’s bets, multiple times people prefer the one that
is more uncertain on individual trials (Samuelson, 1963). What they fail to realize
is that backward induction would commit them to also prefer the uncertain bet
on a single trial.

Belief Conservatism and Liberalism

In an apparent opposition to Ellsberg’s (1961) research, Edwards (1968) found
that most people are belief conservatives; they fail to reduce uncertainty when
the evidence gives them an opportunity to do so. In a class demonstration, we
128 Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

told students that they would draw a chip from a large urn containing chips
of four possible colors. Students agreed that the frequency distribution of chips
were perfectly unknown at the outset. The unconditional probability of drawing
a red chip, p(red), was .25. Then, a drawing produced a red chip, and students
estimated the conditional probability, p(red|red), that the next drawn chip would
also be red. Over 70% of them retained their original estimate of .25 (see Fig-
ure 7.1). In contrast, Bayesian calculations following Laplace’s (1814) “rule of
succession” reduce to (k + 1)/(n + c), where k is the number of ‘successes’ (here:
1 red), n the total number of draws (1 draw), and c the number of possible cat-
egories of outcome (4 colors). The result is that p(red|red), is 2/5 = .4 (Heck &
Krueger, in press).
If students were averse to uncertainty, why did they not reduce it using the
available evidence? They seemed to care more about a second-order certainty. If
they were certain about their prior estimate of p(red) = .25., they may have been
uncertain about the ability of a small sample to compel an adjustment. Backward
induction, however, shows that a sample of 100 uniformly red chips forces a signif-
icant shift in estimates; and so does a sample of 99 or 98 or 97. There is no positive
number in an all-red sample where updating falls to zero. By analogy, some popu-
lists believe with secondary certainty that governments engineered the COVID-19
pandemic to control the people. They dismiss data to the contrary because these
data would, at first, reduce instead of enhance the experience of certainty.
In the research literature, the evidence for belief conservatism was soon mar-
ginalized by the narrative of focalism, or the idea that people overestimate what

FIGURE 7.1 Frequency distribution of the selected posterior probabilities of drawing

a second red chip. The absolute majority indicated conservatism, with
small minorities choosing perfect non-regressiveness (focalism), optimal
Bayesian updating, insufficient updating, or reverse updating (gambler’s
fallacy); N = 117.
 Psychological Perversities and Populism 129

the evidence teaches them. The claim that a salient or ‘focal’ stimulus dominates
judgment because it dominates perception is raised to unify explanations of a
variety of familiar biases (Kahneman, 2011). Respondents fail to ignore salient
but arbitrary ‘anchors,’ fail to modulate the impact of biased samples ‘available’
in memory, and fall victim to the base-rate fallacy when there is ‘representative’
case information. This base-rate fallacy is striking in tasks where the conditional
probability of a feature given a category, p(feature|category), is high, while the
prior unconditional probability of the category, p(category), is low. Bayes’s Theo-
rem (Figure 7.2) shows that if the former probability is .9 and the latter is .1, and
if the prior unconditional probability of the feature, p(feature), is .18, then the
conditional probability of the category given the feature, p(category|feature), is
.5. Complete base rate neglect yields p(category|feature) = .9. While uncertainty
aversion is consistent with this base rate fallacy, it is also consistent with full con-
servatism (yielding p(category) as the estimate).
The previous example may be more readily visualized by replacing ‘feature’
with ‘symptom’ and ‘category’ with ‘disease.’ We now see that the base-rate fal-
lacy describes (and perhaps explains) the frequently occurring overdiagnosis of
rare diseases. A sniffle more likely hints at the common cold than at COVID-19.
The base-rate fallacy can be further compounded by collapsing two base rates
into one, as when President Donald Trump claimed COVID-19 was the sniffles
(Montanaro, 2020).
The clash of base-rate neglect with conservatism raises the question of what
makes a stimulus focal in a way that a red chip drawn from an urn is not. We
submit that both inductive conservatism and representative thinking reflect a false
state of certainty. By respectively under- and overestimating what the evidence
teaches them, respondents retain a higher-order certainty. With this false sense
of certainty, they are overconfident in the accuracy of their judgment (Moore,
2020).
The populist imagination has little interest in coherent statistical reasoning. Its
rhetoric exploits a familiar suite of biases by using vivid images, extreme anchors,
and assertions repeated ad nauseam (Cooper & Avery; Crano & Gaffney; and van
Prooijen, this volume). On the flipside, when scientific evidence is presented
with properly calibrated estimates of uncertainty, a populist strategy is to dismiss
the evidence, noting that scientists have failed to reach perfect agreement or that
the views of individual scientists have changed. In July of 2020, for example,

P(B|A) x P(A)
P(A|B) =
P(B)

FIGURE 7.2 Simple Bayes Theorem with the unconditional probability of A (e.g., a

category), P(A), the unconditional probability of B (e.g., a feature), P(B),
and their interacting conditional probabilities, P(A|B) and P(B|A).
130 Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

the White House undermined the country’s chief expert of infectious disease
by listing changes in his assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic over the pre-
vious months. No list of the White House’s own past predictions was offered.
Evidence-neglect became policy.

The Woes of Rationalism

A respect for uncertainty is central to the scientific mindset. The Enlightenment
saw the rise of both empiricist and rationalist schools of thought. Empiricism
looks to evidence, knowing that beliefs may change; rationalism, by contrast,
focuses on derivable truth, which, once detected, may be expected to remain.
Hume, Locke, and Bishop Berkeley, as well as other philosophers from the British
Isles, championed empiricism, while continental philosophers from Descartes to
Spinoza and Kant favored rationalism.
There is an affinity of uncertainty aversion in rationalist thought. Rationalist
deductions reveal what is implicit in premises and first principles, but they are
handicapped in discovering anything new. Thus, rationalism appeals to those who
fear uncertainty. The problematic implication—exploitable by populism—is that
certainty seekers are vulnerable to making category errors (Ryle, 1949). They are
liable to accept categorical imperatives where none can be deduced, as in domains
that have been moralized by populist demand (Cooper & Avery; Ditto & Rod-
riguez, this volume). Certainty seekers find comfort in what they consider to be
obviously ‘good, true, and beautiful,’ neglecting to ask whether they are treating
rationalistically what should be treated inductively (Baron, 2012). Populism is not
sufficiently explained by appeals to the populace’s basic instincts; populism must
also appeal to the yearning for final answers to moral and empirical questions.
Yet, a premature closing of questions of value or fact suppresses dissent. If dis-
sent occurs, it is vulnerable to sanction (Tetlock, 2003). Populism is liable to be
a punitive ideology.

Induction and Parochial Morality

A particularly troubling feature of populism is the ‘parochial morality’ arising from
the ‘us-versus-them’ mindset (Krekó, this volume). The classical Enlightenment
encourages concerns about humanity and all its individual members. This per-
spective is implicit in rationalism. Liberté, egalité, and fraternité are to be enjoyed by
all. Yet, a century of social psychological research has shown that people think in
terms of nested categories. Early theorists realized that thinking without catego-
ries is impossible (Allport, 1954; Tajfel, 1969). Learning from experience requires
categories to which experiences can be generalized. Without the categories of
dog, cat, or bird, a new pet remains an alien creature (Rosch, 1975). Yet, most
humans find the category ‘human’ too diffuse to be useful (Singer, 1981/2011).
They rather break down humanity into subcategories. These subcategories form
 Psychological Perversities and Populism 131

patterns of inclusion and exclusion anchored on the self. The self, by definition,
belongs to all ingroups and to no outgroup. In contrast, an individual other per-
son can be a member of many ingroups and many outgroups (Krueger & DiDo-
nato, 2008). Social categorization, in other words, is egocentric.
Populism focuses attention on selected categories, stressing the contrast
between ‘the élite’ and ‘the people.’ This distinction exploits our natural tendency
to categorize, and it activates the sense that all virtues, the good, the true, and the
beautiful, reside in the ingroup. Progressive ‘social justice’ movements leverage
categorical perception when offering criteria for the separation of the oppressors
(the élite outgroup) from the oppressed (the ingroup of the people). Individuals
finding themselves on the ‘wrong’ side of the categorical must choose between
accepting the moralized implication or find ways to claim the status of an ‘ally.’
People prefer ingroups to outgroups on a variety of inferences, attributions,
and tasks. Power differentials are not necessary for this to occur (Tajfel, 1970).
Whereas advocates of social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and its off-
shoots (e.g., Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994) postulate a motivational drive to
view the ingroup more positively than the outgroup, such a motive is not nec-
essary. Most people have positive self-images and they project their own attrib-
utes more strongly to ingroup members than to outgroup members (Robbins &
Krueger, 2005). Given a positive self-image, such differential projection yields more
favorable perceptions of the ingroup than the outgroup. The implications for
parochial morality are dramatic. People will not only perceive their ingroups as
being more moral than outgroups, but also more willingly volunteer for costly
ingroup-serving action (Krueger, Ullrich, & Chen, 2016).
Consider the case of two groups at the brink of war. Each individual must
choose between cooperating with the ingroup by enlisting and defecting from
the ingroup by literally defecting. The choice partly depends on predictions of
what others will do given one’s own choice. A cooperator will recognize the
signal value of her or his own choice (Krueger, 2013). If I cooperate, she or he
might say, most ingroup members will probably also cooperate. Yet, my decision
to cooperate tells me little about whether outgroupers will volunteer for their
cause (Krueger, DiDonato, & Freestone, 2012). The tragedy is that from the
point of view of humanity, the valuations of the available actions are reversed. If all
cooperate with their parochial ingroup, there will be war; if all defect, it will be a
war where no one shows up (Krueger & Acevedo, 2007). However, the desirabil-
ity of collective defection depends on the context, as overthrowing tyrants would
never happen. In short, the power of projection to mobilize mutually beneficial
cooperation within groups begets disaster when projection fails to extend beyond
group boundaries. Given differential projection, populism can mobilize a crowd
by accentuating group boundaries. Umberto Eco (1995) suggests that the defining
source of energy of “Ur-fascism” is a “natural fear of difference” (p. 12). Rhetoric
and propaganda extolling the ingroup’s virtues and the outgroup’s depravities fuel
the fire without having to start it (Forgas & Lantos, this volume).
132 Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

Projection Reduces Uncertainty

As an element of inductive reasoning, social projection, defined as “the tendency
to expect similarities between oneself and others” (Robbins & Krueger, 2005,
p. 32), reduces uncertainty. Projection was first treated as a matter of false consen-
sus (Ross, Greene, & House, 1977). People should, it was believed, ignore their
own actions when predicting those of others, much as they ignore the signifi-
cance of a chip’s color drawn from an urn. But why would inductive conservatism
be rational in the social domain? Dawes (1989) and Hoch (1987) clarified that it is
not. Indeed, Hoch found that social predictions would be even more accurate if
people projected more (see also Krueger, 1998). A recent study discovered a strik-
ing exception to this general pattern. Heck and Krueger (in press) showed that
self-threat made people project at optimal Bayesian level. Respondents appeared
to achieve optimal uncertainty reduction due to self-protective motives that have
little to do with well-calibrated statistical reasoning. Populist rhetoric can exploit
this mechanism by highlighting ego threats and threats to the ingroup ( Jetten,
Spears, & Manstead, 1997). When gullibility trumps skepticism, the prospects
of such interventions are particularly good (Krueger, Vogrincic-Haselbacher, &
Evans, 2019). People then pervert Popper, thinking that a proposition—however
absurd—can be accepted until it has been refuted. Skepticism is confused with
closed-mindedness and cheerful acceptance of the absurd with open-mindedness.
With a boost from populism, social projection can balloon into an illusion of una-
nimity. Floyd Henry Allport (1924) coined this term to capture the perverse experi-
ence of perfect consensus or ‘oneness’ individuals can find in a crowd. Allport, who
like Popper (1957) was a methodological individualist, sought to refute the then-
popular French crowd psychology (LeBon, 1895; Tarde, 1890) by showing that
uniform and moblike behavior can arise as an emergent property from numerous
co-acting individuals (Vallacher & Fennell, this volume). Allport’s ironic conclusion
was that individuals in a crowd become more like themselves. The crowd does not
wake up to a mind of its own; being in a crowd merely facilitates existing incli-
nations. Personal uncertainty provides additional motivating force (Van den Bos,
2009). People like being swept up in a crowd, as any visitor to a professional football
match can confirm. As a “wild beast“(Tarde, 1890/1968, p. 323), the crowd can
be a happy creature. Individuals might even experience a fusion of their ego with
the crowd, finding themselves willing to make sacrifices that an uncrowded ego
would never accept (Swann & Buhrmester, 2015). Following Allport, we submit
that methodological individualism can account for the emergence of populist ide-
ologies. We see no need to postulate a separate kind of psychology for the masses.

Ingroup Projection and Self-Stereotyping

As differential projection accentuates intergroup boundaries, projection to super-
ordinate social categories compounds the exclusion of the outgroup. As most
 Psychological Perversities and Populism 133

people tend to project their own attributes—which they evaluate positively—to

both the parochial ingroup and to the superordinate group, the failure to project
to the outgroup begets ingroup favoritism (Krueger & Clement, 1996). The
mental isolation of outgroups in a society polarized by populist ideologies deep-
ens (Golec de Zavala et al., this volume). Once an outgroup is perceived as dif-
ferent from and inferior to the ingroup and the overarching society, it is easy to
infer further differences and to find opportunities for de- or infra-humanization
(Haslam, 2006). The perceived similarity between the ingroup and the general
society confirms the impression that ‘We are the people—but they are not!’
Populist exploitation of this type of inductive reasoning is most likely when the
ingroup is the majority because the correlations between group attributes and
society attributes are high inasmuch as the group makes up a large proportion of
society. Accordingly, it is easier to persuade majority groups that they legitimately
represent all of society than minorities. Disliked or feared élites, like ‘the govern-
ment,’ ‘the intellectuals,’ or ‘the bankers,’ are easy outgroup targets; they are by
definition small and thus readily differentiated from the totality of society.
We have emphasized the bottom-up variant of inductive reasoning (projec-
tion) in order to highlight the egocentric basis on which populism can build.
Now we consider the inverse direction of induction, namely top-down infer-
ences from the group to the individual. Inasmuch as perceivers lack individuating
information about group members, they will assume that these individuals share
the attributes of others in the group (Krueger & Rothbart, 1988). As noted ear-
lier, there is a rational justification for such category-driven induction (Dawes,
1990). It is problematic only when base rates (e.g., stereotypes) are not neglected
enough.
People also stereotype themselves. The bar for self-stereotyping is higher than
for other-stereotyping because people tend to have larger samples of individuat-
ing information about themselves than about others (e.g., Fiedler & Juslin, 2006).
Though emancipated from early crowd psychology, social identity theory retains
an emphasis of the collective experience and its psychological representation
(Tajfel & Turner, 1979). When activated, social group identities can overshadow
individual identity. Self-categorization theory, re-aligning itself with classic crowd
psychology, assumes that a state of depersonalization prevails when people focus
on their social group membership. A person in this state sees her- or himself as
an interchangeable expression of the group (Oakes et al., 1994). Hogg’s (2007)
uncertainty-identity theory traces the standard psychological effects of social catego-
rization directly to the experience of personal uncertainty (Hogg & Gøetsche-
Astrup, this volume).
Deep states of depersonalization may be rare, and self-stereotyping, the meas-
urable footprint of depersonalization, elusive (Krueger, Acevedo, & Robbins,
2006). When the self is involved, top-down induction is weaker than bottom-
up induction, and it is more context dependent (Cadinu & Rothbart, 1996).
Self-stereotyping is more likely when ingroup–outgroup categories are salient,
134 Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

when the ingroup is comparatively small, and when it is perceived to be under

threat (Van Veelen, Otten, Cadinu, & Hansen, 2016). Populism can manufacture
these effects to elicit self-stereotyping. For instance, if members of large ingroups
are less likely to experience threats to their existence, this can be helped. The
imagery of threat often takes the form of outgroups growing faster than the
ingroup and outgroups moving into the ingroup’s geographical or cultural space
(Marcus, this volume). During the 2015 refugee crisis, the German right-wing
party AfD talked of an ‘invasion,’ a populist piece of rhetoric seen in other coun-
tries as well. Xenophobic imagery triggers the experience of threat (hence the
reference to ‘phobia;’ Aydin, Krueger, Frey, Kastenmüller, & Fischer, 2014) as it
raises the prospect of finding oneself in a minority (Craig, Rucker, & Richeson,
2018). Canetti (1960/1962) anticipated this dynamic. “The adversary in war,”
he wrote (p. 68), “is the growing crowd of one’s neighbors. Their increase is
frightening in itself.” But there is more. Epistemic uncertainty can be reduced and
(self-)stereotyping can be boosted further if one gives in to essentialism, as we will
show in the following.

Essentialism
Infants readily attribute essences to natural kinds, believing them to be physi-
cal, unobservable, and immutable (Berent, 2020). Though no essences have ever
been found; the assumption that they exist affords natural kinds their extraordi-
nary inductive power. Rothbart and Taylor (1992) argued that humans make a
category error when treating social categories as if they were natural kinds. It is
easy to see how the essentialist assumption contributes to the sanctification of
ingroups and the demonization of outgroups. If, for example, Jews could escape
persecution by converting to Christianity during the Middle Ages, this was no
longer an option when ‘modern’ anti-Semites began to construe Jewishness in
racial terms (Arendt, 1951). Replying to a letter from the aged president of the
Weimar Republic, von Hindenburg, Hitler, then chancellor and not yet “Der
Führer,” rejected Hindenburg’s demand to reinstate Jewish war veterans as civil
servants, lecturing the aged president on the irrelevance of personal merit and the
all-importance of keeping the Jewish (i.e., corrupting) essence at bay (Hubatsch,
1966, pp. 375–376; see Jewish Virtual Library, 2020, for an English translation).
Populism stokes tribalism by seeking to convince people that they—much
like feared enemy groups—share an essence, and that personal identities must be
subordinated to anti-élite goals. In Ur-fascism, Eco (1995, p. 14) diagnosed that
“individuals have no right, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic
entity expressing the Common Will.” Appeals to ethnic essences among major-
ity groups are resurgent, although religious identifications also play a role. To
populists in Ankara, a true Turk is a Sunni Muslim; in the United States, a true
American is a white Protestant Christian; in Germany, the concept of the Bio-
Deutscher conjures images of organic food (Fetscher, 2015).
 Psychological Perversities and Populism 135

Combining threat with essence, populists find it convenient to alert a group

to its precarious state. Unless the wagons are circled and foreigners (invaders)
are kept out, expelled, or disempowered, the future is grim. The populist mind
equates a threat to a treasured ingroup with a threat to the self. Remedial action
smacks of revenge, a righteous righting of past wrongs (Petersen et al., this vol-
ume). Hirschman (1991) noted that the conservative variant of populist rhetoric
appeals to a lost golden age, which is to be restored. In Germany, some Bio-
Deutsche call themselves Reichsbürger, asserting that the German Reich was never
legally abolished, that it continues to exist, and that the Reichsbürger are its
rightful citizens. Which Reich they have in mind is anyone’s guess. To openly
call for the return of the Third Reich remains a political taboo. The Weimar
Republic has little appeal because it was a rather open society. This leaves the
Wilhelmine Empire, that is, the ‘Second Reich.’ As the old nostalgic phrase puts
it, “Wir wollen unseren Kaiser Wilhelm wiederhaben. Aber den mit dem Bart” (‘We
want to have our Kaiser Wilhelm back; but the one with the beard.’ To wit,
Wilhelm I, 1871–1888). A contemporary expression of this clichéd nostalgia is
the assertion (expressed with a sigh) “Früher war sowieso alles besser” (‘Everything
was better in the olden days’).
Progressives are not immune to essentialist and radicalizing rhetoric. If Marx
and Engels (1848) directed their ire at the bourgeoisie, contemporary discourse
has discovered the “intersectionality” of whiteness and maleness as a target (Car-
bado, 2013). At minimum, this rhetoric produces false alarms (Green & Swets,
1966) by committing a category error in that a class of oppressors is construed
too broadly. At worst, it prepares the ground for a new kind of racism and sexism
that commits the sins it purports to condemn.
A free society is open and pluralistic. It neither demands assimilation beyond
the acceptance of basic norms of conduct, nor does it, like Marxist ideology or
its contemporary incarnations, seek to assign obligatory identities to individu-
als. When one of the authors ( JIK) was naturalized as a citizen of the United
States, the presiding judge addressed the group of about two dozen new citizens
by acknowledging their contributions to American society. He did not ask that
individual heritages be surrendered. Instead, he noted their enriching quality.
This judge, himself the descendant of Armenian immigrants who had escaped
genocide, knew how to touch a crowd with solemnity and wisdom; he was not
a populist.
Comedian Trevor Noah has a less subtle touch. During the 2018 FIFA
World Cup, he delighted in France’s triumph because many of the French
players were of African descent. France’s victory, he declared, was also a vic-
tory for Black Africa. Monsieur Araud, the French Ambassador to the United
States, took a different view. He explained to Noah that all players on the team
were French citizens, and that the French Republic does not define citizenship
in racial terms (Allen, 2018). The point is clear, and it is no less valid because
racism exists in France.
136 Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

Moralism
We have identified processes of social projection, self-stereotyping, and essen-
tialist thinking as building blocks that populist agitators, be they reactionary or
progressive, can exploit. By fostering a false sense of consensus and common pur-
pose among ‘the people,’ populism threatens open societies by closing individual
minds. Having noted the dangers of parochialism, some further reflections on
morality are in order. Solomon Asch (1952) recognized that the practice of and
the research on social behavior are imbued with moral implications. His insight
lay dormant during the heyday of social cognition research, when the search
was on for basic processes underlying interpersonal and intergroup behavior
(Markus & Zajonc, 1985). With the recent rise of moral psychology, the moral
dimension of social psychology has reclaimed center stage.
The line between morality and moralism is fine, if it exists at all (Nietzsche,
1887/1996). Moral psychology has focused on people’s interest in blame and
punishment and neglected the study of ethical values central to the Enlighten-
ment (e.g., freedom, autonomy, excellence). The difference between descriptive
(e.g., people value freedom) and prescriptive (people ought to value freedom)
norms has become blurred (Malle, Guglielmo, & Monroe, 2014). As a result,
descriptive accounts of folk morality can spawn prescriptive obligations and per-
missions, a conclusion that falls victim to Hume’s Guillotine (1739/1978)—what
is may not be what ought to be.
Some basic lines of research have energized moralist agendas without per-
haps intending to. Consider the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Once presented
in published form (Greenwald, Schwarz, & McGhee, 1998), the IAT exploded
into an aggressive measurement paradigm (Fiedler, Messner, & Bluemke, 2006),
crowding out conventional and well-established methods for the study of preju-
dice while providing lucrative business opportunities and consulting contracts to
its practitioners. The declaration ‘We are all biased’ has become an article of faith,
which no one can deny without exposing themselves as biased.
Although the critical literature on the IAT has grown, a simplistic understand-
ing still prevails (Fiedler, this volume). According to this essentialist view, the
IAT bypasses conscious corrections of deep bias. People are claimed to be biased
without realizing it. When confronted with their test score, they are invited to
conclude that their true preferences have been revealed, and that these prefer-
ences are blameworthy. In a less moralistic climate, such a conclusion would be
recognized as an accusation of a thought crime (Orwell, 1948). If the IAT fails
on statistical grounds (Blanton, Jaccard, Gonzales, & Christie, 2006), so it fails on
conceptual grounds (Fiedler & Grüning, in press). The dystopian endpoint of the
IAT—which presumes to plumb unconscious thoughts that might be predictive of
transgressions yet to be committed—is dark. It is the installation of a “pre-crime”
unit that swoops in to arrest future offenders (Dick, 2002). If this is a dystopia
to the liberal mind, it is a utopia to progressive legal scholars who demand an
 Psychological Perversities and Populism 137

alignment of the criminal justice system with the presumed discoveries of the
implicit cognition paradigm (Kang, Bennett, Carbado, Casey, & Levinson, 2011).

Conclusions
There is no comprehensive social-psychological research program for the study of
populism—yet. We have identified some cognitive-motivational building blocks
of populism, focusing on the role of inductive reasoning and the aversion to
uncertainty. We have suggested that an essentialist epistemology and a penchant
for moralism provide opportunities for populist ideas to take hold. Demagogues
and self-anointed ‘thought leaders’ can leverage these psychological principles
to advance their goals. Yet, charismatic leaders are not necessary for a populist
atmosphere to emerge. If our exposition is pessimistic, it is because we have not
found an answer to Popper’s (1945) dilemma, which is how an open society can
check its enemies without, like populism, betraying the social values it is trying
to preserve.
What remains rather uncertain is why people are averse to uncertainty. We
have accepted uncertainty aversion as a psychological primitive without explor-
ing its origins or the origins of individual differences therein. Any serious effort
to do so would go beyond the charge of this chapter. We therefore settle for three
brief notes. First, Aristotle taught that the experience of perceptual recognition
is pleasant. Contemporary research traces this hedonic effect of recognition to
the fluency and effortlessness of mental processing (Unkelbach & Koch, 2019).
Populism can leverage lazy, fluent, and recognition-prone reasoning to lull people
into a false sense of certainty. Second, a state of perceptual uncertainty entails a
state of behavioral uncertainty. If the percept is not clear, we do not know how to
respond. Populism, in extremis, tells us what we see and what to do. Third, since
Frenkel-Brunswik’s (1949) pioneering work, measures of individual differences
related to uncertainty abound. We consider the construct of ‘intellectual humility’
promising (Leary et al., 2017). This construct combines the epistemic with the
moral. An enlightened society, we submit, comprises more individuals endorsing
attitudes such as “I question my own opinions, positions, and viewpoints because
they could be wrong” (Leary et al., 2017, p. 795) than a benighted society does.
But how can a civic attitude of intellectual humility be fostered if the forces of
uncertainty aversion are arrayed against it? An open society must continually
engage with this question. This is hard work, and it yields few rewards in the
short term.
The assumption that people will, ultimately, bend in the direction of the
rewards presupposes a fundamental rationality. This may still be too optimistic.
Reviewing Mein Kampf, George Orwell (1940) argued that Hitler had

grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western
thought since the last war . . . has assumed tacitly that human beings desire
138 Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning

nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life
there is no room . . . for patriotism and the military virtues.

If Hitler’s view of human nature was not staked on hedonism, one might—
politely—call it a tragic view. A person’s or a group’s fate is tragic if it will be
fulfilled regardless of the best efforts to attain a better outcome. A tragic fate is not
pleasant, but it is certain. For some populists, this may be enough.
We have argued that most of the elements of inductive reasoning with which
humans are equipped are not themselves irrational. However, they can be
exploited in such a way that the resulting beliefs are populist, intolerant, or fatal-
istic. The challenge is not so much to change basic patterns of social perception
and inference, but to change the inputs people receive in their social and politi-
cal ecologies. What are options of change? The cultivation of certain attitudes,
such as intellectual humility, holds promise, as do interventions involving belief
inoculation (McGuire, 1964), although such interventions must be carefully justi-
fied, lest they be misused paternalistically (see Kozyreva, Lewandowsky, & Her-
twig, in press, for a review and discussion). Ultimately, it is to be hoped that
people learn the difference between ‘facts’ and ‘evidence.’ Facts are final, but evi-
dence performs an eternal dance with expectations and hypotheses. Reflecting on
the evidence keeps the mind in an elastic state, and finding consensus is accepted
as a possibility. The assumption is that evidence matters, even if it cannot estab-
lish ultimate truth. Unfortunately, when people bring conflicting certainties to
their encounters, they will often point to their own facts, and declare the facts of
others fake. Inductive reasoning can either perpetuate this process or expose it; it
is populism’s tool and its potential conqueror alike.

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8
OVERCONFIDENCE IN RADICAL
POLITICS
Jan-Willem van Prooijen

Overconfidence in Radical Politics

In the past decade, radical political movements have done well electorally. Populist
movements have gained significant levels of public support in many EU countries,
including Italy, France, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the
UK. Also, across many Latin American countries—including Brazil, Venezuela,
Bolivia, and Nicaragua—political movements that are populist, nationalist, or
extremist can rely on substantial levels of public support. This global momentum
of radical political movements appears to be taking place at both the left and the
right. For instance, not too long ago it would be considered unthinkable in the
US that the radical right-wing (e.g., anti-immigrant) rhetoric of Donald Trump
could get him elected president; but also, it would be considered unthinkable that
a Congressmember who publicly proclaims to be a “Democratic Socialist” (i.e.,
Bernie Sanders) could be a serious contender for the Democratic party’s presi-
dential nomination. The present chapter seeks to contribute to understanding the
psychological appeal of relatively radical political movements among the public.
Although many different radical political movements exist around the world,
here I define radical political beliefs in terms of political extremism and/or pop-
ulism. Political extremism can take place at both the left and the right, and is
defined as the extent to which regular citizens are polarized into, and strongly
identify with, generic left- or right-wing ideological outlooks on society (Van
Prooijen & Krouwel, 2019). Populism refers to a political mentality that construes
society as an ongoing struggle between the “corrupt elites” versus the “noble
people”. It more specifically consists of various underlying dimensions such as
anti-elitism (i.e., the belief that societal elites are corrupt), anti-pluralism (i.e.,
the belief that only populist viewpoints reflect the true “will of the people”, and
144 Jan-Willem van Prooijen

that other viewpoints should hence not be tolerated), and people-centrism (i.e.,
the belief that the “will of the people” should be the leading principle in political
decision-making) (e.g., Bergmann, 2018; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017; Müller,
2016; Van Prooijen, 2018; see also Krekó; Marcus, this volume).
Political extremism and populism do not necessarily converge: While political
extremism by definition occurs at the extreme left or right, populism can occur
across the entire political spectrum—the left, the right, and the center (see also
Petersen et al., this volume). Various politicians are ideologically not at the edges
of the political spectrum yet articulate rhetoric consistent with populist leader-
ship (e.g., Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and Boris Johnson in the UK, who both are
center-right but not far-right). At the same time, on average populist sentiments
tend to be higher among supporters of politically extreme parties at both the left
and right (Akkermans, Mudde, & Zaslove, 2014; Rooduijn, Van der Brug, & De
Lange, 2016; Schumacher & Rooduijn, 2013). Furthermore, anti-elitist beliefs
tend to be high at both the left- and right-extreme, as reflected in institutional
distrust (Inglehart, 1987; Kutiyski, Krouwel, & Van Prooijen, 2020) and belief in
conspiracy theories (Imhoff, 2015; Krouwel, Kutiyski, Van Prooijen, Martins-
son, & Markstedt, 2017; Van Prooijen, Krouwel, & Pollet, 2015). Here, I focus
on the converging elements of political extremism and populism, and therefore
use the overarching term radical political ideologies.
What explains the appeal of radical political ideologies? Various theoretical
perspectives suggest that radical political ideologies help people cope with distress
by offering them a sense of meaning and purpose through a set of strong and
clear-cut convictions about the world (e.g., Kruglanski et al., 2014; McGregor,
Prentice, & Nash, 2013; Van den Bos, 2018; see also Bar-Tal & Magal; Kruglanski
et al., this volume). Central in these psychological mechanisms is the assumption
that people endorse radical ideological beliefs with high levels of confidence. But
to what extent is this assumption supported by evidence? The present chapter will
examine the role of belief confidence in radical politics by pursuing two specific
goals. As a first goal, the chapter is designed to illuminate the psychological pro-
cesses that connect radical political ideologies to belief confidence. In doing so,
the chapter will also review empirical evidence that radical political beliefs indeed
are associated with increased belief confidence.
As a second goal, the chapter will examine how warranted or unwarranted
such high belief confidence is among people with radical political ideologies.
Across judgment domains, people sometimes experience high confidence that is
grounded in actual knowledge or expertise. When a psychology professor teaches
an introductory psychology class to undergraduate students, s/he likely feels con-
fident about the contents of the course due to years of extensive study, research,
and experience. Likewise, in the political domain, party elites with high levels of
political sophistication (“ideologues”) hold their political beliefs with high confi-
dence (Converse, 1964; see also Zaller, 1992). And while ideologues of different
parties may fundamentally disagree about policy issues, it might be expected that
 Overconfidence in Radical Politics 145

independent of party affiliation, ideologues can articulate a relatively sophisticated

argument to defend their beliefs. Belief confidence among people with radical
political ideologies hence may be justified, in that it is rooted in actual under-
standing or knowledge of a particular judgment domain.
An alternative possibility, however, is that people with radical political ide-
ologies are confident about their beliefs because they overestimate their actual
understanding or knowledge of a particular judgment domain. Research suggests
that large discrepancies between self-ascribed and actual knowledge or under-
standing may exist in people. For instance, feelings of belief superiority are asso-
ciated with a large gap between self-perceived and actual knowledge (Hall &
Raimi, 2018). Furthermore, particularly people who are incompetent lack the
metacognitive ability to realize their incompetence, leading them to overestimate
their own competence (Kruger & Dunning, 1999; see also Krueger & Gruening,
this volume). Put differently, belief confidence may also reflect overconfidence. In
the second part of the chapter, I will review recent studies assessing whether the
belief confidence that is associated with radical political ideologies reflects justi-
fied confidence, or rather, overconfidence.

Radical Political Ideologies and Belief Confidence

Various theoretical perspectives highlight feelings of distress as a root cause of
radical ideological beliefs (see also Ditto & Rodriguez, this volume). One impor-
tant framework to explain radicalization is significance quest theory (Kruglanski
et al., 2014; this volume). This theory has emphasized that radical ideologies are
grounded in a quest for significance—a desire to matter and be respected, in the
eyes of oneself or important others. While in everyday life people may acquire a
sense of significance through a multitude of sources (including, but not limited
to, family, friends, work, and meaningful goals), sometimes people may experi-
ence grievances such as humiliation, fear, or insecurities that cause feelings of
significance loss. If this happens, people can become focally committed to a range
of specific ideological goals, which they pursue with high levels of confidence.
As such, radical ideologies help people regain a sense of significance through the
feeling that they matter by passionately pursuing a range of meaningful ideologi-
cal goals.
While significant quest theory was primarily designed to understand vio-
lent extremism (Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman, & Orehek, 2009), its
underlying processes also appear to be relevant for understanding regular citi-
zens’ adherence to radical political movements (Webber et al., 2018; see also
Van Prooijen & Kuijper, 2020). Meanwhile, other theoretical frameworks also
highlight feelings of distress as a root cause of radical political beliefs. For instance,
it has been argued that feelings of anxiety and uncertainty stimulate compen-
satory conviction, meaning that distressed feelings in one life domain increase
people’s conviction in other (usually ideological) judgment domains (McGregor
146 Jan-Willem van Prooijen

et al., 2013; see also Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume). Furthermore, other
perspectives have focused on feelings of unfairness as a driver of ideological radi-
calization. One key moderator of this relationship, however, is uncertainty. Spe-
cifically, unfairness increases radicalization particularly in anxious or uncertain
circumstances, suggesting that radical ideological beliefs help people cope with
such aversive feelings, presumably by offering a sense of certainty (Van den Bos,
2018).
Various lines of research support a link between radical political beliefs and dis-
tress. A meta-analysis of mortality salience effects on political ideology reveals that
reminding people of their own mortality may yield shifts to the political right,
as well as shifts to both the left and right extremes (Burke, Kosloff, & Landau,
2013). Many of the right-wing shifts in this research domain are susceptible to
alternative explanations, however, notably increased nationalism: Most mortality
salience studies revealing exclusively right-wing shifts were conducted in the US
during the aftermath of 9/11, increasing citizens’ tendency to “rally around the
flag” and support their conservative president (Crawford, 2017; see also Huddy &
Del Ponte, this volume). Furthermore, feelings of distress increase people’s pref-
erence for radical leaders (Hogg, Meehan, & Farqueharson, 2010), and the fear
that own or collective well-being is compromised by social or economic develop-
ments is higher at both the left- and right-extremes than in the political center
(Van Prooijen, Krouwel, Boiten, & Eendebak, 2015). Finally, both the left- and
right- extremes experience increased threat by political opponents, leading them
to use more emotional and angry language (Frimer, Brandt, Melton, & Motyl,
2019). In sum, empirical research supports the notion that radical political ide-
ologies are associated with feelings of distress (Kruglanski et al., 2014; McGregor
et al., 2013; Van den Bos, 2018; Marcus, this volume).

The Role of Epistemic Clarity

One core assumption of these perspectives is that feelings of distress prompt a
desire for epistemic clarity, that is, the experience of having a meaningful under-
standing of the world (see also Fiedler, this volume). Radical political movements
offer such epistemic clarity through a set of straightforward and simple assump-
tions about society (Greenberg & Jonas, 2003). Put differently, radical movements
tend to oversimplify complex societal problems and processes, which provides
perceivers with the feeling that they have a solid understanding of the causes and
necessary interventions to address these issues. This notion is important for the
present arguments, as increased epistemic clarity is likely related to belief confi-
dence: People will feel more confident about their beliefs to the extent that they
subjectively experience more understanding of the assumptions underlying those
beliefs (Van Prooijen & Krouwel, 2019). Radical political ideologies hence may
predict decreased cognitive complexity in various domains, including reasoning
about politics, solutions for complex problems, and perceptions of social life.
 Overconfidence in Radical Politics 147

A classic study on these issues content-analyzed speeches about slavery of 19th

century politicians shortly before the US civil war (Tetlock, Armor, & Peter-
son, 1994). The results indicated that integrative complexity was lower among
politicians who strongly favored or opposed slavery than among politicians who
were more oriented towards compromising about the issue. This study is interest-
ing because it underscores that reduced integrative complexity does not have to
imply moral inferiority—indeed, articulating some moral truths (e.g., about the
wrongness of oppression and inequality) requires little complexity. Likewise, not
all movements that are, or have been, considered politically radical—according to
scientific definitions or public opinion—are necessarily destructive to society, and
indeed may change society for the better (e.g., various human rights movements).
Of relevance for the present purposes, however, is the finding that politicians who
take a relatively extreme position in a political debate articulate less complicated
arguments than politicians who take a relatively centrist position.
Recent studies yielded results consistent with these findings. In a Dutch survey
about the 2016 EU refugee crisis, participants indicated to what extent they sup-
ported an inclusionary solution to this crisis (i.e., provide shelter to all refugees)
or an exclusionary one (i.e., refuse all refugees at the border) (Van Prooijen,
Krouwel, & Emmer, 2018). Unsurprisingly, participants supported the inclusion-
ary solution more to the extent that they were more strongly left-wing, and
they supported the exclusionary solution more to the extent they were more
strongly right-wing. Of interest for the present purposes, however, were their
responses to a third question, assessing to what extent they believed that the
solution to the EU refugee crisis was actually quite simple. The results revealed a
symmetric U-shape on this item, indicating that participants at both the left and
right-extremes perceived the solution to this crisis as more simple than political
moderates. Apparently, the left and right extremes in the Netherlands endorsed
diametrically different solutions for the refugee crisis, yet they converged in a
belief that there were simple solutions for this complex geopolitical problem.
Such decreased cognitive complexity may reflect more generally simplistic ideas
about political or societal reality. In two nationally representative Dutch samples,
both political extremes—at both the left and right—again endorsed more simple
solutions for complex problems. Such belief in simple solutions mediated the
links of both left- and right-wing extremism with belief in conspiracy theories,
however (Van Prooijen et al., 2015; see also Krekó, this volume). The finding
that both the left and right extremes are more susceptible to conspiracy theories
than political moderates has been replicated in various other EU countries with a
multiparty system, where both radical left- and right-wing parties have received
considerable support in recent years (i.e., Sweden, Krouwel et al., 2017; and
Germany, Imhoff, 2015). Furthermore, populist attitudes predict increased belief
in conspiracy theories (Silva, Vegetti, & Littvay, 2017), a finding that has been
replicated in 13 EU countries (Van Prooijen et al., 2020). Finally, qualitative con-
tent analyses reveal that conspiracy theories are common in the documentation
148 Jan-Willem van Prooijen

and speeches of extremist (and sometimes violent) fringe groups, independent of

ideological orientation (i.e., left-wing extremist, right-wing extremist, religious
fundamentalist, and other; Bartlett & Miller, 2010).
Besides decreased cognitive complexity and a relatively simplistic construal
of political policy, the entire political and social domain appears simpler to the
political extremes as opposed to moderates (Lammers, Koch, Conway, & Brandt,
2017). Participants were asked to categorize political and societal stimuli (e.g.,
politicians; societal groups) on a computer screen, spatially grouping similar stim-
uli and separating distinct stimuli. In this task, the left and right extremes pro-
duced more dense clusters—grouping stimuli judged as similar closer together,
and stimuli judged as distinct further apart—than moderates. Complementary
studies revealed that the political extremes perceive social categorizations as more
homogeneous, as for instance reflected in judgmental probabilities overestimating
support for election winners in red versus blue states, and higher perceived likeli-
hoods that people with the same political ideology also share other preferences
(e.g., for movies, books, newspapers, and so on; Lammers et al., 2017). In sum,
the political extremes perceive the social and political world in more clear-cut and
sharply defined categories than moderates do.
Such a relatively simple perception of the social and political world also has
implications for stereotyping, which are homogeneous—and oversimplified—
perceptions of social groups. Traditional theoretical perspectives have assumed that
particularly the political right is prone to stereotyping, due to common research
findings that the political right is more prejudiced of ethnic minority groups than
the political left (e.g., Sears & Henry, 2003). Accumulating research suggests that
the link between stereotyping and political ideology is more complex than previ-
ously assumed, however: People can form stereotypes and experience prejudice
about any social group, not just ethnic minorities. According to the ideological
conflict-hypothesis, people across the political spectrum hold negative attitudes
about groups of people that have different values than their own. Consistent with
this idea, the political left and right are both prejudiced: The political left has rela-
tively high levels of prejudice about groups commonly assumed to be right-wing
(e.g., Christian fundamentalist, business people, the military, anti-abortionists),
and the political right has relatively high levels of prejudice about groups com-
monly assumed to be left-wing (e.g., ethnic and sexual minorities, environmen-
talists, feminists; for an overview, see Brandt, Reyna, Chambers, Crawford, &
Wetherell, 2014).
While research on the ideological-conflict hypothesis only draws a comparison
between the political left versus right, one study examining differences between
the political extremes versus moderates included a measure of derogation of soci-
etal groups. Participants specifically rated for a range of societal groups (e.g.,
police officers, politicians, millionaires, Muslims, scientists, and so on) dichoto-
mously if they believed that the group made a positive or negative contribution to
society. Both the left and right extremes listed more groups as making a negative
 Overconfidence in Radical Politics 149

contribution to society than moderates (Van Prooijen et al., 2015). Furthermore,

a recent study investigated the link between populist attitudes and xenophobia
across 13 countries, and found that higher populist attitudes predicted stronger
xenophobic sentiments. Importantly, these effects emerged also after controlling
for (right-wing) political orientation, suggesting that across the political spectrum
people high in populist attitudes are more xenophobic than people low in popu-
list attitudes (Van Prooijen et al., 2020; see also Forgas & Lantos; and Golec de
Zavala et al.; this volume).
In sum, these findings support the idea that radical political beliefs are associ-
ated with epistemic clarity, that is, a clear-cut and straightforward perception of
the social and political world. Such increased epistemic clarity among political
radicals is manifested in decreased cognitive complexity, increased belief in simple
solutions to complex problems, increased belief in conspiracy theories, a ten-
dency to mentally classify political and societal stimuli in clear and sharply defined
categories, and increased stereotyping and prejudice.

Belief Confidence
Belief confidence is a natural implication of epistemic clarity. It stands to reason
that when one sees the world as relatively simple and straightforward, people hold
their beliefs about the world with high confidence (Van Prooijen et al., 2018).
Yet, research findings on epistemic clarity provide indirect evidence at best for
a relationship between radical political ideologies and belief confidence. Here,
I review empirical studies that have more directly investigated this relationship.
In a direct test of these issues, US participants rated a range of contentious
issues in the US political debate (e.g., affirmative action; abortion; illegal immi-
gration). Besides indicating their attitudes about these issues, however, partici-
pants also rated their feelings of belief superiority, operationalized as the belief that
one’s own viewpoint is objectively more correct than other viewpoints. Results
revealed curvilinear effects on each of these issues (as well as on the aggregated
belief superiority score), indicating that both the left and right extremes consid-
ered their political beliefs about these issues as superior than moderates (Toner,
Leary, Asher, & Jongman-Sereno, 2013). Other studies found a similar curvilinear
pattern on dogmatic intolerance, defined as the tendency to reject, and consider
as inferior, any belief that differs from one’s own (Van Prooijen & Krouwel, 2017;
see also Rollwage, Dolan, & Fleming, 2018; Van Prooijen & Kuijper, 2020).
One implication of such belief confidence is belief stability: Attitudes held
with high confidence are less likely to change over time than attitudes held with
low confidence (Howe & Krosnick, 2017). Hence, extreme political beliefs can
be expected to be more stable over time than moderate political beliefs. Two
cross-sectional studies found that self-reported stability of political beliefs was
higher among participants at the political extremes than among participants at the
political center. A third study, then, longitudinally assessed participants’ political
150 Jan-Willem van Prooijen

ideology during a political election, with three measurement points (i.e., six
weeks before the election, four weeks before the election, and three days after
the election). Results revealed that political extremism predicted lower standard
deviations of political ideology over time, suggesting higher temporal stability.
Moreover, this effect was particularly pronounced in the comparison of ideology
measures before versus after the election, suggesting that the heavy campaigning
shortly before an election changes political attitudes, particularly among moder-
ates, and less so among extremists (Zwicker, Van Prooijen, & Krouwel, in press).
The findings discussed here so far suggest that the political extremes have higher
belief confidence specifically in the political domain. Complementary findings
suggest, however, that political extremism is associated with increased judgmen-
tal confidence more generally. In a series of studies, participants responded to a
range of non-political estimation tasks for which experimenter-generated anchor
values were provided. The studies varied whether or not participants received a
low or high anchor value (e.g., “The distance from San Francisco to New York
City is longer than 1500 miles/shorter than 6000 miles; how far do you think it
is?”). Besides replicating a standard anchoring effect (with high anchors leading
to higher estimates than low anchors), the results revealed a political extrem-
ism effect: Politically extreme participants made estimates further away from the
experimenter-generated anchors than politically moderate participants. These
findings are consistent with the idea that political extremists have relatively high
judgmental confidence, in that they are more likely than moderates to reject other
people’s estimates and form their own independent judgments. Indeed, in one of
the studies these findings were mediated by belief superiority (Brandt, Evans, &
Crawford, 2015). In sum, radical political ideologies are associated with relatively
high levels of judgmental confidence, in both political and non-political judg-
ment domains.

Warranted Confidence or Overconfidence?

After establishing the relationship between radical political beliefs and judgmental
confidence, a next question is how warranted or unwarranted such high confi-
dence is. Confidence can be rooted in actual knowledge or expertise, and peo-
ple may consider their own beliefs superior than others because they actually
do know better. University-trained and formally accredited medical doctors are
likely to consider their own understanding of the human body as superior than
that of new-age spiritual healers, and rightfully so. In contrast, high confidence
may also reflect overconfidence: People may consider their skills or beliefs supe-
rior than others because they overestimate their actual knowledge or abilities.
Narcissists often believe themselves to be highly effective leaders, yet such pre-
sumed effectiveness is not visible in observer ratings of narcissist leaders (Grijalva,
Harms, Newman, Gaddis, & Fraley, 2015). Both warranted and unwarranted
judgmental confidence appears to be common (Kruger & Dunning, 1999; see
 Overconfidence in Radical Politics 151

also Hall & Raimi, 2018). How warranted or unwarranted is the high level of
judgments confidence that political radicals display?
The previous sections have emphasized that the high levels of confidence asso-
ciated with radical political beliefs is rooted in a desire for epistemic clarity, leading
people to mentally oversimplify reality. These oversimplifications, then, provide
perceivers with the subjective experience of accurate understanding, increasing
judgmental confidence. Given the actual complexities of political and social life,
however, it is likely that such oversimplifications particularly stimulate overconfi-
dence. Actual knowledge or expertise is more likely associated with an apprecia-
tion of the complexities of reality instead of with a tendency to oversimplify it
(see also Krueger & Grüning, this volume). To establish such overconfidence in
radical political beliefs, it is necessary for studies to combine measures of judg-
mental confidence with actual knowledge tests, or measures testing participants’
belief in highly implausible epistemic claims.

Evidence for Overconfidence in Radical Politics

The previously discussed study on the 2016 EU refugee crisis—showing that
the political left and right extremes shared a belief that the solution to this geo-
political crisis is simple—also contained measures of their factual knowledge of
the refugee crisis, and their judgmental confidence (Van Prooijen et al., 2018).
Specifically, participants rated ten statements about the refugee crisis as either
“true” or “false”. Moreover, after each factual knowledge statement, participants
indicated on a 5-point scale how certain they were of their answer, yielding a
10-item measure of judgmental certainty. Results revealed no linear or quadratic
relationships between political ideology and factual knowledge; hence, there were
no differences in factual knowledge about the refugee crisis between the political
left versus right, or between the political extremes versus moderates. A subse-
quent analysis, then, analyzed judgmental certainty while statistically controlling
for factual knowledge. This analysis showed a symmetric U-shape, indicating
more judgmental certainty among left- and right-wing extremists as opposed to
moderates. Put differently, participants at the political extremes were overconfi-
dent in their knowledge of the EU refugee crisis: As compared with moderates
they had increased confidence in their judgments, yet those judgments were not
more likely to be factually accurate. Furthermore, these findings were mediated
by belief in simple solutions for the refugee crisis, supporting the assumption that
extremists’ judgmental overconfidence is rooted in increased epistemic clarity.
A study conducted in a different political context yielded even more straight-
forward evidence for overconfidence in radical politics. This study raised the ques-
tion how overconfidence would predict anti-establishment voting in the context
of a Dutch referendum about an EU treaty with Ukraine. Anti-establishment
sentiments and voting are core elements of populism (e.g., Mudde & Kaltwas-
ser, 2017; Müller, 2016), and this particular referendum had a clear pro- versus
152 Jan-Willem van Prooijen

anti-establishment voting option. Specifically, anti-establishment parties at both

the Dutch political left and right uniformly campaigned against the treaty, appeal-
ing to widespread Euro-skeptic sentiments among the public; all other parties
uniformly campaigned in favor of the treaty. Empirical findings underscore that
anti-establishment sentiments were much higher among citizens who voted
against the treaty than among citizens who voted in favor of the treaty (Van
Prooijen & Krouwel, 2020).
In a first wave (six weeks before the referendum), a questionnaire included
measures of self-perceived understanding of the treaty, assessing how qualified and
well informed to judge the treaty citizens considered themselves to be. After the
measure of self-perceived understanding (and with no option of backtracking),
participants completed a factual knowledge test of the treaty and the referendum,
including a “true”, “false”, and “do not know” response format. Finally, the
questionnaire included a general overclaiming measure that assessed participants’
familiarity with 25 persons, objects, ideas, or places. But while 17 of these terms
were existing stimuli (e.g., “Houdini”; “Bay of Pigs”), 8 terms were “foils” of
non-existing stimuli (e.g., “Queen Shattuck”; cf. Paulhus, Harms, Bruce, & Lysy,
2003). Hence, this measure assessed general overclaiming, operationalized as the
extent to which people recognize stimuli that they actually see for the first time.
A second wave, shortly after the referendum, included the question of what par-
ticipants had voted.
What predicted an anti-establishment vote in this context? Logistic regression
analyses revealed that increased self-perceived understanding of the treaty predicted
an increased likelihood of voting against the establishment; in addition, however,
decreased factual knowledge of the treaty, and increased general overclaiming, also
predicted an increased likelihood of an anti-establishment vote. Put differently,
judgmental overconfidence—operationalized as both domain-specific and gen-
eralized knowledge overclaiming—predicted anti-establishment voting six weeks
later. Moreover, a separate analysis focused on how often participants answered
the factual knowledge questions with “do not know”. After statistically control-
ling for their factual knowledge, judgmental confidence (i.e., a decreased number
of “do not know” responses) also predicted an anti-establishment vote. Finally, an
analysis of political ideology revealed that although overconfidence occurred at
both extremes, it was particularly pronounced at the extreme right (Van Prooi-
jen & Krouwel, 2020).
The findings in the context of the EU refugee crisis (Van Prooijen et al.,
2018) and the EU treaty with Ukraine (Van Prooijen & Krouwel, 2020) both
reveal that the gap between confidence in knowledge or understanding, ver-
sus actual knowledge, is particularly wide among citizens with radical political
beliefs. A different way of showing overconfidence in radical politics, however,
would be to relate measures of confidence with increased belief in implausible
epistemic claims. A recent set of studies investigated the relationship between
populist attitudes and credulity in general, and results supported the notion of
 Overconfidence in Radical Politics 153

“populist gullibility”: An increased tendency for people high in populist attitudes

to accept any epistemic claim that is compatible with their worldview as true,
independent of its plausibility (Van Prooijen et al., 2020). More specifically, pop-
ulist attitudes positively predicted increased conspiracy beliefs, increased credulity
of politically neutral news items, increased acceptance of nonsense statements
(i.e., “Bullshit receptivity”; Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler, & Fugelsang,
2015), and increased paranormal beliefs. Of importance for the present discus-
sion, these findings were mediated by participants’ faith in their own intuition.
Apparently, populist attitudes are associated with relatively high trust in one’s own
hunches, which in turn predicts a tendency to uncritically accept a wide range
of implausible epistemic claims as true. Taken together, these studies support the
idea that the high levels of judgmental confidence associated with radical political
beliefs reflect overconfidence, and not warranted confidence.

A Qualification and Rejoinder

The conclusion that radical political beliefs are rooted in overconfidence contains
a paradox: People with highly polarized political beliefs consider these beliefs
important (Kruglanski et al., 2014; Van Prooijen & Kuijper, 2020), and are there-
fore likely interested in news related to politics. Moreover, political extremism
predicts increased ideological constraint, that is, a consistency between one’s gen-
eral identification on a political left-to-right dimension and their support for spe-
cific policy proposals (Federico & Hunt, 2013). It is therefore likely that political
extremism is associated with excessive political news consumption, and hence, it
would be reasonable to assume that this increases their understanding and knowl-
edge of political issues.
Empirical findings offer some support for this idea. In various surveys, political
extremism was associated with increased political sophistication, operationalized
as participants’ factual knowledge about politics. Moreover, political sophistica-
tion and political extremism were associated with an increased interest in politics,
and an increased tendency to scan print media to gain information about political
issues (Sidanius, 1988; see also Sidanius & Lau, 1989). At first blush, these find-
ings appear inconsistent with the notion that the increased confidence among
political extremists is actually overconfidence. How may these findings be recon-
ciled with the arguments of the present chapter?
It is important to keep in mind that the findings suggesting political sophis-
tication among political extremists were based on survey results from the 1980s
(Sidanius, 1988; Sidanius & Lau, 1989), a time where citizens necessarily had to
rely mostly on mainstream news channels for acquiring information about poli-
tics. Society, and the way that people consume news, has changed dramatically in
the meantime. Alternative online news sites proliferate, and it is easier than ever
before to find information that support one’s own political values. This is relevant
for the present discussion, as political extremists tend to trust information only
154 Jan-Willem van Prooijen

if provided by their own political ingroup (Hardin, 2002). Correspondingly, the

more politically extreme people are, the more likely it is that they acquire news
from the Internet instead of (or as a supplement to) mainstream news sources
(Nie, Miller, Golde, Butler, & Winneg, 2010). Social media analyses also suggest
that people online are exposed to both information and misinformation that sup-
port their already existing political beliefs (Del Vicario et al., 2016). Finally, it is
quite possible that even mainstream news channels have grown more partisan over
the years (e.g., Fox News).
This would suggest that the information overload of modern society provides
fertile soil for polarized political beliefs through the confirmation bias: Citizens
selectively expose themselves to information that validates their existing politi-
cal beliefs, which polarizes—and increases confidence in—those beliefs. While
in the 1980s citizens interested in politics necessarily were exposed to multiple
perspectives—stimulating warranted confidence in one’s political beliefs—the
current digital society enables people to bolster their political views through a
one-sided stream of information. One implication of this line of reasoning is
that in modern society, radical political beliefs are related not necessarily with
a lack of information, but instead, with exposure to misinformation that is
either inaccurate or incomplete. This implication needs to be tested in future
research.

Concluding Remarks
Radical political currents that are extremist, populist, or both have gained sig-
nificant electoral momentum in many countries around the world. While some
of these movements contribute positively to social change (Tetlock et al., 1994),
others pose a liability to well-being and progress through conspiracy theories,
science denialism, protectionism, and exclusion of vulnerable groups. The wide-
spread support for radical movements therefore has posed important questions
for political scientists and psychologists, which include identifying the causes and
correlates of radical political beliefs. The present chapter sought to contribute to
these issues by highlighting that radical political ideologies are associated with
belief confidence. Moreover, this belief confidence often actually is overconfi-
dence, as it is rooted in a relatively simplistic construal of the complexities of soci-
etal problems. While this insight contributes to understanding the psychology of
radical political beliefs, it also underscores the difficulties of implementing mean-
ingful interventions designed to depolarize the political debate. Attitudes held
with high confidence are relatively resilient to change (Howe & Krosnick, 2017),
and information overload through the Internet and social media provides unique
opportunities for citizens to validate their views through a one-sided assessment
of relevant information. Reducing radical political beliefs hence may require a
transformation from overconfident to well-informed citizens, which could be
quite a challenge in practice.
 Overconfidence in Radical Politics 155

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9
WHY POPULISM ATTRACTS
On the Allure of Certainty and Dignity

Arie W. Kruglanski, Erica Molinario,

and Gilda Sensales

Introduction
Political commentators concur that a tide of populism is on the uptick worldwide
(IESE Business School, 2017; Shuster, 2016). Whether in Europe, the Americas,
the Middle East, or Asia, populist politicians (the likes of Marine Le Pen, Matteo
Salvini, Geert Wilders, Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, or Donald Trump) enjoy
substantial popular support these days. In 2017, the Alternative for Germany (AfD)
won 12.6% of the vote and entered the Bundestag with 94 seats; and in Austria, the
Freedom Party won 26% of the popular vote and joined the governing coalition. In
2018, Milos Zeman’s anti-immigrant rhetoric brought him to power in the Czech
Republic. And in Italy, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement became Italy’s
largest party, while the anti-immigrant League jumped from 4% to 18% to become
the dominant right-wing force. These are only some of the political events that
have seen populist forces rising around the world (e.g., in Russia, Poland, Turkey,
and Hungary; see also Forgas & Lantos; Krekó; and Bar-Tal & Magal, this volume).
Commenting on these events, pundits have noted that populist policies
threaten the neo-liberal world order in place since World War II, and usher dan-
gerous tension and discord into international relations (Amaro, 2017). If they are
right, the current wave of populism could well constitute a movement of histori-
cal importance. But what exactly is populism? What is the secret of its appeal?
The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to understanding this emerging phe-
nomenon and the social psychological dynamic that underlies it.

Defining Populism
The term populism refers to a superficial (“thin”) ideology (Mudde, 2004; see
also Crano & Gaffney, this volume) depicting a major societal rift between the
 Why Populism Attracts 159

people and an elite. The populist narrative is heavily value-laden. Influenced by

nineteenth-century Romanticism, it portrays “the people” (folk) in highly com-
plementary terms as pure, kind, and trusting (even if naïve). The elites, in contrast,
are depicted as exploitative, corrupt, and immoral. They are alleged to oppress
the people and do them harm. The populist narrative thus challenges the people
to rise against the elites and depose them in the interest of justice and fairness.
Typically, populism addresses a circumscribed social category: a nation, an
ethnicity, or a religion. The “people” are members of that category: denizens of
a state, co-ethnics, or fellow believers. The “elites”, in contrast, are characterized
variously in different populist narratives: in the American context, the “Washing-
ton establishment” has long been the evil elite of choice, the “swamp” that Trump
promised to drain. In other populist rhetoric, the despised elites are variously:
“the federal government”, the “military-industrial complex”, “the capitalists”,
“the big banks”, “East Coast intellectuals”, and so on (Smith, 2017; see also Feld-
man; Marcus; and Huddy & Del Ponte, this volume).
A typical populist narrative is rabble-rousing. It alleges betrayal of the people
by the elites (Rooduijn, 2015). After all, any form of government (including
monarchy) is expected to reliably shepherd its “flock”, protect it, and provide for its
needs. The failure to do so is to renege on the government’s sacred mission, and a
reason for its removal, and replacement, peacefully or otherwise (Fournier, 2016).

The Roots of Populism

A major mystery of populism that scholars have attempted to solve is the issue of
its root causes. The key question in this regard has been what attracts individuals
to populist ideologies and why. And the hypotheses put forth in this regard, cen-
tered predominantly on frustrations and grievances of individuals self-identified
as the “people” and viewing the elites as their detractors, the causes of their woes.
Frequently mentioned woes included economic difficulties, political resentment,
ethnic rivalries, the refugee crisis, and geopolitical tensions. For example, Spruyt,
Keppens, and Van Droogenbroeck (2016) found that populist attitudes were
related to a discontent fueled by perceived injustice (i.e., relative deprivation)
and fast cultural changes that threatened individuals’ place in society (see also
Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup; and Ditto & Rodriguez, this volume). Mughan and
Paxton (2006) argued that support for populism is driven by anti-immigrant sen-
timents fanned by political propaganda. In this vein, Charitopoulou and García-
Manglano (2018) found that support for the populist radical right is more likely
to occur in municipalities with a moderate proportion of foreigners, and particu-
larly of certain stigmatized minorities that presumably threaten the status of the
original majorities. Support for anti-immigration policies was seen to stem from
individuals’ fears of economic displacement (Mughan, Bean, & McAllister, 2003),
and the cultural concerns related to the potential threat that immigrants might
pose for long-established cultural identities.
160 Arie W. Kruglanski et al.

A threat to cultural identity is the centerpiece of Inglehart and Norris’ (2016)

theory of populism as a reaction to progressive value change, such as cosmopoli-
tanism and multiculturalism (Inglehart & Norris, 2016). According to this logic,
members of once dominant social groups (e.g., whites) may feel threatened by a
value shift that belittles their once elevated social status, and hence rally in sup-
port of a traditionalism that promises to reverse the trend and restore their former
“greatness” (Zakaria, 2016).
Closely related to the status threat is the perceived danger to people’s eco-
nomic welfare (Inglehart & Norris, 2016) that may fuel populism. In support of
this notion, radical right support in Western Europe was significantly stronger
among individuals with economic grievances (i.e., unemployed and blue-collar
workers). According to the economist Thomas Piketty (2014), despite the overall
economic growth of Western countries, only a small percentage of the population
has benefited from it, resulting in a growing economic inequality between the
socio-economic classes. The rising inequality has exacerbated the rift between
“winners” and “losers”, and the sense of economic insecurity and relative depri-
vation among the latter. According to Fukuyama (2018), these fueled the politics
of resentment and the demand for recognition. On a related note, scholars have
argued that the rise of populism stems from citizens feeling ignored by politi-
cians and unhappy about the state of politics in their country (e.g., Arzheimer,
2009; Lubbers, Gijsberts, & Scheepers, 2002). In short, populism has been stud-
ied and explained in reference to factors related to cultural, economic, or political
frustrations.
Though insightful and informative, the studies of populism so far have paid
rather scant attention to features that make the populist narratives attractive to frus-
trated individuals. Relatedly, given the diversity of frustrations assumed to drive
individuals to populism, questions arise: (1) why the specific grievances men-
tioned in the literature contributed to populism in particular and whether their
relation to populism is necessary and inevitable, and (2) whether these grievances
share a common denominator. In the present chapter, we explore these matters.

The Promise of Populism: On Certainty and Dignity

Extensive research literature reveals that relative deprivation, loss of status, and
economic pressures evoke negative feelings (e.g., Osborne, Smith, & Huo, 2012;
Walker, 1999) and motivate people to action (e.g., Grant, 2008; Grasso & Giugni,
2016). The deeper questions being begged are why those particular grievances are
frustrating and why populism is a way of addressing those frustrations.

Basic Human Needs

We assume that humans have a set of basic needs and that all their goals are
ultimately oriented toward those needs’ satisfaction (see also Bar-Tal & Magal,
 Why Populism Attracts 161

this volume). Of course, the specific goals being pursued depend on the cultural
context and on the circumstances. For instance, in a modern urban context,
an attempt to gratify hunger may be through booking a table at a restaurant or
ordering in, whereas in a hunter–gatherer society an attempt to gratify hunger
may take the form of embarking on a hunt. The notion that humans have a
fixed set of universal needs has had a long and storied past in psychology and
the life sciences. Whereas Cannon (1932) famously focused on basic biological
functions that humans and other living organisms seek to gratify, psychological
theorists also posited a set of psychogenic needs considered basic and universal
(e.g., Deci & Ryan, 2000; Freud, 1920/1966; Fiske, 2010; Higgins, 2012; Kurtz,
1956; Maslow, 1943). In this vein, Deci and Ryan (2000) proposed that compe-
tence, autonomy, and relatedness constitute the universal psychogenic needs, and
obtained evidence for their operation; Higgins (2012) proposed that the needs
for truth, value, and control are basic. And Fiske (2010) introduced a BUC(k)ET
of fundamental needs (Belonging, Understanding, Controlling, Enhancing, and
Trusting, etc.).
The assumption of basic human needs that underlie all possible human goals
raises the question of what basic needs are involved in populism and make its
narrative so appealing to millions around the world. And our hypothesis in this
regard is that the two basic needs that make populism appealing are the needs
for certainty and for dignity, or what we have called elsewhere the need for cogni-
tive closure and need for significance respectively (e.g., Kruglanski & Webster, 1996;
Kruglanski, 2004; Kruglanski et al., 2009, 2013, 2014, 2017). The latter com-
prises individual significance rooted in one’s personal failures and successes, and
collective significance rooted in the failures and successes of one’s social group ( Jasko
et al., 2020).
There are several reasons why we deem the needs for certainty and for signifi-
cance of such an overriding importance in reference to populism. Firstly, these
needs are truly “basic” in the sense that they are implicit in most major classifi-
cations of psychogenic needs. For instance, Maslow’s (1943) famous taxonomy
contains the needs for self-esteem and confidence, Fiske’s scheme contains self-
enhancement and understanding, and Higgins’ (2012) contains value (includ-
ing status and prestige) and truth, all corresponding one way or the other to
the significance and certainty needs, whereas Deci and Ryan’s (2000) emphasis
on competence and autonomy seem to tap the personal significance dimension
primarily.1
Secondly, these two needs capture most of the concerns enumerated by
scholars as sources of grievance and frustration assumed to drive individuals to
populism. For instance, the sweeping cultural change that Inglehart and Norris
(2016) highlighted in their work is readily seen to echo a disquieting uncertainty
that may fuel the presently postulated quest for certainty. The economic threats
and threats to status and positive identity typically invoked by populism scholars
(e.g., Fukuyama, 2018; Piketty, 2014; Spruyt et al., 2016), as well as the notion
162 Arie W. Kruglanski et al.

of relative deprivation (Gurr, 1970; Pettigrew, 2015), readily recall the presently
postulated need for personal significance and mattering that economic and cul-
tural threats jeopardize. In other words, the quest for significance is intended
here as a broader term that addresses the common denominator of multiple prior
motivational constructs (including also the need for achievement, competence,
and self-affirmation among others).
Thirdly, the populist narratives in their various versions, across cultures and
historical periods, exhibit the same universal structure: (1) they are simple
and unqualified and hence certainty promoting, and (2) they offer empowerment
and promise a way to significance and dignity (see also Fiedler, this volume).
Typically, such narratives are Manichean in nature; they portray the good folk
exploited by the evil elite and call for political action that would overthrow the
elite and replace it at the societal steering wheel (see also Krekó, this volume).
In the research described in what follows, therefore, we studied the hypothesized
effects of those needs on supporters of populist parties in the United States and
Italy. Before describing our specific studies, it may be well to provide some back-
ground concerning populism in these two cultural milieus.

Populism in the U.S. and Italy

The U.S.
Populism in the United States can be roughly divided between left-wing and right-
wing variants; these vary according to how each defines the principal opponent of
the people. For the left-wing populists, the foes are the economic elites, while for
the right-wing populists the foes are non-white others and the state itself.
The left leaning variant of American populism harks back to the nineteenth-
century People’s Party, and the populist politics in the American South in early
twentieth century. These include prominently Louisiana Governor Huey Long,
whose program “Share Our Wealth” aimed at curtailing the wealth of the very
rich and redistributing it to the poor, and it includes elements of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s New Deal.
From the mid-twentieth century onward, American populism has been a far
more potent force on the political right than on the left. In the 1960s and 1970s,
as civil rights movements roiled against white racism, patriarchy, and homopho-
bia, opportunities opened for a right-wing populism that demonized the state,
its values, and its programs (Self, 2012). Amid the social rifts of the 1960s, the
arch-segregationist Alabama governor, George Wallace, ran for president in 1968
and offered an explicitly racist political agenda. His rhetoric proved popular not
just in the white South, but also among white working- and middle-class voters
in the Northeast, Midwest, and West (Carter, 1996).
The 1968 Republican presidential nominee, Richard Nixon, used the terms
Silent Majority, Forgotten Americans, and Middle America to describe an
 Why Populism Attracts 163

aggravated white majority squeezed by the poor below and the government elites
above (Lowndes, 2008). With some modifications, this rhetoric was next used by
several Republican leaders and pundits, such as Ronald Reagan, George H. W.
Bush, and Pat Buchanan. The Great Recession of 2008 spawned the Tea Party
movement, driven first and foremost by a concern to stave off encroaching state
power over the lives of individuals. The movement has pushed Republicans in
Congress past their comfort zone to radically reduce spending on programs for
the poor as well as on middle-class entitlements such as Medicare and Social
Security.
Although from the 1960s onward U.S. populism was rightward leaning, there
have been populist phenomena on the left as well. Jesse Jackson’s presidential
campaigns in 1984 and 1988 sought to revive an older economic rhetoric of pop-
ulism and link it to emergent struggles for racial equality. Ultimately, however,
he was unable to generate sufficient momentum for his campaign beyond the
Democratic primaries. Leftist populism emerged again in the wake of the 2008
recession, in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement (Gould-Wartofsky,
2015). In promoting extralegal direct action in the heart of New York’s financial
district, this movement came to embody the populist notion of people against
the (financial) elites. Much like the Tea Party, the Occupy Wall Street movement
was short-lived, though it likely inspired the recent populist campaigns of Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (in 2016 and 2020). The Tea Party enjoyed great
popularity among Republican voters from 2008 onwards, paving the way for
radical candidates such as Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in the 2016 GOP prima-
ries (Skocpol & Williamson, 2016) and catapulting Donald Trump to presidency
2016.
It is also noteworthy in this context to acknowledge that the United States’
very emergence as a nation rode a tide of “populism” against the British elite. As
envisioned by the Founders, the American government was meant to represent
the rule “of the people, for the people, and by the people” (Lincoln, 1863).
Yet, in recent decades, trust in U.S. institutions has eroded substantially (Putnam,
1996), the income chasm has grown into an abyss, and the American Dream is
increasingly looking like an unattainable fantasy instead of a feasible reality. These
circumstances mobilized American voters to support elite-bashing populisms
touted by Sanders and Trump, and commonly (albeit from opposing perspectives)
decrying the economic and/or political ruling classes.

Italy
Contemporary Italian populism begins with the formation of the Northern
League in 1991. Its origins lay in regional tensions regarding both political rep-
resentation and economic differences between the south and the so-called Indus-
trial Triangle (i.e., Genoa, Milan, and Turin). Under Umberto Bossi’s leadership,
the party drew a clear distinction between the hardworking people of the north
164 Arie W. Kruglanski et al.

and the lazy southerners allegedly supported by corrupt elites. The Northern
League’s success coincided with, and contributed to, the fall of the First Repub-
lic: in the early 1990s, the “Lega”, as it is known, became one of the most impor-
tant parties in northern Italy; for the 1994 elections, it formed an alliance with
Berlusconi’s populist party Forza Italia and, together with the Movimento Sociale
Italiano (MSI) (which soon after the elections became the Alleanza Nazionale—
AN), entered into Berlusconi’s first center-right government.
Berlusconi entered the political stage with a market-liberal, anti-left platform
that appealed to many “hardworking, upstanding” people; his rhetoric built
on but also reacted to and expanded the populism of the Lega. In subsequent
years (1994–2011), both populist parties carved their niches vis-à-vis each other,
mutating into two forms of populism: Berlusconi’s market-based center-right
populism, which evolved into a mix of “anti-taxism” combined with animos-
ity for the anti-Mafia justices, fused, perhaps ironically, with state spending (for
example, on pensions and infrastructure). In reaction, the Northern League (now
“League”) retreated into its regional strongholds and began more clearly to com-
bine its regionalism with a radical right ideology. With the more recent leader-
ship of Matteo Salvini, the League reaches an expansion of consensus throughout
the national territory, losing its regionalist characterization and accentuating its
xenophobic orientation (Albertazzi, Giovannini, & Seddone, 2018). The final
step in the process of the mutating populism took place with arrival of the Five
Star Movement (M5S) in 2009. Ironically, M5S was in part a reaction to the
continued presence of populism in power, that is, the center-right coalition of
Berlusconi and Bossi (2001–2006 and 2008–2011), as well as the eventual fall of
the 2011 Berlusconi government and the formation of the Mario Monti tech-
nocratic cabinet.
M5S, a populist libertarian force, combines an anti-elitist discourse and pro-
environmentalism with left-wing economics (that is, opposition to “multination-
als”), right-wing security, and anti-immigration policies (Pirro, 2018). In the
case of the M5S, its leader Beppe Grillo juxtaposes the notion of the “pure and
honest Italian citizen” with the “corrupt Italian political class” and in particu-
lar the “mainstream” political parties and media. The M5S political orientation
resulted in its joining forces with the right-wing populist League in forming
a new government following the elections results of 2018, and soon after as a
response to the governmental crisis of 2019, with the main democratic party
(Partito Democratico).

The Present Research

We carried out two correlational studies, one in the U.S. and one in Italy, in order
to investigate the role of the need for cognitive closure and the quest for signifi-
cance in motivating people’s support for populist leaders and populist parties. The
 Why Populism Attracts 165

two studies included similar measures, appropriately translated into Italian for the
Italian sample.

Study 1: The U.S.

Sample
We surveyed 415 Mturkers residing in the US in November 2018 at the time of
the midterm elections (for details, see Molinario, Jasko, Kruglanski, Sensales, & di
Cicco, 2020). Our survey included measures of individual and collective need for
significance, basic needs (in economic and security realms), the need for closure,
cultural threat, political attitudes (liberal vs. conservative), and voting preferences
(i.e., voting for Trump or for Clinton in the 2016 elections). After excluding 77
participants for data quality reasons, the sample was composed of 338 participants
(207 males [61.2%] and 130 females, 1 other; Minage = 19, Maxage = 72, Mage =
35.32, SDage = 10.75), of which 47.6% self-identified as Clinton voters or sup-
porters (n = 161) and 36.4% as Trump voters or supporters (n = 123); 16% of our
sample did not respond to the political identification question.
We found that the Trump and Clinton voters did not differ on education, age,
employment status, or gender. The Clinton voters reported significantly lower
socio-economic status (SES) than the Trump voters, yet no significant difference
in actual household income. Finally, Trump and Clinton voters did not differ
significantly on their degree of populism.
Several differences between the Trump and Clinton voters are noteworthy. Spe-
cifically, Clinton voters reported a significantly higher quest for individual significance
than did the Trump voters, and a significantly lower quest for collective significance.
Furthermore, Clinton voters reported a significantly higher level of economic secu-
rity needs, and safety needs, yet a significantly lower need for cognitive closure than
Trump voters, as well as significantly lower degree of cultural threat than Trump voters.
In a multiple regression, we regressed populist attitudes (Akkerman, Mudde, &
Zaslove, 2014) on the different predictor variables described earlier. The only fac-
tors that exhibited significant relations with populist attitudes were individual quest
for significance and need for closure. Specifically, the higher the respondents’ quest for
individual significance, the stronger was their support for populism; similarly, the
higher respondents’ need for closure, the higher was their support for populism.
We also found an interaction between collective quest for significance (i.e., on behalf
of Americans in general) and voting preference. The higher the quest for collec-
tive significance, the stronger the tendency to support populism for Trump sup-
porters but not for Clinton supporters.
These results are interesting in several respects. First and foremost, the find-
ings suggest that when the needs for significance and cognitive closure are con-
trolled for, neither cultural threat, economic threat, nor the threat to personal safety
166 Arie W. Kruglanski et al.

predict populism. However, when all the latter variables are controlled for, the need
for closure and the quest for individual significance are still significantly related to
populism, which suggests that these two motivations may have been responsible, in
part, for prior results that reported the effects of cultural (Inglehart & Norris, 2016)
and economic (e.g., Mughan et al., 2003) factors as drivers of populism.
To probe this possibility further, we conducted two parallel mediation analy-
ses. In the first we included basic economic needs as a predictor variable, the need
for closure, the quest for individual significance, and the quest for collective sig-
nificance (which is of particular interest only in Trump supporters) as mediators,
and populist attitudes as the dependent variable. In Clinton supporters we found
a significant indirect effect of economic needs, but only through quest for indi-
vidual significance. In Trump supporters, we found a significant indirect effect of
economic needs only through the quest for collective significance.
In the second mediation analysis, we included cultural threat as a predictor
variable. In Clinton supporters we found significant indirect effects of cultural
threat only through individual quest for significance and need for closure. In
Trump supporters we found significant indirect effects of cultural threat through
need for closure and collective quest for significance.

Study 2: Italy

Sample
We surveyed a sample of 1044 individuals from the general Italian population
in April 2019 (April 9–30). We used a snowball sampling method approaching
students at Sapienza University of Rome at first and asking them to involve other
people in the research. The measures included in our survey were similar to
those we used in the U.S. study described earlier. They comprised the quest for
individual significance, for collective significance, the need for closure, populist
attitudes, and cultural threat.
After excluding three participants who turned out to be underage, the sample
was composed of 1041 participants (542 females [52%] and 496 males, and three
missing values; Minage = 18, Maxage = 70, Mage = 35.11, SDage = 14.68). Of the
sample, 20.3% self-identified as voters for the Democratic Party (PD) (n = 212),
28.4% as voters for the Five Stars Movement (Five Stars) (n = 296), and 11% as
voters for the League (Lega) (n = 114). Five Stars voters and Lega voters turned
out to have about the same educational level, which was significantly lower than
that of PD voters. Five Stars voters, but not the Lega voters, also reported a lower
SES than PD voters. We found no systematic differences in employment status
between voters for the three parties, nor was there an association between age,
gender, or party preference.
As expected, PD voters reported lower populist attitudes than Five Stars vot-
ers and Lega voters. In turn, Lega voters reported more populist attitudes than
 Why Populism Attracts 167

the Five Stars voters. The three groups did not differ in their quest for individual
significance, but they did differ in their quest for collective significance: PD vot-
ers were significantly lower on the quest for collective significance than Five Stars
voters, with Lega voters reporting an even higher level of the quest for collective
significance level than Five Stars movement voters.
As concerns safety and economic needs, PD voters reported a lower need for
safety than Five Stars voters and Lega voters, while these two did not differ on
their level of safety needs. Again, PD voters reported a lower need of economic
security than Five Stars supporters, with the Lega voters occupying an intermedi-
ate position between these two.
Also, the three groups of voters did differ significantly on their need for clo-
sure. Specifically, PD voters and Five Stars voters were lower on this need than the
Lega voters. Finally, there were differences in the level of perceived cultural threat
between the groups, such that Lega voters were significantly higher on perceived
cultural threat than PD voters and Five Stars voters.

Multiple Regression
A multiple regression analysis performed on the data yielded that the quest for
individual significance, for collective significance, and need for closure were sig-
nificant predictors of populist attitudes. However, none of the interaction terms
comparing the effects of these variables across our three groups of respondents
were significant.
Safety needs, economic needs, and political orientation did not contribute
to the model. In contrast, we found a significant effect of cultural threat and
SES on populist attitudes. Five Stars and Lega supporters evinced no significant
effect on populism of the cultural threat, while its effect was significant among
PD supporters. Specifically, the higher the level of cultural threat perceived by
PD supporters, the higher their level of populist attitudes. Moreover, the effect
of perceived SES was not significant among Five Stars and Lega voters, while it
was significant among PD supporters: the higher their reported SES, the lower
their populism.
In important respects, the results of Study 2 are consistent with those of Study
1. As in Study 1, despite some differences across groups of voters, quest for indi-
vidual significance, quest for collective significance, and need for cognitive closure
mediated the effect on populism of cultural threat and economic grievances. Spe-
cifically, similarly to what we found in Clinton supporters, PD supporters showed
an indirect effect of economic needs mediated only through quest for individual
significance. In contrast, Five Stars supporters showed a significant indirect effect
of economic needs only through individual significance and need for closure.
Finally, Lega supporters showed a significant indirect effect of economic needs
only though individual quest for significance. With regard to cultural threat, and
similar to the results for Trump supporters, both Five Stars and Lega supporters
168 Arie W. Kruglanski et al.

(but not PD supporters) exhibited significant indirect effects of cultural threat

mediated through need for closure and quest for collective significance, but not
through quest for individual significance.
There were also some interesting differences between the Italian and the
American contexts. Unlike the U.S. results, where the quest for collective sig-
nificance was related to populism for one political group (Trump voters) but not
another political group (Clinton voters), in Italy it was related to populism for all
groups of voters. Populist attitudes in the Italian PD supporters are also explained
positively by perceived cultural threat and inversely by individuals’ SES. But our
central and most important finding is that despite the considerable differences in
context, the two presently postulated needs, namely for closure and significance,
consistently predicted populism in both the U.S. and Italy.

General Discussion
Populism constitutes a societal phenomenon with significant political implica-
tions. For that reason, it has been of special interest to social scientists (econo-
mists, sociologists, and political scientists) who study macro level movements and
developments. But there is a sense in which populism is rooted in individual
decisions and preferences, so the ultimate answer to its root causes must be sought
in individual psychology. As John Stuart Mill famously asserted, “all phenomena
of society are phenomena of human nature”.2 This does not mean that economic,
safety, and cultural threats do not matter. There is strong evidence, in fact, that
they do. But they do, we submit, through their activation of basic psychological
needs. After all, our choices, political or otherwise, are motivated, so the question
is what human motivations are activated by economic or cultural threats often
invoked as explanations of populism (e.g., Inglehart & Norris, 2016).
We presently identified two such individual motivations that macro level
trends and developments may activate: the need for certainty and closure, and the
need for significance and mattering. The need for certainty and closure is aroused
by significant change that leaves individuals confused in face of the unknown; the
change promoted by the 2008 recession, by globalization trends, by the “refugee
crisis” and the unprecedented wave of immigration that has been transforming
the demographics of societies worldwide. The quest for significance is activated
by actual or expected loss of significance that the societal changes portend, being
left behind by forces of globalization, having one’s cultural identity as descendant
of a time-honored tradition compromised by “hordes” of foreigners who threaten
to erase that heritage and create new cultures and religions, making one feel like
a stranger in one’s own land (see also Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume).
We therefore argued that the reason that populist narratives have such traction
with publics these days is that they respond to these two basic needs (see also
Bar-Tal & Magal; and Gelfand & Lorente, this volume). And they do so by being
simplistic and dichotomous (Manichean), as well as significance-offering and
 Why Populism Attracts 169

empowering (see also Krekó, this volume). We assumed further that even though
the different populisms may differ from each other in their contents (e.g., in iden-
tification of the specific grievances and the specific elites assumed responsible for
the grievances), they fundamentally reveal an identical core dynamic describable
in terms of the resonance to uncertainty and disempowerment (significance loss)
as earlier described. To test these ideas, we carried out two studies with diverse
populations in which populism was manifest, namely the U.S. and Italy.
Despite the considerable differences separating the American and the Italian
cultural contexts, and their different brands of populism, our psychological inves-
tigation revealed fundamental similarities between these two. Consistent with our
argument, in both cases the need for cognitive closure (that taps the desire for
certainty) as well as the quest for significance were positively related to populism.
In fact, they eclipsed the previously touted relations to populism of economic
needs and cultural threat.
In other words, when all these variables are taken into account, the more
traditional factors used to explain populism, such as economic grievances and
cultural threat, turned out to have nonsignificant impact on populist attitudes.
Importantly, effects of cultural threat and economic needs on populism were indi-
rect and mediated by the quest for individual significance and need for closure.
Beyond these fundamental similarities related to the role of the closure and
significance motivations, our studies found some other interesting differences
and similarities within the U.S. and Italian samples. To begin with the Ameri-
can sample, Clinton and Trump voters exhibited the same degree of populism.
However, note also that in this particular sample the Clinton voters reported a
lower SES than the Trump voters. Nonetheless, this difference remains nonsig-
nificant when controlling for SES. Less surprising is the fact that Clinton voters
experienced a less pronounced need for closure and a less pronounced sense of
cultural threat than did Trump voters. Indeed, a meta-analysis conducted over
five decades of research on conservatives and liberals ( Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, &
Sulloway, 2003) found that conservatives (likely to be overrepresented among
Trump voters) experience higher need for closure and higher degree of threat
than do liberals (likely to be overrepresented among Clinton voters; see also Feld-
man, this volume).
It is also of interest that the Clinton voters exhibited a higher degree of the
quest for individual significance and a lower degree of the quest for collective
significance than the Trump voters. One might think that this is related to the
fact that the Clinton voters exhibited a lower need for cognitive closure than the
Trump voters, and the need for cognitive closure is known to be related to group
centrism (Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, & De Grada, 2006), yet the differences
in quest for collective significance remained after controlling for the need for
closure. In addition, Trump’s slogan of “Make America Great Again” may evoke
strong nationalist feelings, raising his voters’ quest for collective significance. The
fact that the Clinton voters exhibited a higher level of the individual quest for
170 Arie W. Kruglanski et al.

significance than the Trump voters could reflect their greater degree of liberal-
ism, and the fact that liberals subscribe more to individual moralities (of avoiding
harm and providing care, as well as fairness and reciprocity) whereas conservatives
also endorse such collectivist moralities as ingroup loyalty, respect for authority,
and purity/sanctity (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; see also Cooper & Avery,
this volume).
The Italian sample too yielded interesting findings. First, recall that the PD
voters who were less populist than the Five Stars voters and the Lega voters had a
higher education level and higher SES more generally than voters for the remain-
ing two parties. These findings are consistent with the notion that less educated
and less economically secure individuals feel more significance-deprived and are
more confused by societal change than their more educated and economically
secure counterparts. Also of interest, albeit unsurprising, is the finding that the
PD voters as well as the Five Stars voters were lower on the need for closure than
the Lega voters. Given that the PD voters were more educated and of higher
SES than the Lega voters, for instance, implies that the upheaval and change
that societies have been undergoing recently was less confusing and frightening
for the PD voters and (to some extent) for the Five Stars voters than it was for
the Lega voters. Overall, it appears that the Five Stars voters are closer to the
PD voters than the Lega voters in several respects, such as their relatively high
SES, low need for closure, and lower quest for collective significance. Finally, it
is of interest that the effect on populism of SES was not significant among Five
Stars and Lega voters, while it was significant and inversely related to populism
among the PD supporters. Possibly, the Lega and Five Stars voters’ support for
populism derived from threats to significance of other than an economic nature,
possibly stemming from the threat to cultural identity highlighted by Inglehart
and Norris (2016). These questions could be probed more specifically in subse-
quent research.
In summary, the present research carried out across different cultural con-
texts found support for our hypotheses that the appeal of populism is predomi-
nantly driven by two basic motivations, that for certainty and coherence and
that for personal significance. These two motivations could well be activated
in large masses of people in times of substantial global change that induces
uncertainty in people’s minds as coupled with threats to their significance
and mattering in society. The dangers of populism are that it may breed auto­
cracy, militancy, and a rigid state of mind (see also Feldman, this volume).
The harrowing 1930s and 1940s of the last century bear terrifying witness to
the havoc that unchecked populism can unleash. We must not repeat history’s
mistakes. We must immunize ourselves against populism’s perfidious “siren
call”. Understanding the psychological dynamics of populism should enable
us to avoid it and seek better solutions to problems of our time. Attention to
people’s motivation for closure and significance should play an important role
in such solutions.
 Why Populism Attracts 171

Notes
1. It is noteworthy that the need for significance and dignity was highlighted also by
major social philosophers, including Aristotle (in his notion of polis that gives indi-
viduals recognition) as well as Fichte Hegel and their followers (cf. Hegel, 1807/1967;
Honneth, 1996; Williams, 1992).
2. Mill (1843). A System of Logic, p. VI.

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10
A NON-POPULIST
PERSPECTIVE ON POPULISM IN
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Klaus Fiedler

Introduction
Because the term “populism” has many different meanings, most of which assign
a positive role to the people (Latin: populus), it is essential to explain the pejora-
tive definition adopted in the present volume. As in the recent political discourse
in the media, the word populism is used almost interchangeably with demagogy,
characterizing the communication style of opinion leaders “who present overly
simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with
opportunism,” much like “politicians who seek to please voters without rational
consideration as to the best course of action” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Populism; see also Vallacher and Fennell, this volume).
In this chapter, I will argue that populism can also be found in science, in sci-
entists’ interaction style in the literature, in conferences, and in the peer-reviewing
process. As in politics, the rules of conduct that dominate the scientific culture
are increasingly dominated by compliance norms that favor simplistic answers
to complex questions, emotionalized debates about normal phenomena, payoff
systems that trigger opportunistic action, and a lack of rational consideration con-
cerning good practices. However, while the dangers and side effects of populist
politics are commonly recognized and counter-measures have become the focus
of discussion in the media, the impact of populism on science is a largely ignored
problem. Elucidating part of this problem is the aim of the present chapter.
Major sections will be devoted to memorable manifestations of populism in
contemporary behavioral science: (a) the continued focus on significance-testing
and the concomitant neglect of higher-order methodology, (b) the discourse on
questionable research practices, (c) ineffective debunking and continued beliefs
in scientific myths, and (d) the active role, and responsibility, of the scientific
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 175

community. In discussing these issues with reference to recent empirical evi-

dence, I deliberately violate the pragmatic rule that populism cannot be attributed
to oneself. My critical appraisal of populism in science, however, is motivated
by the conviction that scientists are obliged to play a pioneer role in overcom-
ing populist structures, because populism undermines the trust in science and its
reputation in political, economic, ecological, and legal settings.

Diagnosing Populism in Scientists

and Scientific Organizations
Behavioral scientists have discovered populism as a challenging topic of research,
and as a major threat to rationality and dignity of human behavior. A growing lit-
erature on debunking is concerned with the power of scientific interventions and
persuasive campaigns to correct or undo erroneous beliefs and irrational influ-
ences (Chan, Jones, Hall Jamieson, & Albarracín, 2017; Lewandowsky, Ecker,
Seifert, Schwarz, & Cook, 2012). Decision researchers are concerned with dra-
matic costs of dread risk and irrational risk assessment (Gigerenzer, 2004). Super-
stition and para-psychological findings have been the focus of scientific debates,
and a plethora of new evidence testifies to the danger and the criminal potential
of sentiments and emotions distributed and perpetuated in the new media.
However, despite this scientific interest in noting and curing populist tenden-
cies, some self-critical contemplation reveals that the scientific endeavor itself is
replete with populist fashions and habits. How is this possible? How can scientists
be motivated to combat populism and ridicule populist strategies employed by
politicians and opinion leaders, and at the same time be deeply entrenched in
similar populist habits? How can we explain that rational scientists do not spon-
taneously correct for the disease? And, how could this embarrassing weakness
in scientific measures and procedures be tackled and overcome in the future,
granting that evidence-based politics and scientifically grounded interventions are
sorely needed in the 21st century?

The Significance-Testing Myth

Almost three decades ago, Jacob Cohen (1994) wrote, in a frequently cited,
uncontested article,

after 4 decades of severe criticism, the ritual of null hypothesis significance

testing (mechanical dichotomous decisions around a sacred .05 criterion)
still persists . . . including near universal misinterpretation of p as the prob-
ability that H₀ is false, the misinterpretation that its complement is the
probability of successful replication, and the mistaken assumption that if
one rejects H₀ one thereby affirms the theory that led to the test.
(p. 997)
176 Klaus Fiedler

The categorization of this ritual as irrational and unwarranted has been supported
and proven to be correct by many leading scholars (Krueger, 2001; Lykken, 1968;
Trafimow, 2019a), and to the best of my knowledge there has been no serious
attempt to prove that these critiques are mistaken and to defend the logical foun-
dation of statistical significance testing.
Nevertheless, statistical significance continues to be treated as the most
important means of scientific quality control. It affords the ultimate criterion to
decide whether a research report lives up to the ambitious standards of highly
selective journals, whether a replication was successful (Camerer et al., 2018;
OSC, 2015), whether a political, economic, or medical intervention is justi-
fied, and whether a diagnostic instrument (like a polygraph lie detector) can be
employed (Patrick & Iacono, 1991). The overall balance of significant results
is certainly a chief criterion for assigning to scientists an award, a grant, or a
tenured position.
The fundamental question here is whether significance testing can be treated as
a myth comparable to other populism topics, such as negation of climate change
or of the German Nazi regime, targets of conspiracy theories (Douglas & Sutton,
2018), or continued trust in polygraph testing using the control-question tech-
nique (Iacono & Ben-Shakhar, 2019). To answer this question, keep the defining
features provided at the outset in mind. Like those classical example ideologies,
significance testing offers a simplified solution to a complex and tricky inference
problem. It is laden with enormous emotional reactions to empirical outcomes
(as pointed out in the next section) and sometimes with a jargon that almost
criminalizes researcher behavior; it instigates opportunistic strategies aimed at
exceeding hypocritical significance thresholds; and it reflects a conspicuous reluc-
tance to engage in rational considerations. Arguably, then, significance testing can
well be subsumed under the working definition.
To repeat, there is little controversy about Cohen’s and many others’ skeptical
notes on significance testing. Just like the deterministic statement If p, then q does
not exclude that q may also be brought about by other causal influences than p,
there can be no doubt that, in a multi-causal world, the hypothesis H1: If ΔX,
then ΔY does not exclude that an effect in ΔY can reflect many other causal influ-
ences ΔA, ΔB, ΔC, etc. Observing or not observing ΔY does not tell us anything
about whether an isolated influence ΔX was at work (H1) or not (H0). If ΔY is not
observed, it is possible that counteracting influences of other causes, ΔA, ΔB, ΔC
etc., overshadowed ΔX. Likewise, a significant effect in ΔY may be due not to ΔX
but to the influence of alternative causes ΔA, ΔB, ΔC, etc., providing no cogent
reason to refute the H0 assumption.
For example, an anchoring effect causing a planning fallacy (i.e., underesti-
mation of project costs when starting estimation from a zero anchor) may be
overshadowed by an unpacking effect (i.e., decomposing total costs into several
component costs; Kruger & Evans, 2004), which reflects a completely different
causal mechanism. An apparent increase in altruistic behavior may in fact reflect
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 177

an egoistic motive to repair one’s negative mood (Schaller & Cialdini, 1988). Or,
to provide an example from elementary physics, a balloon may rise up into the
sky (reflecting the causal influence of the specific weight of the gas) even though
the uncontested gravitation law predicts that all objects lighter than the earth will
fall down to the ground.
Because of this fundamental problem of the multi-causal world, in which all
real causes are merely sufficient and never necessary, backward inferences from
data to the validity or likelihood of hypotheses, whether H0 or H1, must be elu-
sive. Such a reverse inference is unwarranted regardless of the sample size or the
measurement error in the data. The rationale of a significance test, or a power
analysis (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007), does not tell us anything about
p(H|D). These models are based on assumptions about p(D|H), setting the false-
positive rate of a significant finding D in spite of H0 to α and the hit rate of a
significant finding D given H1 to 1−β. However, crucially, these models do not
refer to the reverse conditionals p(H|D). They only hold under the simplifying
ceteris paribus assumption that no other causal factor can affect the dependent vari-
able than the focal causal factor specified in a hypothesis at hand. If other causal
influences are allowed to overshadow or there is variation in the dependent vari-
able, the alleged α and β probabilities are no longer valid. The notion of precise
α and β is self-deceptive (Fiedler, 2020).1
To illustrate this truism, engage in the following thought experiment,
which strikes me as so obvious that many researchers ought to run it spontane-
ously. Imagine, you want to demonstrate an uncontested H1, based on a well-
established causal principle, such as the impact of time discounting. Providing
people a choice between an outcome of $4.00 right now and $5.50 in three
days, a time-discounting effect is evident in many people preferring a lower but
sooner to a higher but delayed outcome. To ensure that this basic phenomenon
is borne out at sufficient statistical power 1−β, and to minimize the prob-
ability α that the observed strength of time discounting effects only reflects a
false positive error, you resort to the commonly used statistical tools to control
α and β. But now imagine that in the last moment, your co-authors suggest
various modifications in design and procedure: moving from the lab to Mturk,
increasing or decreasing participant payment, changing the context of other
studies in the session, introducing new instructions and cover stories, chang-
ing the format of the choice task, inducing depressed versus elated mood, and
many other changes that do not affect standard estimates of α and β. Would you
really believe that the 1−β probability of corroborating a true H1 or the false-
positive rate α of a significant result given H0 is unaffected by all these changes
in research design?
The only reasonable and honest answer to all these leading questions is obvi-
ously negative, as evident in the so-called hidden-zero effect (Magen, Dweck, &
Gross, 2008) showing that time discounting disappears or is greatly reduced when
a modified stimulus format reminds participants that $4.00 now comes along with
178 Klaus Fiedler

$0.00 in three days and that $5.50 in three days comes along with $0.00 now.
The research literature provides countless other demonstrations of this so-called
Quine-Deheme problem (Earp & Trafimow, 2015), that is, of the truism that
every empirical test confounds the theoretical hypothesis with an operational
setting. It is extremely hard to distinguish the impact of the hypothesis from the
impact of the auxiliary assumptions underlying the operational setup (Trafimow,
2019b).
To repeat, behavioral researchers must understand that significance testing is in
vain. Experienced experimenters know that flawed research design can override
statistics; philosophers of science know it anyway; and historians of science point
out that proper significance testing has never led to groundbreaking progress. If
this is not enough cogent evidence for a mathematician or statistician, he/she may
resort to Bayesian calculus. The Bayes theorem implies that p(H|D) = p(D|H) ·
p(H)/p(D). That is, mathematically, inferring p(H|D) from empirical evidence
on p(D|H) is tantamount to assuming that one knows the (ratio of) base-rate
probabilities (or “priors”) of the hypothesis p(H) and of the obtained data pattern
p(D). It should be crystal-clear that quantitative assumptions about these abstract
base-rates are unwarranted, unrealistic, and pretentious.
Granting the assumption that almost everybody is in a position to disclose
the logical mistake underlying the significance testing ritual, and given that the
critique was never refuted seriously, how can the continued status of significance
testing in behavioral science be understood? Why is there not even an open-
minded debate about a well-articulated issue older than a century? In the absence
of unequivocal answers to these puzzling questions, it seems justified to speculate
along the following lines. First, one may be on safe ground assuming that the
significance ritual appears to be driven by laudable motives. In an attempt to be
established as a strict discipline striving for accuracy and scrutiny, there is wide
agreement that psychologists should do everything to define their identity as a
quantitative science with distinct benchmarks for empirical hypothesis tests and
strict quality control. Second, it appears that there is wide agreement regarding
such an identity, between senior ( journal editors, reviewers) and junior scien-
tists (young authors), teachers and students of psychology, and basic and applied
scientists, who are all eager to base responsible decisions on clear-cut (dichoto-
mous) criteria of validity and viability. In the absence of a similarly refined set of
rules for research designing and sound theorizing (Fiedler, 2011, 2017), they all
embrace the ritual of significance testing that serves as a crutch for a more refined
methodology.
However, a third consideration should not be overlooked. The uncontested
status and influence of significance testing is only possible in a compliance culture
in which critical assessment and an open-minded debate between proponents
of different standpoints is discouraged. This compliance syndrome, contrary to
Hannah Arendt’s (1963) obligation to be disobedient, is vividly evident in the
paucity of open controversies in the published literature.
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 179

Good Practices
Related to the compliance syndrome, and also related to the significance testing
ritual, is the impact of populism on scientific practices. Almost all ideas about how
to improve the quality of science and how to render psychological research more
replicable and more usable refer to minimal compliance standards of ethical and
professional conduct related to the “holy cow” of significance testing. The debate
on questionable research practices instigated by John, Loewenstein and Prelec
(2012) refers exclusively to “sins” that interfere with (most obvious) assumptions
of inferential statistics. This debate never focuses on lacking transparency or bad
practices in research designing or improper theorizing, or to violated maxims
of internal and external validity (Campbell, 1957). Likewise, Simmons, Nelson,
and Simonsohn’s (2011) critical discussion about the exploitation of researcher
degrees of freedom deals almost exclusively with statistical and inferential assump-
tions that may serve to underestimate α and β (i.e., to overestimate 1−β). They
do not tackle the exploitation of wishy-washy theorizing or flexibility in research
design, missing manipulation checks or nonsensical mediation models (Fiedler,
Schott, & Meiser, 2011). The notion of a p-curve (Simonsohn, Nelson, & Sim-
mons, 2014) is by definition restricted to exact p-values obtained in samples of
related hypothesis tests, motivated by the aim to test the credibility and transpar-
ency of the distribution of p-values across several studies. Preregistration is only
meant to rule out the possibility that statistical hypotheses may be adjusted to bet-
ter fit the data; the motive is virtually never to render the researchers’ theoretical
priors more transparent or to monitor his or her attempts to optimize the research
design. Last but not least, the entire replication debate concentrates on whether
or not replication results are significant or not. As Trafimow (2019a) notes, with-
out significance testing there would be no “replication crisis”.
It is as if the scientific community is begging for some authority that pro-
vides them with minimal standards and detailed instructions on how errors and
transgressions can be avoided—the opposite of emancipation and self-determined
ethical and moral conduct. There is no concomitant interest in justifying or test-
ing the effectiveness of all these compliance measures. Although many scientists
celebrate the self-critical debate about quality and usability of science and pre-
suppose that this opens a direct way to better science, there is hardly any meta-
science to test the effectiveness of the recommended practices.
Conversely, a number of unwanted side effects are blatantly ignored. For
instance, compliant researchers’ eagerness to meet the standard of a minimal sam-
ple size of at least 50 participants per condition (Simmons et al., 2011) has led to
a plethora of Mturk experiments with many hundreds (or even > 1000) partici-
pants, whose performance is then sloppy enough to cause 30% or even higher
failure rates on a superficial attention check. Indeed, the attrition rate is not
even assessed routinely (Zhou & Fishbach, 2016). Much less attention is given
to the size of stimulus samples nested within participants. Huge sample sizes,
180 Klaus Fiedler

to be sure, render even small and negligible effects significant, yielding, say, t ≈
2.5 at df = 500 or even 1000. With reference to the main criterion of quality
control, size of participant samples, the authors then praise themselves for high
(but elusive) statistical power. In preceding power discussions, sample sizes are
(allegedly) tailored to guarantee sufficiently powerful tests of H1, based on effect-
size estimates imported from meta-analyses (of studies with highly variable effect
sizes) or from general expectancies of the size of effects encountered in a whole
research area.
Compliance norms and obedience attitudes, in the absence of critical reflec-
tion of all the detailed prescriptions and new statistics, have fostered many other
unwanted changes in recent years. Researchers allude to technical labels of soft-
ware tools shared by the R-community that most journal readers do not under-
stand; one may suspect that often the authors themselves do not understand the
assumptions underlying their data analyses. What counts is obviously compliance
(obedience) with the statistical opinion leaders among the journal reviewers. Fol-
lowing common practices, they often report unstandardized regression weights
(obscured by unequal variance ratios of predictor and criterion). Or, they proudly
report mediation analyses based on bootstrapping procedures (typically across
norm distributions of 10000 simulated trials or more), but they ignore causal and
logical constraints on mediation analysis (Fiedler, Harris, & Schott, 2018). The
populism syndrome is evident in the readiness with which the scientific commu-
nity adopts these fashionable but questionable criteria of scientific quality.

Populist Replication Science

The uncritical imitation of populist (i.e., simplifying, emotionalizing, irrational)
norms is perhaps most apparent in the new culture of replication science. Despite
its positive reputation and its entitlement to be the epitome of strong science,
replication research is largely devoid of an own methodology. It seems to be com-
monly expected that replication research must be published regardless of how it
was conducted and without reference to a distinct set of methodological rules
(Camerer et al., 2018; Open Science Collaboration, 2015). For instance, a failure
to replicate a former experiment that supported the hypothesis H: If ΔX, then ΔY
may be due either to the fact that the premise ΔX was not met (i.e., the intended
shift in the independent variable was in fact not induced), or that the failure to
observe an effect ΔY in the dependent variable may occur in spite of an effective
manipulation. The former case is logically mute regarding the hypothesis to be
replicated. However, deliberate manipulation checks are not obligatory in repli-
cation science.
Likewise, the critically minded community that is apparently so deeply inter-
ested in strictness and precision does not care about the replicandum, that is, the
exact definition of what it is that must be replicated. In the replication literature
in general and on “exact replication” in particular, it is widely presupposed that
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 181

results obtained in previously conducted and published research represent the

“original” to be replicated in novel research. However, why should the present
result not be considered the “original”, the replications of which in previous
research often provided stronger results, contrary to the “replication crisis”? Is
the replicandum really the older finding? Is it not necessary to define replication
independently of temporal precedence? And if so, what alternative criterion can
be used to define the “original”, or replicandum?

Ignoring the Regression Trap

The growing literature on replication presupposes the existence of a “replication
crisis”, which is a truly populist concept, based on a highly welcome simplifica-
tion and charged with a good deal of emotional surplus meaning and personalized
blame. The simplified coverage of the replication logic completely misses the
incontestable truism that all replication results are inevitably complicated by the
regression trap (Fiedler & Krueger, 2012; Fiedler & Prager, 2018). In a nutshell,
when plotting replication effect sizes as a function of original effect sizes, the
slope of the regression line β is inevitably less than 1. Strong original findings (i.e.,
strong enough to be published) must be expected to be weaker in the next test
of the same finding, simply because regression is inevitable. It is “as inevitable as
death and taxes” (Campbell & Kenny, 1999, p. ix).
Whenever one variable Y2 is plotted as a function of another variable Y1,
an imperfect correlation of rY1,Y2 < 1 implies that Y2 must be regressive relative
to Y1. This is because a high (or very high) measured value on the “original”
variable Y1 is more likely contaminated with a high (or very high) measurement
error than a low measured Y1 value. From elementary statistics we know that the
true or expected values E(Y1) can be estimated as the deviation of Y1 (from the
mean) multiplied by the reliability RY1, to which the mean must then be added
again. The true value of an “original” value to be replicated is the measured value
times the reliability. Thus, if the reliability is .6, the true value of an “original”
effect size of d = 1.00 is only dtrue = 0.60. If this true effect size is then replicated
assuming the same reliability, a realistic expectation for the same effect is a replicated
effect shrunk to only dtrue · RY1 = 0.36.
Thus, regressive shrinkage alone accounts for a “replication crisis”. It is hard
to understand why—given the common training in elementary statistics—the
regression debate fully ignores the regression trap and continues to test (and to
publish even in the best journals) the—fully irrelevant—hypothesis that replica-
tion effect sizes are as high as original effect sizes. The replication literature also
ignores the need to consider reverse regression, that is, to also plot the “original”
or earlier effect sizes as a function of the later “replication effects”. Experience
with this cross-test justifies the term “regression trap”. We all know from statistics
that when A (plotted against measured B) is regressive, the very same data array
will show that B (plotted inversely against measured A) is also regressive. Thus, as
182 Klaus Fiedler

Galton (1886) has shown, tall (short) fathers tend to have shorter (taller) sons but,
at the same time, tall (short) sons tend to have shorter (taller) fathers. In the same
vein, Erev, Wallsten, and Budescu (1994) have shown in an enlightening article
that correctness rates plotted against confidence ratings exhibit overconfidence,
although in the same data set confidence plotted against correctness rates exhibits
under-confidence. It is no surprise that a reverse-regression analysis of the Open
Science Collaboration (OSC, 2015) replication data provides evidence for reverse
regression. When “original” effect sizes are plotted as a function of replication
effects, the strongest effects are clearly weaker in the original measure (Fiedler &
Prager, 2018). A regression analysis of the OSC data reveals that stronger origi-
nal effect sizes are not a remedy against regressive shrinkage. The opposite is
true for mathematically obvious reasons; the strongest original effect sizes show
the strongest absolute shrinkage in replication tests, simply because regression
increases with the strength of a measured effect.2
A replication culture that almost completely ignores the regression trap meets
all defining features of populism. The simplification of a long understood sta-
tistical problem is striking; or is it pathological? The emotional side effects are
enormous; researchers whose findings regressed to non-significant levels are dis-
couraged and harmed as a fair appraisal of their work is missing. The irrational
nature of the continued neglect of the counter-intuitive regression principle is
obvious, and it “replicates” many renowned scholars’ lessons provided again and
again over more than one last century (Baltes, Nesselroade, Schaie, & Labou-
vie, 1972; Campbell, 1996; Furby, 1973; Galton, 1886; Rulon, 1941; Tversky &
Kahneman, 1971).

Is the Analogy Fair?

Again, the question regarding populism is, what is the essential difference between
denying climate change and denying regression in empirical research? Do we
have the right to ridicule people who fall prey to myths and ecological fake news
and scientists who jointly ignore a truism that is as inevitable as death and taxes
(Campbell & Kenny, 1999)? Rather than quickly searching for a difference, one
might rather admit the analogy to better understand the sources of populism.
Reasoning about such an analogy is of course speculative, and it would be impru-
dent to present an answer as sound psychological evidence. Nevertheless, in a
non-populist article like the present one, presenting at least a hypothetical answer
should not be prohibited.
Just as the denial of climate change, the discourse about the replication crisis
clearly serves an attention-grabbing function, assuring the spontaneous interest
by journalists and the rewarding feeling that one has discovered an important
phenomenon. Overcoming the simplification would be disillusioning, destroying
the fascinating thoughts revolving around the provocative theme. A rational re-
analysis of replication research—in the light of the regression trap, manipulation
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 183

check, and several other tricky aspects—would be experienced as cowardly with-

drawal or evasive behavior. Admitting the weakness of empirical research soon
becomes a quasi-moral obligation; self-defensive behavior would be as unwar-
ranted as resorting to a rational analysis. Nevertheless, the self-defensive responses
by those “perpetrators” whose so far leading position is undermined by failures
to replicate causes open animosity and conflict, directed against the “prosecu-
tors” in this game, who are in turn accused of building their career on destructive
arguments. It seems obvious that face-saving motives and liability reasons stabilize
this emotional confrontation, and a cultural super-norm prohibits scientists from
evading an unpleasant debate.
Is the analogy to other variants of populism not compelling? Does the exam-
ple not highlight the fact that it is up to science to be accepted as a trustworthy
cultural instrument that can ultimately help people to counteract superstition and
establish rationality? Assuming approval to this suggestion, it is first of all essential
to repel populism from science itself, if science is expected to play the convincing
role of a role model providing a remedy.

Ineffective Debunking and Persistence of

Myths That Undermine Trust in Science
The persistence of unwarranted beliefs and rituals in science is by no means
confined to methodological practices. The populism syndrome extends to many
other prominent myths and illusions, the persistence of which is hard to under-
stand, because their unwarranted and irrational nature is so easy to recognize.
A memorable and ever-fresh example of such a seemingly uncorrectable myth
is the continued belief in the validity of the control-question test (CRT) in pol-
ygraph lie detection. In a recent up-to-date review article, Iacono and Ben-
Shakhar (2019) complain that fifteen years after the National Research Council
(NRC, 2003) has clearly stated, and convincingly explained, that the CRT can-
not be considered an approved diagnostic tool, many scientists continue to treat
the CRT as a valid instrument and its proponents cite the NRC report as if it
testified to 90% or better accuracy. As a consequence, Iacono and Ben-Shakhar
(2019) come to “conclude that the quality of research has changed little in the
years elapsing since the release of the NRC report, and that its landmark conclu-
sions still stand”.
There are good theoretical and logical reasons why CRT must be in vain,
not just equivocal empirical evidence. The CRT’s rationale that the arousal dif-
ference in responses to relevant questions minus control questions is higher in
guilty than in innocent respondents is untenable, because innocent people also
understand that the test outcome is of existential importance. Defendants can
simulate strong autonomic responses to control questions (e.g., by biting their
tongue), which reduce or even reverse the difference between relevant and con-
trol questions (Honts & Kircher, 1994). The selection of control questions is not
184 Klaus Fiedler

standardized but depends on the tester’s intuition; the tougher the control ques-
tions (e.g., Did you ever develop sexual fantasies related to involuntary intercourse?), the
less likely it is that the autonomic responses to relevant crime-related questions
(e.g., Did you rape the young women?) will be even stronger. Moreover, the
often-cited evidence on the alleged high percentage of (over 90%) accurate test
results is due to a clearly expounded sampling artifact (i.e., exclusion of those
cases from relevant data sets that could falsify the CQT results; Fiedler, Schmid &
Stahl, 2002; Patrick & Iacono, 1991). Thus, the reluctance to accept and widely
adopt the clear-cut message that CQT use is scientifically unwarranted and irre-
sponsible is not a matter of equivocal empirical evidence, or weighting of dif-
ferent theoretical opinions. According to scientific criteria, the situation could
hardly be more unequivocal, and yet, the scientific community seems to feel it is
fair and wise to give some credence to either position, pro and contra polygraph
lie detection.

Who Is to Blame?—The Role of Recipients

in Populist Episodes
This apparent equality norm (Mahmoodi et al., 2015) strikes me as characteristic
of the populism syndrome in science. However weak the underlying evidence is,
or however overwhelming the empirical counter-evidence is, there seems to be
a consensual feeling that it is fair to give similar non-zero weight to all positions.
Note that this part of the diagnosis does not focus on the agent who employs
populist strategies but on the recipients in the scientific community who seem to
invite and embrace populist strategies as desirable. This indeed strikes me as an
important insight to be gained from an analysis of populism in the area of science.
It seems moot to blame those who play the agent part, and maybe profit most,
from the populism game, like politicians Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
or Viktor Orbán. Their attempts to ingratiate and please the people, to simplify
and emotionalize matters, and to deny the truth that is often less comfortable
would be condemned to failure if their audiences did not reward and appreciate
these strategies.
From a causal-attribution perspective, then, the locus of causality seems to
lie in the people who play the recipient role in the malicious game. That is, the
people, the scientific community, indeed, we are to blame ourselves, because we
possess but do not use the power to discourage and to punish the populist’s game.
Who else might truncate the game? Should we really expect the profiting agents
themselves to end an episode that seems to be so successful? No, the only causal
party in a reasonable action model that can be expected to terminate the populist
game is the recipient, who compliments and thereby motivates populist strate-
gies, whose task it is to educate and sanction populist agents’ behavior, and whose
responsibility should be to engage in altruistic punishment (Fehr & Gächter,
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 185

2005). The only reasonable causal attribution is indeed to explain populism in

terms of a recipient failure, rather than commenting on populism through indig-
nant irritation about the unsurprising fact that some agent exploits the profitable
outcome of a populist attempt that ought never to have worked.
After all, an impeachment procedure against Donald Trump ended with an
exoneration by the Senate. Boris Johnson’s Brexit offensive was rewarded by the
majority of the voting people in the United Kingdom, and so was Viktor Orbán’s
populist style reinforced by the people. In the same vein, it seems obvious that
populist practices in science are not just tolerated; they are solicited, and can only
be ended by the scientific community. The “survival of a flawed method of null-
hypothesis significance testing” (Krueger, 2001) was only possible because it was
welcomed by the scientific community, not just tolerated. The failure to consider
regressive shrinkage in a superficial replication debate reflects the vast majority’s
willingness to ignore such counter-intuitive issues. And the continued misbelief
in the validity of polygraph testing (using the CQT) reflects the fact that readers
of scientific magazines (such as the APA Monitor) or reviewers of leading interna-
tional journals do not consequentially discard invalid tools.
The tacit agreement to condone unwarranted statements in science, rather
than engaging in critical assessment and strict selection, can be illustrated with an
endless list of examples. It is by no means exceptional but rather the rule in the
peer-reviewing process, in advanced teaching, in representing scientific results in
popular media, and in the manner in which the state of the art is summarized in
the introductory part of major papers. Rather than trying to illustrate this situa-
tion with more examples of blatantly wrong scientific beliefs,3 suffice it to provide
a few telling examples that highlight the willingness of the scientific community
to accept strong claims without any proof or cogent argument. Thus, here is a list
of fundamental assumptions that can be advanced any time, without any need of
a logical or empirical proof. You are always on safe ground and you do not have
to fear nasty reviewer questions when you claim that a distinct competence is a
product of evolution, when you propagate a dual-process model based on exactly
two psychological systems (not three, four, or only one—no, two), when you call
an attitude “implicit”, when you refer to automaticity without providing a clear-
cut definition, when you pose that a third variable that absorbs some covariance
is a mediator, when you analyze asymmetric interactions without removing the
main effects, when you pretend after a G-Power estimation that you did have
a 90% power of your hypothesis test, or when you pretend that the best-fitting
model describes the underlying psychological process.
Let us discuss three examples of the scientific community’s notorious laissez-
faire attitude in some more detail. The aim of this discussion is to understand
three major reasons why the scrutiny of psychological science is so low and the
quality control so shallow, and to illustrate at the same time why it is actually not
easy to overcome the populism syndrome.
186 Klaus Fiedler

Three Memorable Candidates for Populism in Science

Nudging
The first example refers to one of the most prominent topics of recent research,
the notion of nudging (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008), propagated by two Nobel
Prize winners. The basic idea is that in order to induce healthy, cooperative, and
ecologically adequate behavior, one should design environments in a way to make
the desired behaviors likely and easy to perform. In other words, environmen-
tal arrangements are propagated that lower the threshold for desirable behavior.
The nudging idea is patronizing and paternalistic, to be sure, because it presup-
poses that ordinary people are dependent on policy makers to exhibit adaptive
behavior. One might object that the opposite is true, namely, that politicians
and group leaders are often less prudent than ordinary individuals, and this sort
of suspicion has actually inspired a critical debate on the paternalistic premises
underlying the nudging hype. However, apart from this emotional side effect of
a massively advertised popular concept, a largely ignored aspect of the nudging
fashion is that it is at variance with social psychology’s most prominent theory,
namely, dissonance theory. One central implication of Festinger’s theory of cog-
nitive dissonance (see also Lawrence & Festinger, 1962) is that persistent learning
and internalized behavior changes must be made difficult rather than easy. An
uncontested law lesson from animal training and behaviorist research is that stable
and “sustainable” learning must be effortful and the road to reinforcement must
be hardy and rocky, as in a partial reinforcement schedule with lots of obsta-
cles. Human learning, too, is more likely to transform into persistent behavior
change when effort expenditure is high. For instance, psychotherapy was shown
to increase in effectivity when patients must engage in extra efforts (Axsom &
Cooper, 1985; also Cooper, this volume). Research on scarcity in attitude change
points in the same direction; the subjective value of products, persons, or action
goals increases when they are scarce, expensive, and hard to get. In the economy,
scarceness creates high prices; the most attractive graduate programs have very
high entry thresholds; most attractive people play hard to get; more generally,
deep and effortful processing produces more effective and persistent learning than
easily available reinforcements (Fiedler, Lachnit, Fay, & Krug, 1992). The evi-
dence in social and experimental psychology for difficulty and effort-dependence
as keys to behavior change is overwhelming, and this long-grown evidence is
clearly at variance with the principle of easiness and high availability of desired
choice options that underlies the nudging program.
To be sure, the point here is not to pretend that nudging is worthless or
that nudging as an influence mechanism is incompatible with dissonance theory
or well-established behaviorist laws. However, the conspicuous point is that no
theoretical debate seems to take place. Nudging seems to be adopted as a new
favorite tool of applied behavioral research without any critical assessment of the
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 187

underlying assumptions, which are in conflict with other existing assumptions.

Nudging is accepted and actually implemented in a process that resembles adver-
tising for cosmetics or shoe polish rather than a mature scientific discourse. Such
a discourse could relate nudging to other principles of social influence (Cialdini,
2009), maybe revealing that nudging is appropriate to induce people to try out
new behavioral options, whereas other influence strategies are required to induce
stable behavioral changes based on new internalized preferences (Moscovici,
1980). Or, a scientific discourse might relate nudging to evidence and theoriz-
ing on foraging (Giraldeau & Caraco, 2018), revolving around the distributional
problem of reducing the distance of desired action goals for as many people as
possible. Or, a truly scientific debate might deal with the possibility that what
nudging makes easily available may lose in attractiveness and soon be replaced by
other options that are more selective, scarce, and hard to get.
These are of course nothing but speculations about possible meta-theories
or integrative frameworks within which a truly scientific discourse on nudg-
ing might be embedded. I do not want to fabricate scientific results that do not
exist; I simply want to highlight the unscientific manner in which the fashionable
nudging message is spread among scientists and into the public. There is appar-
ently no attempt to relate nudging to the extant literature, to theoretical priors,
and to well-established empirical principles. The cute idea is simply propagated
like a shallow consumer ad, along with prominent names and selective sample
episodes, in a communication process that shares all defining features of populism:
high simplification, emotional appeal, detached from rational (theoretical) rea-
soning, and high in social desirability because the idea is so easy and convenient
and leaves the work load to other agents and decision makers.

Moral Dilemmas
Another example of a highlight in recent social psychology is research on moral
dilemmas. In the trolley problem, for instance, participants are given a choice
between two options: (a) letting five people working on a track die from a trolley
that is out of control or (b) preventing the death of five people by deliberately
pushing one person onto the tracks. In the tradition of other dual-process theo-
ries, the decision task is framed as a conflict between two moral principles, which
are treated as clearly distinct and mutually incompatible, namely, the deontologi-
cal rule that one should never kill another human being, and the utilitarian rule
that one should try to minimize the number of people dying from the episode.
These two moral principles are then aligned with the two behavioral options:
letting five people die is considered a deontological choice whereas killing one
person to save five lives is utilitarian.
The fascination with these dualistic simplifications is enormous, as manifested
in about thirty dual-process theories. It is, however, easy for every scientist to see
that the underlying assumptions are untenable. Living without killing anybody
188 Klaus Fiedler

is not purely deontological, but also may be a high-ranking part of a subjective

utility function. Violating this principle may reduce satisfaction for the rest of
one’s life. Conversely, the decision to kill one person in order to save five others
may not only be utilitarian but also be reflective of an agent’s deontological norm
not to kill others. An individual might assume that killing by omission may be
as serious a sin as killing by commission, as evident from many situations in the
history of mankind.
In any case, there is no scientific basis for the dualistic assumption that moral
dilemmas involve a conflict between exactly two motives or moral principles.
This sort of reservation was indeed mentioned in the literature, that is, the sci-
entific community has been sensitized to the conceptual weakness of moral-
dilemma research, just as the conceptual and logical impossibility of other dual
process-theories has been clarified forcefully and convincingly (e.g., by Keren &
Schul, 2009). However, like compelling counter-arguments are blatantly ignored
in other populist games, research on dual process theories in general, and on
moral dilemmas in particular, go on as before, as if they had never been shown
to be untenable. Researchers who pit plainly utilitarian motives against plainly
deontological motives still succeed in getting their research published in even the
most prestigious journals, and proponents of many other dual-process theories
continue to base their research on the untenable assumption that forced choices
(e.g., between speed and accuracy) afford cogent evidence for either System 1 or
System 2.
Again, it seems fair to say that the success story of dual-process theories reflects
all defining features of populism in science. Juxtaposing two complementary
options as mutually exclusive and exhaustive of all possible outcomes is a highly
comfortable and desirable state in the world. Simplifying dichotomies promise
clear-cut all-or-none solutions, without any residual uncertainty. It is much more
complicated and incriminating to admit that reality allows for manifold combina-
tions of two (or more) principles, such as deontology and utilitarianism.

Precognition and Psi

Whereas the two preceding examples, nudging and moral dilemmas, suggest
that the simplification and lack of rationality that characterize populist science
enhance comfort and social desirability, the last examples shows that the lethargy
and myopia among scientists may override even discomfort and undesirable states.
This example refers to Bem’s (2011) parapsychological work on precognition,
which was greatly depreciated among scientists and yet did not instigate a truly
scientific debate. In a series of experiments published in the “flagship” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, Bem (2011) demonstrated in a kind of sequential
priming paradigm that when a positive or negative stimulus was selected by a
random generator after the participant had already made a “positive” or “nega-
tive” choice, respectively, the rate of evaluative congruity was significantly above
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 189

50%. That is, the random generator tended to produce more positive stimuli after
“positive” predictions and more negative stimuli after “negative” predictions than
incongruent stimulus-prediction pairs. Bem’s parapsychological account, which
was generally respected by the community without protest, said that participants
exerted a “precognitive” influence on the subsequent physical random-generator
process.
Had psychology behaved like a real science, if only to cope with Feynman’s
(1974) provocative reference to psychology as a cargo-cult science, one might
have discarded Bem’s so-called precognition findings as a case of meta-physics
rather than parapsychology. Because the participants’ “positive” or “negative”
responses were already given as an antecedent condition, before the random gen-
erator selected a positive or negative stimulus, the event to be explained was the
random generator’s behavior. A general logical premise of all empirical science
is that consequent events (i.e., random generator choices) must be explained as a
function of antecedent conditions (participants’ “precognitive” predictions), not
the reverse. (Without this fundamental rule, finding higher life satisfaction in
good rather than in bad weather might mean that high life satisfaction causes
good weather.) If psychology wants to be a real science that takes such logical
principles seriously, the editors might have sent the manuscript back, suggesting
that Bem should submit it as evidence for meta-physics to a journal in physics or
computer engineering, trying to argue that random generators of the radioactive
decay type follow human precognition. Nobody would seriously expect such a
journal to publish a paper with such a claim.
In psychology, however, it was enough that Bem labeled his work as “precog-
nition” rather than “meta-physics”. As a reviewer of the Bem article, I made this
point from the beginning, but the editors refrained from making a strict decision
on logical ground. They decided not to reject the memorable article because they
did not want to appear prejudiced against unorthodox work, as if there had been
no scientific reason for rejection other than prejudice. By the way, when we tried
to publish our own critical assessment (Fiedler & Krueger, 2013) in the same
journal, it was rejected because (a) this journal is not devoted to critical com-
ments and (b) because our comment entailed criticism of the editors’ decision.
This episode nicely reflects all three defining features of populism. Simplifica-
tion is evident in the arbitrary labelling of a finding as “precognition” and in the
acceptance of a random generator as unbiased even though it was by definition
biased. The emotionalized experience of the whole affair is reflected in avoidance
behavior, of prejudice and of a comment that implies criticism. And irrationality
is apparent from the failure to distinguish antecedent and consequent conditions
of the reported findings.
Rather than basing a rational and self-confident decision on such a clear-
cut logical principle, editors and journal readers, who wanted to set themselves
apart from Bem, once more resorted to statistics and significance testing. Rather
than offering clear-cut logical or psychological reasons against the notion of
190 Klaus Fiedler

precognition, the journal (otherwise not devoted for critical comments) published
a statistical note by Wagenmakers, Wetzels, Borsboom, and van der Maas (2011),
which showed that a more conservative way of Bayesian significance testing may
have prevented the precognition effects from being statistically significant. Most
people were now apparently content with questionable significance as a means
of getting rid of the unwanted article in a prestigious journal. Unfortunately,
though, this attempt to solve the scientific issue statistically was soon countered
by Bem, Tressoldi, Rabeyron, and Duggan (2015), who published a meta-analysis
of 90 experiments that provided strong evidence for “precognition” at an astro-
nomically high level of statistical significance. “Fortunately,” however—and this
may also be telling about populism—the climate had changed and a new majority
of opinion leaders were disposed against the Bem results. So, the much stronger
evidence from the meta-analysis was never given the same attention as the much
weaker evidence from the earlier article.

Concluding Remarks
The title of the present chapter announces a non-populist perspective on pop-
ulism in science. It is certainly non-populist in the sense that it is low in social
desirability, and unlikely to make many new friends for the author. More cru-
cially, I have made a deliberate attempt to provide an a priori definition of pop-
ulism. And, I have presented a number of hypothetical conclusions that can be
tested empirically and rejected if they are wrong. Let us finally summarize what
I consider to be the message of the present chapter, for which I feel accountable.
First, my chapter relies on the provocative assumption that populism is not a
communication style for a naïve, superficial, and intellectually uninterested audi-
ence. Rather, I have tried to point out that populism can be found even in science,
among intellectuals expected to be particularly high in argumentation, critical
assessment, and scrutiny. Nevertheless, the significance testing ritual and other
unwarranted aspects in methodology, the conspicuous lack of theorizing, and the
failure to take logical principles into account testify to the uncritical nature of the
scientific endeavor. I anticipate that not all readers will agree with this appraisal
and will react with anger and negative affect, rejecting my perspective as arrogant
and fully out of place. However, when we return to argumentation, my self-
critical appraisal might help scientists play a pioneer role in overcoming populism,
a role model to be imitated in politics and culture.
Second, my analysis led to the conclusion that populism should not be attrib-
uted solely to the populist agents but also to uncritical recipients, whose compli-
ance provides fertile ground for populism, giving more weight to comfort and
simplicity than to rational criteria and quality control. Indeed, I have argued (and
I actually believe) that from a social psychological perspective, the only viable
remedy to populism lies in recipients’ critical ability not to follow tempting ingra-
tiation and unrealistic simplifications.
 A Non-Populist Perspective on Populism 191

Third, I did not refrain from naming concrete examples of how populism is
manifested in science, hoping that readers will share my suspicion that we can
learn a lot about populism in general from an analysis of populism in a culture that
appears to be as immune to populism as science. Regardless of whether a reader
finds all my examples convincing, he or she should agree that populism is facili-
tated by such conditions as superficial conformity and compliance, thinking in
terms of blatant dichotomies, and the failure to engage in critical quality control
in politics, health, social, ecological, and legal affairs.
Last but not least, in spite of my critical appraisal of existing populism in sci-
ence, it is my firm conviction that it is the ultimate responsibility of scientists to
become role models of how one can overcome populist influences. Although,
or exactly because, it is unlikely or impossible in the 21st century to evade the
impact of social media and electronic media, a most prominent function of sci-
ence is to demarcate a limit of logical rules and factual evidence that is not disput-
able. Maybe the help of other cultural institutions—such as journalism or school
education—is required to live up to such an ambitious goal. In the meantime,
however, science might go ahead and manage to establish intellectual integrity
and rational assessment within its own procedures of scientific quality control.

Notes
1. Logically, the overshadowing impact of other causes must be included in an estimate of
the expected effect size. Note also that randomized designs do not eliminate the vicissi-
tudes of the multicausal world, because no experimental manipulation can be assumed
to affect but one causal factor (for a discussion, see Fiedler, 2020).
2. Note that although error is uncorrelated with true scores, error is indeed naturally cor-
related with measured scores, which include the error component.
3. This might be met with defensive reactions and attempts to re-establish the validity of
obviously invalid claims.

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PART III

The Tribal Call

Social Identity and Populism
11
SELF-UNCERTAINTY AND
POPULISM
Why We Endorse Populist Ideologies,
Identify With Populist Groups, and Support
Populist Leaders

Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

In recent years, the term “populism” has gained currency in news media and
everyday discourse. Individuals, leaders, regimes, social movements, belief sys-
tems, and ideologies are often described as populist. One might be forgiven for
wondering whether the world has merely “discovered” a new word. But, on
reflection, it is evident that populism is “real” and is flourishing in early 21st cen-
tury society (e.g., Bos, Sheets, & Boomgaarden, 2018; Ernst, Engesser, Büchel,
Blassnig, & Esser, 2017; Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Nai & Maier, 2018).
In the United States, there is Donald Trump and his “make America great
again” (MAGA) movement; and at the other end of the political spectrum, during
the run-up to the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, Bernie Sanders’s social-
ist vision for America. Further south, Venezuelans are living with the legacy of
Hugo Chávez’s populist dismantling of democracy; and Brazil’s populist president,
Jair Bolsonaro, promotes a far-right nationalist and socially conservative agenda.
Across the Atlantic, the UK has had its populist leadership alternatives of Boris
Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, and its Brexiteers and United Kingdom Independ-
ence Party (UKIP); Germany has the Nationalist Alternative für Deutschland
(AfD); and Italy has the Northern League for the Independence of Padania (i.e.,
Lega Nord). Further east, Hungary (under Viktor Orbán’s leadership; see also
Forgas & Lantos, this volume) and Poland (under Andrzej Duda’s leadership) are
both experiencing democratic backsliding, Euroscepticism, and an authoritarian
approach to government. In India, Narendra Modi is remodeling the world’s
largest democracy as a Hindu Nationalist state; and in the Philippines, President
Rodrigo Duterte is characterized as a populist “man of the people” who vigor-
ously promotes a nationalist agenda.
These national examples differ in many ways, but there is a common thread
running through them—they are all considered, and spoken about as, examples of
198 Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

populism, populist ideology, and populist leadership. One thing that is notable is
that populism transcends political boundaries—there is populism of both the left
and the right. So, what is populism, what are its distal and proximal causes, how
does it emerge, and what are its social psychological dynamics? Research on pop-
ulism has a long history in political science (e.g., Kaltwasser, Taggart, Espejo, &
Ostiguy, 2017; Inglehart & Norris, 2016; Noury & Roland, 2020; Rooduijin,
2019; Steenbergen & Siczek, 2017), but has only recently become a focus for
social psychologists (e.g., Bos et al., 2020; Gaffney, Hackett, Rast, Hohman, &
Jaurique, 2018; Jay, Batruch, Jetten, McGarty, & Muldoon, 2019; Marchlewska,
Cichocka, Panayiotou, Castellanos, & Batayneh, 2018).
In this chapter, we describe the nature of populism to provide our social psy-
chological characterization, and then dedicate the chapter to an exploration of
how feelings of self-uncertainty, particularly relating to the collective self, may
make populist ideologies, groups, identities, and leaders attractive. This account
rests on uncertainty-identity theory (e.g., Hogg, 2007, 2012, 2021a) and its
explanation of radicalization and extremism (e.g., Hogg, 2014, 2021b).

What Is Populism?
Defining populism is not straightforward, and early attempts are described as suf-
fering from an “inherent incompleteness” (Taggart, 2004). In recent years, a bur-
geoning literature, particularly in political science, has attempted to resolve these
early issues (see also Marcus, this volume). But rather than converging on a single
definition of populism and a set of explanatory factors, many different approaches
now exist. Some argue that in contrast to what are called thick ideologies, such as
liberalism and socialism, populism can be described as a thin ideology—a collec-
tion of ideas, rather than a complete integrated framework within which events
are given meaning (Ernst, Engesser, Büchel, Blassnig, & Esser, 2017; Mudde,
2007). Populism structures meaning, and as such it can be infused with other
ideologies. This is why we see populist tactics and rhetoric on the political left as
well as the right. Other researchers have argued that we should not understand
populism as a political ideology at all, but rather a style of political rhetoric (Bon-
ikowski & DiMaggio, 2016) or discourse tied to the discursive frames (Aslanidis,
2016; Hawkins & Kaltwasser, 2018).
This debate is far from over. However, two components of populism stand out.
There is an ideology and belief system that (a) robustly and assertively prioritizes
the collective will and sovereignty of the people as being of supreme importance,
and (b) maintains that the people’s collective will is actively undermined and
subverted by an antagonistic “system” or “elite” that the people oppose (e.g.,
Bakker, Rooduijn, & Schumacher, 2016). This characterization can be expanded
to include other features of populism that, from a social psychological point of
view, paint a picture of populism as a social identity dynamic and a group and
intergroup process.
 Self-Uncertainty and Populism 199

Collective Narcissism, Conspiracy Theories,

Collective Victimhood, and Hierarchy
For example, populist ideologies frequently reflect collective narcissism—an
unrealistic belief in the greatness of one’s group and identity, which is associated
with over-sensitivity to perceived disrespect (e.g., Golec de Zvala & Lantos, 2020;
Marchlewska et al., 2018; see also Golec de Zavala, this volume). Such ideologies
also subscribe to conspiracy theories (e.g., Douglas & Sutton, 2018; Douglas,
Sutton, & Cichoka, 2017; see also Krekó, this volume), which identify specific
outgroups (often characterized as expert/elites) that intentionally conspire and act
to discredit and destroy the ingroup’s identity and way of life. There is a narrative
of collective victimhood revolving around a shared ingroup identity threat that is
promoted and framed as an existential peril (e.g., Belavadi & Hogg, 2018; Noor,
Vollhardt, Mari, & Nadler, 2017), which justifies hostile and violent attitudes and
actions towards the victimizing outgroup, and ingroup members or third parties
viewed as aligned with the outgroup (Belavadi, Rinella, & Hogg, 2020).
Populism can also be associated with support for hierarchy and belief in social
dominance (e.g., Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006), which can be associated with
believing that the ingroup’s rightful place in society’s hierarchy has been under-
estimated or intentionally sabotaged. Authoritarianism can also play a role (see
also Bar-Tal, this volume). The key features of authoritarianism include sub-
mission to authorities, aggression towards “outsiders”, and adherence to con-
ventional norms (Altemeyer, 1998; also see Duckitt, Bizumic, Krauss, & Heled,
2010; Passini, 2017)—all of which are evident in many populist belief systems
where people endorse and defer to strong ingroup leaders, express hostility and
aggression towards outgroups, and conform to ingroup identity-defining norms
and traditions.

Populist Leadership
No discussion of populism is complete without a discussion of leadership—
populism is almost always associated with particular leadership dynamics and lead-
ership styles. Those who subscribe to and promote populist beliefs and ideologies
present themselves as the guarantors of the people’s will, and as strong leaders
who can protect and promote popular sovereignty, despite attempts by antago-
nistic and hostile groups to thwart the people’s will ( Jagers & Walgrave, 2007).
Populist leaders, who are often associated with the right (Bos et al., 2018) but
can also be found on the left (Nai & Maier, 2018), promote populist beliefs and
ideology as described above, and they do this by engaging in what Bos and associ-
ates call “populist identity framing” (Bos et al., 2020). Populist identity framing
is a leadership strategy that focuses attention on social identity and strengthens
ingroup identification, loyalty, attachment, and commitment. Bos and colleagues
report an experiment with 7,286 participants across 15 European countries that
200 Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

shows how this leadership strategy works. Leaders portray the ingroup as being
threatened by immigrants and various outgroup (political) elites who are blamed
for societal or economic problems harming ordinary people. That immigrants
and outsiders pose an existential identity threat to the ingroup is a central plank
of populist ideologies and a central message of populist leaders—it strengthens
ingroup identification and fuels prejudice, xenophobia, and ultimately acts of
hostility and aggression (e.g., Jetten, 2019; Jetten, Ryan, & Mols, 2017).
Populist leaders also tend to behave in a manner that projects strength, convic-
tion, and an unwavering absence of message ambiguity. They are relatively auto-
cratic and authoritarian, and because they need to embody the populist message
and strengthen group identification, they express the group’s anger and target
outsiders to derogate, insult, and bully.

Fertile Ground for Populism

Our characterization of populism is broad and inclusive. We view it as a social
identity dynamic and a group and intergroup process, which is reflected in the
specific form taken by ideologies and belief systems, groups and social identities,
and leaders and leadership behavior. Populism has a number of interrelated fac-
ets that can manifest in different ways and with different strength, and not all of
which necessarily co-occur.
There are eight overlapping key features of our characterization: (a) the group’s
autonomy and freedom to determine its own identity and destiny (i.e., its col-
lective will and sovereignty) is supremely important, but (b) is actively undermined
and subverted by an antagonistic “system” or “elite” that the people oppose; (c)
there is an unrealistic belief in the greatness of the ingroup and its identity, which
is associated with over-sensitivity to perceived disrespect (collective narcissism); (d)
conspiracy theories identifying specific outsiders that intentionally conspire and act
to discredit and destroy the ingroup’s identity and way of life, flourish and are
sustained and promulgated; (e) there is a narrative of collective victimhood that paints
a picture of existential threat to the group’s identity and existence, which justifies
extreme actions against outsiders; (f) there is approval of hierarchy, social dominance,
and authoritarianism; (g) leaders champion and promote these populist beliefs and
behaviors at the same time as they raise the salience of the group’s identity in
order to strengthen group identification (populist identity framing); and (h) they do
this in a relatively autocratic and authoritarian manner that projects strength, convic-
tion, and absence of message ambiguity.
The world is no stranger to populism. Populist uprisings, revolutions, regime
changes, and social movements, based on religion, ethnicity, and political ide-
ology (of the left and the right), are the stuff of history. Specific examples are
too numerous to list, but research points to a more limited number of gen-
eral conditions that are conducive to populism. One precursor is the percep-
tion that the status and prestige of one’s identity and group is under threat of
 Self-Uncertainty and Populism 201

erosion (e.g., Mutz, 2018). Another related condition revolves around perceived
inequality—the belief that one’s group is disadvantaged and deprived relative to
other groups (e.g., Bos et al., 2020; Jay et al., 2019; Jetten, 2019; Jetten et al.,
2017; Marchlewska et al., 2018).
Yet another condition, which is the focus of this chapter, is uncertainty about
the world one lives in—often induced by sudden change that disrupts equilib-
rium and makes the world and one’s place within it unpredictable (e.g., Hogg,
2014, 2021b; Hogg, Kruglanski, & Bos, 2013; see also Bar-Tal, this volume).
For example, the Great Depression of the 1930s created enormous uncertainty
that provided fertile ground for the two mid-century populist movements,
Communism and Fascism, to thrive. Research has also shown that economic
uncertainty can fuel populism (e.g., Kakkar & Sivanathan, 2017), as can societal
shifts that reflect both economic and cultural changes (e.g., Gaffney et al., 2018),
and there is already indication that the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has invoked
widespread uncertainty that has (re)energized populist movements and regimes
(Abrams, Lalot, & Hogg, 2021; Rosenfeld et al., in press).
For the remainder of this chapter, we present a social psychological account
of how uncertainty might fuel populism; more specifically, how uncertainty may
make populism attractive and motivate people to subscribe to populist beliefs and
ideologies, identify with populist groups and identities, and support and empower
populist leaders.

Self-Uncertainty and Group Identification

This account is provided by uncertainty-identity theory—an analysis of how feel-
ings of uncertainty about oneself can motivate people to identify with social
groups, and how identification satisfies this need to reduce self-uncertainty
(Hogg, 2007, 2012, 2021a).

Self-Uncertainty
Social psychologists have long known that people are motivated to reduce uncer-
tainty, and that uncertainty reduction plays a significant role in human behavior—
for example, in the context of decision-making (e.g., Kahneman, Slovic, &
Tversky, 1982) and social comparison processes (e.g., Festinger, 1954). Because
reducing uncertainty can be cognitively demanding, and people strategically allo-
cate their limited cognitive resources (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 2017), people expend
cognitive energy resolving only those uncertainties that matter to them. They also
reduce uncertainty only until they feel “adequately” certain, and have sufficient
cognitive closure (cf. Koffka, 1935; Kruglanski & Fishman, 2009; Kruglanski &
Webster, 1996) to be able to re-allocate cognitive effort elsewhere.
One focus of uncertainty that matters a great deal to people is themselves. The
self organizes and stores information about who we are and allows us to interpret
202 Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

and act within social contexts (e.g., Swann & Bosson, 2010). Uncertainty about
ourselves and our relevant perceptions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors plays a
significant motivational role ( Jonas et al., 2014). We strive to reduce such uncer-
tainties so that we feel less uncertain about the world we live in. Reduced self-
uncertainty is fundamentally adaptive—it allows us to feel we know ourselves,
anticipate how others will perceive and treat us, and plan how to act effectively.
Uncertainty-identity theory addresses the motivational role of context-induced
self-uncertainty, not uncertainties that are unrelated to self-conception; and
argues that group identification is one very effective way for people to reduce
self-uncertainty (see Arkin, Oleson, & Carroll, 2010, for different perspectives
on self-uncertainty).
Uncertainty reduction is not the only self-related motive. People are also
motivated to secure and maintain a favorable image of themselves by pursuing
self-enhancement (e.g., Sedikides & Strube, 1997). Scholars disagree over which
of these motivations, self-enhancement and self-uncertainty reduction, is primary
(e.g., Higgins, 2019). Both are, however, involved in group and social identity
phenomena (e.g., Hogg, 2018). Self-enhancement explains why and how groups
struggle over status and prestige (e.g., Abrams & Hogg, 1988; Tajfel & Turner,
1986; see also Golec de Zavala, this volume). Uncertainty reduction explains
why and how groups seek an unambiguous, clearly defined, and distinct identity.
Research has shown that having a “certain” sense of self can take priority over
having a favorable sense of self—people confronted by feelings of self-uncertainty
will identify with a group that mediates undesirable status and lower self-esteem if
such a group is their only social identity option (Reid & Hogg, 2005).
Self-uncertainty involves uncertainty about self, which begs the question:
what aspect of self? The self is structured into different selves and identities that
become psychologically salient in different contexts as the basis of perception
and behavior. One key distinction, proposed by Brewer and Gardner (1996), is
between (a) individual selves, based on personal traits that differentiate “me” from
all others; (b) relational selves, based on connections and role relationships with
significant others; and (c) collective selves, based on group memberships that dif-
ferentiate “us” from “them” (cf. Chen, Boucher, & Tapias, 2006; Sedikides &
Brewer, 2001). Self-uncertainty can be associated with any of these types of self
and identity. You can feel uncertain about your individual attributes, yourself in
relation to specific other people, or yourself as a group member.
Self-uncertainty experienced in one self-domain may spread to other self-
domains. For example, if you are primarily uncertain about your relational self,
you may also become uncertain about your individual self. Hogg and Mahajan
(2018) conducted two studies (N = 522), which (a) confirmed Brewer and asso-
ciates’ individual/relational/collective distinction; (b) showed that uncertainty in
one domain overlapped to some degree with uncertainty in other domains; and
(c) found, as predicted, that uncertainty strengthened identification most strongly
when the focus of uncertainty was the collective self.
 Self-Uncertainty and Populism 203

The extent to which uncertainty about one aspect of self “contaminates” one’s
entire self-concept is influenced by self- and social identity-complexity—the degree
to which attributes that define one aspect of self (or one social identity) are the same
as those that define other aspects of self (or other social identities) (Brewer & Pierce,
2005; Roccas & Brewer, 2002). A person has a complex self-concept and social
identity if they have many distinct identities that do not overlap; a person has a sim-
ple social identity if they have few identities and those they do have are largely iso-
morphic. A complex self-structure can quarantine identity-specific self-uncertainty
and allow people to compensate by identifying more strongly with other identities
(or aspects of self) that they believe are central to their overall sense of self. A pair
of studies (N =177) by Grant and Hogg (2012) provide some support for this idea.
The experience of self-uncertainty can differ depending on whether one
believes one has adequate cognitive, emotional, social, and material resources to
reduce the uncertainty (e.g., Blascovich, Mendes, Tomaka, Salomon, & Seery,
2003; Blascovich & Tomaka, 1996). With adequate resources, uncertainty is an
exciting challenge to confront and resolve; without such resources, it is a stressful
threat to protect oneself against. How uncertainty is experienced may influence
the behaviors people adopt to reduce the uncertainty—behaviors that can reflect
a more self-promotive, or more self-protective, behavioral orientation (see Hig-
gins’s, 1998, regulatory focus theory). Uncertainty experienced as a challenge
would encourage promotive behaviors (e.g., public assertion of one’s identity);
uncertainty experienced as a threat would encourage more protective behaviors
(e.g., retreat into identity echo chambers).
There are many causes of self-uncertainty—some proximal, some distal; some
transitory, some enduring. Of most relevance perhaps to our discussion of the
role played by self-uncertainty in populism as a social identity dynamic are: glo-
balization, mass migration, climate crisis, automation and the reconfiguration
of “work”, political dysfunction and polarization, postcolonialism and the new
world order, and the realignment of super-national entities and alliances (e.g.,
the European Union). Collective self-uncertainty can be particularly aroused by
uncertainty about the defining attributes of a group that one identifies with (social
identity clarity and distinctiveness is absent—Wagoner, Belavadi, & Jung, 2017),
about how well one fits into and is accepted by a group that is central to one’s sense
of self (Goldman & Hogg, 2016; Hohman, Gaffney, & Hogg, 2017), and about
how well one’s group fits into a larger collective (for example a nation within the
European Union—Wagoner, Antonini, Hogg, Barbieri, & Talamo, 2018; Wag-
oner & Hogg, 2016a). But, most importantly, people are motivated to reduce self-
uncertainty only when exogenous conditions create a sense of self-uncertainty.

Group Identification
According to uncertainty-identity theory (Hogg, 2007, 2012, 2021a), group
identification, via the process of self-categorization (e.g., Turner, Hogg, Oakes,
204 Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987; see Abrams & Hogg, 2010; Hogg, 2018), is one of
the most effective ways to reduce uncertainty about self, particularly the collec-
tive self. The process of categorizing oneself as a group member reduces self-
uncertainty because it cognitively internalizes a shared ingroup prototype that
describes and prescribes who one is and how one should behave.
Group identification is highly adaptive and remarkably effective at reducing
self-uncertainty: (a) it provides a sense of who we are that prescribes what we
should think, feel, and do; (b) it reduces uncertainty about how others, both
ingroup and outgroup members, will behave and about how social interactions
will unfold; and (c) it provides consensual validation of our worldview and sense
of self. Consensual validation, an important source of self-uncertainty reduc-
tion, occurs because people who share a social identity typically have a shared
worldview and shared representation of who “we” and who “they” are. Our
expectations about the identity-based behavior of others are usually confirmed,
and fellow group members who we typically view as “people like us” agree with
our perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and values and approve of how we behave. The
discovery that such people do not see the world as we do can arouse significant
uncertainty about the group’s identity and our own sense of who we are (e.g.,
Wagoner et al., 2017).
Because identification so effectively reduces and protects people from self-
uncertainty, uncertainty-identity theory’s most basic prediction is that the more
uncertain people are, the more likely they are to identify, and to identify more
strongly, with a relevant social category that is available to them or they already
belong to. This prediction has been confirmed across numerous studies where
uncertainty is measured or manipulated, and identification is measured by widely
used and reliable group identification scales. Some studies experimentally manip-
ulate self-uncertainty indirectly through perceptual uncertainty or information
about identity clarity; others prime self-uncertainty or directly prime collec-
tive self-uncertainty; and others directly or indirectly measure self-uncertainty.
A meta-analysis of 35 of these studies, involving 4,657 participants, found that
uncertainty was a significant predictor of group identification that explained,
depending on research methodology, between 2.0% and 6.8% of variance in
identification (Choi & Hogg, 2020).

Populist Identities, Groups, and Ideologies

Identification reduces self-uncertainty. However, some groups, identities, and
leadership are better equipped than others to do this, which makes them particu-
larly attractive under uncertainty (Hogg, 2014, 2021b). The properties of these
groups, identities, belief systems, and leadership processes map very closely onto
the broad and inclusive characterization of populism that we developed earlier in
this chapter. We characterized populism as a belief that a group’s autonomy (will
and sovereignty) is supreme but is actively subverted by the coordinated actions of
 Self-Uncertainty and Populism 205

outsiders (cf. conspiracy theories) who represent an antagonistic system or elite. There
is an unrealistic belief in the greatness of the ingroup and its identity (collective
narcissism) associated with over-sensitivity to perceived disrespect, and a narrative of
victimhood that paints a picture of existential threat posed by outsiders and justifies
extreme actions against them. Hierarchy, social dominance, and authoritarianism are
attractive, and leaders promote populist beliefs and fuel zealotry (identity framing)
in a relatively autocratic and authoritarian manner that projects strength, conviction,
and unambiguous messaging.

Distinctive Groups and Unambiguous Identities

One significant moderator of the uncertainty-identification relationship is enti-
tativity (e.g., Hamilton & Sherman, 1996; Lickel et al., 2000). An entitative
group is a distinctive, coherent, and clearly structured unit with sharp intergroup
boundaries, within which members share attributes and goals, have a shared
fate, and interact in a climate of interdependence—it does an excellent job of
reducing self-uncertainty. In contrast, a low entitativity group is unclearly struc-
tured with indistinct boundaries, ambiguous membership criteria, limited shared
goals, and little agreement on group attributes—it is poorly equipped to reduce
self-uncertainty.
Highly entitative groups provide an identity that is simple, clear, unambigu-
ous, prescriptive, focused, and consensual; whereas less entitative groups provide
an identity that is relatively vague, ambiguous, unfocused, and dissensual. The
former identity attributes are exactly what one looks for to effectively reduce
uncertainty. Furthermore, people are more likely to anchor the former group
and identity attributes in invariant underlying qualities or essences (e.g., Haslam,
Bastian, Bain, & Kashima, 2006), which provides further interpretative predict-
ability and stability and make the group and its identity even better at reducing
and fending off uncertainty.
Uncertainty-identity theory predicts that under uncertainty, people seek
highly entitative groups to identify with, or identify more strongly with and
accentuate the entitativity of groups to which they already belong. Numerous
direct tests support this prediction. People identify more strongly with high than
low entitativity groups and tend to dis-identify from low entitativity groups or
make such groups appear more entitative. (e.g., Hogg, Meehan, & Farquharson,
2010; Hogg, Sherman, Dierselhuis, Maitner, & Moffitt, 2007; Jung, Hogg, &
Choi, 2016; Jung, Hogg, & Lewis, 2018; Sherman, Hogg, & Maitner, 2009;
Wagoner et al., 2018; Wagoner & Hogg, 2016a).

Marginal Members and Subgroup Factions

For an entitative group to effectively reduce self-uncertainty, those who iden-
tify need to feel the group is welcoming, and that it validates their identity and
206 Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

accepts and includes them as full members. Those who strive for inclusion, but
feel treated as marginal members who do not fit in or embody the group’s attrib-
utes may experience particularly strong self-uncertainty (e.g., Hohman et al.,
2017; Wagoner & Hogg, 2016b). They may go to great extremes to demon-
strate commitment and try to win the group’s trust and secure acceptance. Gold-
man and Hogg (2016) conducted a study of fraternity and sorority members
(N = 218)—on US college campuses, membership in such organizations is highly
valued among students who identify or seek to identify with them. Goldman
and Hogg found, as predicted, that it was peripheral members who were most
likely to intend to support and engage in ingroup-serving antisocial and aggres-
sive intergroup behaviors (e.g., vandalism, stealing, fighting, and poisoning food).
This research speaks very clearly to conditions that make people vulnerable to
radicalization.
If attempts, however extreme, to be accepted prove unsuccessful, people may
loosen their ties and dis-identify from the group to seek identity validation else-
where, where they believe it is more assured. This latter path is readily available
in the era of social media and global internet access. Under uncertainty, people
can largely choose their own online “echo chamber” as a source of confirmation
bias to validate their worldview and identity (cf. Barberá, Jost, Nagler, Tucker, &
Bonneau, 2015; Colleoni, Rozza, & Arvidsson, 2014; Peters, Morton, & Haslam,
2010).
This discussion of marginal members can be extended to the, perhaps more
common, situation where a subgroup feels marginal within the larger group to
which it belongs. If the larger group lacks consensus and has an unclear social
identity, the subgroup may pursue autonomy or separation. This is most likely
when the subgroup is self-conceptually important and is viewed as being relatively
more entitative and having a less ambiguous and dissensual identity. Research in
Sardinia within Italy (Wagoner et al., 2018), Texas within the US (Wagoner &
Hogg, 2016a), Scotland within the UK ( Jung et al., 2018), and South Korea
within the wider Korean identity ( Jung et al., 2016) supports this reasoning. The
pursuit of factional autonomy is often contested, resisted, and discredited, some-
times aggressively, by the superordinate group; which can cause factions to turn to
populism and become forceful and radical in resolutely fashioning, promulgating,
and protecting their distinctive identity. This can spiral into violence—factions
become armed militia or revolutionary cadres engaging in what is effectively an
uprising or civil war.

Extremist Groups and Identities

Self-uncertainty strengthens identification with entitative groups, essentializes
identities, makes people vulnerable to radicalization, and can dismantle larger
groups into populist subgroups and factions. It can also have darker effects on
groups, social identities, and interaction with outgroups (Hogg, 2014, 2021b).
 Self-Uncertainty and Populism 207

These may emerge when there is widespread, extreme, and chronic self-uncertainty
caused by shared exogenous conditions such as mass migration, economic col-
lapse, and socio-political disintegration; and become amplified when people have
a monolithic identity structure with very few discrete (and positive) identities
that do not share attributes—that is, when social identity complexity (Roccas &
Brewer, 2002) is low, and people’s sense of self is grounded in a single social iden-
tity that saturates the self-concept (cf. identity-fusion—Swann, Jetten, Gomez,
Whitehouse, & Bastian, 2012).
Under these circumstances, uncertainty may be experienced as an existential
threat that people feel they do not have the capacity to resolve. They are desperate
to identify and belong and yearn for leadership to help defend against or resolve
uncertainty and make them feel included and validated. They are receptive to
populist ideologies and messaging, as characterized earlier, that raise ingroup soli-
darity and demonize hated outsiders that subvert and oppress the ingroup and are
plotting its demise. Group-centrism prevails (Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, & De
Grada, 2006; see also Kruglanski, this volume), as does ethnocentrism (Brewer &
Campbell, 1976), intolerance and accentuated mistrust and fear of outsiders (Ste-
phan, 2014), a view of normative group attributes as fixed underlying essences
(essentialism—Haslam et al., 2006), and the potential to dehumanize outgroups
(Haslam, 2006; Haslam, Loughnan, & Kashima, 2008). These are “extreme”
groups and identities that, even if they do not have all the attributes described,
are attractive under conditions of elevated self-uncertainty, which they reduce by
furnishing people with a self-saturating, rigidly defined, exclusionary, and highly
prescriptive social identity and sense of self.
For example, laboratory and field experiments have shown that self-uncertainty
can lead university students to endorse and be more inclined to join more radi-
cal and populist campus protest groups (e.g., Hogg et al., 2010), that marginal
members of fraternities and sororities who feel uncertain about their member-
ship status are more likely to engage in extreme and violent intergroup behavior
(Goldman & Hogg, 2016), that conservatives and liberals in the US polarize dif-
ferences between Republicans and Democrats (Gaffney, Rast, Hackett, & Hogg,
2014; Sherman et al., 2009), and that Israelis and Palestinians are more supportive
of extreme and violent intergroup behaviors that are available to their respective
national groups (Hogg & Adelman, 2013). More broadly, self-uncertainty has
been implicated in religious extremism (Hogg, Adelman, & Blagg, 2010), gang
membership (Goldman, Giles, & Hogg, 2014), adolescent cohorts that engage
in risky health behaviors (Hogg, Siegel, & Hohman, 2011), and globalization-
induced extremist attitudes towards cultural outgroups and endorsement of vio-
lent extremism (Ozer, 2020).
Focusing specifically on self-uncertainty and populism a recent review of
empirical evidence concludes that there is strong support for the role of self-
uncertainty in political extremism and radicalization (Gøtzsche-Astrup, 2018).
For example, two experiments with citizens in the United States and Denmark
208 Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

(N = 2,889) found self-uncertainty caused stronger intentions to engage in col-

lective political violence when the ingroup was threatened (Gøtzsche-Astrup,
2020). This relationship was found to be particularly significant among people
(N = 4,806) with low dispositional openness (Gøtzsche-Astrup, 2019). Another
set of three studies (N = 5,882) found that increasing uncertainty (measured or
manipulated) predicted increasing support for Right Wing populist ideologies
and leaders who promoted such ideologies (Gøtzsche-Astrup & Hogg, 2020).
Only those individuals who scored most highly on authoritarianism were unaf-
fected by uncertainty—they resolutely endorsed right-wing populism signifi-
cantly more strongly than moderates and non-authoritarians.

Populist Leadership
People learn about a group’s identity from many sources. The more central the
group is to a person’s sense of self, the more pressing is the need for information
and the more important it becomes that the information is reliable and the source
trustworthy—people turn to sources they feel best represent the group’s defining
attributes (Belavadi & Hogg, 2019). One of the most trusted sources is the group’s
leader, particularly a leader who can be viewed as “one of us” (highly prototypi-
cal of the group) because they closely embody the group’s identity (Hogg, 2020).
Such group prototypical leaders are turned to as a reliable source of informa-
tion about the group, and thus are very influential (e.g., Hogg, Van Knippen-
berg, & Rast, 2012). A meta-analysis of 35 social identity studies of leadership
(N = 6,678) found that between 24% and 40% of variance in leader evaluation
and support was attributable to how group prototypical the leader was considered
to be (Barreto & Hogg, 2017).
Under uncertainty, the thirst for reliable information about the group and its
identity is significantly strengthened—uncertainty is reduced by having reliable
and unambiguous information about one’s self and identity. Under these circum-
stances, people are particularly driven to obtain information that confirms their
beliefs about their group’s identity and thus their own identity. People have a
strong confirmation bias (e.g., Wason, 1960) that leads them to avoid or discredit
information and information sources that do not confirm who they are (e.g.,
Frimer, Skitka, & Motyl, 2017). As Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel put it in their
1970 song “The Boxer”: “a man hears only what he wants to hear, and disregards
the rest”.
McKay Coppins, a writer for the Atlantic, provides a powerful and populism-
relevant illustration of confirmation bias (Coppins, 2020). He attended a MAGA
(Make America Great Again) rally in Mississippi and spoke to Trump supporters.
Coppins writes:

a 34 year-old maintenance worker who had an American flag wrapped

around his head, observed that Trump . . . had said things no other
 Self-Uncertainty and Populism 209

politicians would say. When I asked him if it mattered whether those things
were true, he thought for a moment before answering. “He tells you what
you want to hear” . . . “And I don’t know if it’s true or not—but it sounds
good, so fuck it”.
(Coppins, 2020, p. 39)

Over recent years, social media and the internet have made it extraordinarily
easy for people to satisfy their need for identity confirmation—they can “safely”
inhabit populism-infused identity echo chambers that are impervious to alterna-
tive realities, worldviews, and identities (Barberá et al., 2015; Colleoni et al.,
2014; Peters et al., 2010).
Self-uncertainty strengthens not only confirmation bias but also the need for
leadership and builds support for populist leadership—leaders who both embody
and promote populism. A pair of studies reported by Rast and associates speak
to the need for leadership under uncertainty (Rast, Gaffney, Hogg, & Crisp,
2012). They found that uncertainty weakened people’s usual preference for a
prototypical over non-prototypical leader, because it improved evaluations of and
support for a non-prototypical leader. When people evaluated only a prototypical
leader or only a non-prototypical leader (a between-subjects design), the prefer-
ence disappeared entirely. The non-prototypical leader was evaluated extremely
favorably—as favorably as the prototypical leader. Uncertainty creates a general
yearning for leadership itself.
One positive implication of this uncertainty-invoked yearning is that obstacles
to leadership that social minorities encounter may be removed (Gaffney, Rast, &
Hogg, 2018), and this may facilitate (pro)social innovation and change by allow-
ing novel and adaptive responses to crises to emerge (e.g., Watts, Steele, & Den
Hartog, 2020). However, uncertainty-induced need for leadership may also open
the door to non-prototypical leaders who are incompetent, manipulative, toxic,
or socially destructive
For example, uncertainty can empower leaders to employ a rhetoric of uncer-
tainty strategically to elevate members’ uncertainty and thus their need for lead-
ership; and then promote a social identity resolution that simultaneously builds
group cohesion and a common identity—a process called populist identity fram-
ing (Bos et al., 2020), or social identity framing (Seyranian, 2014), which can
secure or advance the leader’s leadership credentials. Hohman and associates
(Hohman, Hogg, & Bligh, 2010) conducted a study showing that US presidential
speeches that conveyed a self-uncertainty eliciting message strengthened national
identification and leader support. Since uncertainty, particularly uncertainty in
the absence of resources (uncertainty as a threat rather than challenge), can be
considered a position of relative powerlessness, leaders can create uncertainty
merely to exercise power and control over the group (Marris, 1996). Research has
also shown that the uncertainty-invoking context of mass migration can be used
by leaders to strengthen ingroup identification and provoke anti-immigration
210 Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

xenophobia and populist and nationalist sentiments (e.g., Bos et al., 2020; Jetten,
2019; Jetten et al., 2017).
Self-uncertainty impacts the type of leadership styles and behaviors that peo-
ple prefer. A large (N = 5,882) direct test of the impact of self-uncertainty on
support for populism and populist leadership found, as discussed earlier, that self-
uncertainty increased people’s support not only for populism but also for populist
leaders—leaders who promote populist ideologies (Gøtzsche-Astrup & Hogg,
2020). Other research speaks to the fact, noted earlier, that self-uncertainty builds
preference for groups and identities to be rigidly and consensually structured to
clearly differentiate between more prototypical central members and less proto-
typical peripheral members, and between leaders and followers. In these situa-
tions, leaders may become intoxicated by their power and feel divorced from the
rank-and-file of the group—they can readily become autocratic despots or feel
insecure and paranoid because they are isolated by their status from the group as
a whole (e.g., Treviño, Weaver, & Brown, 2008).
People who are striving to reduce self-uncertainty through group identifica-
tion need a clear and unambiguous identity message that conveys a concrete and
distinctive social identity. Self-uncertainty has been shown to create a marked
preference for the leader’s message to convey an extreme and polarized vision
of the group’s identity (Gaffney et al., 2014). Under uncertainty, leaders are also
evaluated more favorable and supported more strongly if they deliver a mes-
sage about the group’s social identity in a clear, simple, and unambiguous man-
ner (using affirmational language—“we are . . .”) rather than a more nuanced
and complex manner (using negational language—“we are not . . .”)—when
uncertainty was low people, preferred a more negational language (Gaffney, Rast,
Hogg, & Crisp, 2020).
Other research has shown that experimentally primed self-uncertainty can
lead employees who normally prefer a non-autocratic organizational leader over
an autocratic leader to display the opposite preference—strong preference for an
autocratic leader over a non-autocratic leader (Rast, Hogg, & Giessner, 2013).
A more recent, very large-scale set of correlational studies (more than 140,000
participants across 69 countries and two decades) found that economic uncer-
tainty (measured by the poverty rate, the housing vacancy rate, and the unemploy-
ment rate) strengthened support for dominant leaders, and that this relationship
was mediated by the self-uncertainty related construct of lack of personal control
(Kakkar & Sivanathan, 2017).
Finally, the Dark Triad (a personality constellation embodying attributes of
sub-clinical Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychoticism that are associated
with autocratic, toxic, and dysfunctional behavior) may be associated with popu-
list leadership. Guillén and associates conducted four studies (N = 3,589) con-
firming that people who possess Dark Triad traits are more motivated to take
leadership when they experience self-uncertainty than those who do not possess
such attributes (Guillén, Jacquart, & Hogg, 2020). In another series of three, as
 Self-Uncertainty and Populism 211

yet unpublished, studies (N = 331) focusing on followers, Guillén and associates

found that leaders with psychopathic traits were more likely to be supported by
followers who felt uncertain about their own sense of self (also see Nevicka, De
Hoogh, Van Vianen, & Ten Velden, 2013). Overall, self-uncertainty creates a per-
fect storm—followers back away from leadership (under uncertainty they look for
leadership from others rather than take leadership themselves) to leave the field
open for Dark Triad individuals to satisfy their powerful drive to lead.

Closing Comments
We live in times when populism is on the rise. Populist ideologies, identities,
regimes, and leaders attract increasingly widespread and strong support. However,
there is little scholarly consensus over how to define populism. We have argued
that populism involves the belief that the will and sovereignty of the people (the
group’s autonomy) is supreme but is actively subverted by the deliberate actions of
outsiders who represent an antagonistic system or elite that is determined to destroy
“us”. To broaden this characterization, we added a belief in conspiracy theories, a
sense of collective narcissism, a narrative of collective victimhood, support for hierarchy,
social dominance and authoritarianism, and a preference for leaders who fuel zealotry
and embody and promote populist attributes in an autocratic and authoritarian manner
that projects strength and conviction and a simple and unambiguous identity
message.
In this chapter, we draw on uncertainty-identity theory (e.g., Hogg, 2007,
2012, 2021a) and its application to societal extremism (e.g., Hogg, 2014, 2021b)
to explain how feelings of self-uncertainty may motivate and generate populism.
We argue that conditions, particularly widespread social disruptions and crises,
can create a powerful and highly aversive sense of uncertainty about oneself and
one’s identity in the world.
People resolve this self-uncertainty by identifying with groups with attrib-
utes that very closely map onto our characterization of populism—attributes that
reduce self-uncertainty by providing people with a clearly defined sense of self in
the world. They identify zealously with groups that are distinctive and polarized,
and have unambiguous, simple, and clearly defined identities that are ethnocen-
tric and xenophobic. Such groups demonize and persecute dissenters, outsiders,
and outgroups that they believe disrespect them, systematically undermine their
autonomy, and aim to degrade and destroy their identity. Populist leadership is
important because self-uncertainty builds a yearning for reliable, trusted infor-
mation about who one is. People not only seek identity confirmation wherever
they can find it (e.g., social media), but they also look to leaders to embody and
provide unambiguous identity information that reflects populist beliefs. And they
support leaders who do this in a strong, assertive authoritarian way.
There is empirical support, which we briefly refer to throughout, for many
aspects of this analysis; however, there is, as always, scope for additional empirical
212 Michael A. Hogg and Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup

research and conceptual extension and nuances. Populism is a powerful force for
social change in the world. Whether it is a good or a bad thing is a matter of one’s
world view—liberals might welcome left-wing populism while conservatives
welcome right-wing populism. The take-away message is that increased uncer-
tainty can engender a move towards populism and populist leaders as a means of
self-uncertainty reduction. In uncertain times, populism can seem an attractive
solution.

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12
WHEN POPULISM TRIUMPHS
From Democracy to Autocracy

Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

Introduction
In the last few decades, populism has been on the march in many countries,
including developed Western democracies (Trump’s election in the USA, the
Brexit vote) as well as countries with few democratic traditions such as Putin’s
Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, Kaczyński’s Poland, and Orbán’s Hungary. Populism,
although difficult to define, is marked by several recognizable features. Popu-
list ideology contrasts the people with an alien, unrepresentative ‘elite’, ideal-
izes the people as an unquestionable reference group, leans towards charismatic
leadership, considers its own ideology to be morally unquestionable, and prefers
a hierarchical, autocratic system to individual freedoms. Populism is thus funda-
mentally a collectivist ideology that emphasizes the primacy of the group over
the individual.
Populist politics often succeeds because it mobilizes the deeply felt human
need for identification with a group (Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume).
Group identification is the product of evolutionary pressures, as group coopera-
tion represents a highly effective adaptive survival strategy (Tajfel & Forgas, 2000;
von Hippel, 2018). It was the revolutionary ideology of the Enlightenment that
explicitly challenged the primacy of group identification and replaced it with the
ideology of the free and independent individual, producing an unprecedented
improvement in the human condition (Pinker, 2018). The recent rise of pop-
ulism represents the latest challenge to the values of the Enlightenment, the ata-
vistic and romantic rise of collectivism and group identification as an alternative
to individualism and freedom.
In this chapter, we pay special attention to Hungary, a country that has pro-
gressed perhaps furthest in using populist methods to replace democracy with
an authoritarian system over the past ten years. Hungary is the only country
220 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

within the EU that Freedom House (2020) now classifies as no longer a democ-
racy. Remarkably, the transition to autocracy was accomplished without a politi-
cal coup or military takeover, relying solely on populist policies and propaganda
to retain the electoral support of a portion of the population. The aim of our
chapter is to employ the tools of social psychology to explore the psychological
mechanisms involved in this process. First, we discuss the role that a damaged
sense of national identity played in the rise of populist autocracy, as evidenced
by representative national surveys and linguistic narrative analyses. We will also
consider the propaganda strategies that exploited the vulnerable sense of national
identity and feelings of collective narcissism and self-uncertainty (Kruglanski et al.,
this volume). In the second half of the chapter, we present three empirical studies
exploring the psychological characteristics of populism. Finally, we will discuss the
implications of our analysis for understanding the international rise of populism.

International Ramifications
Although Hungary is not an important country, providing barely .08% of the EU’s
economy, what occurred in Hungary has international ramifications, because it
could easily happen elsewhere. Hungary has become a successful populist labora-
tory of what can happen when illiberal governance comes to power. Hungary’s
autocratic ruler, Viktor Orbán, has many followers, in not only Central and East-
ern Europe but also the Balkans, where he is an active promoter of illiberalism.
Orbán has also made a great impression on Trump, who showered praise on him
for a ‘tremendous job’ (Borger & Walker, 2019). The US ambassador to Hungary,
David Cornstein, a close friend of Donald Trump, confirmed that Trump would
‘love to have the situation’ Orbán achieved (Riotta, 2019).
Orbán’s government completely reshaped the country’s political culture and
institutions, demonstrating how populist propaganda, conspiracy theories, and
identity politics can be harnessed to destroy democracy. It seems that Hungary’s
case is part of a larger trend, drawing partial legitimization from the Western
world’s shift towards identity politics and the growing backlash against political
correctness and ‘gender ideology’. The success of Orbán’s autocracy is based on
the same populist strategies and ideologies that have been routinely employed by
autocratic regimes since the 1930s (Albright, 2018). International populist politi-
cal movements and their leaders, such as the AfD, the National Front, Salvini,
Kaczyński, Erdogan, Netanyahu, Putin, and many others, regularly consult with
Orbán, and there are many similarities between these populist movements and
their strategies.

From Democracy to Autocracy

After his election in 2010, Orbán built a de facto one-party system that, using
Orwellian Newspeak, he calls the ‘System of National Cooperation’. He
 When Populism Triumphs 221

introduced a new constitution supported only by his own party, dismantled

democratic institutions, and abolished the system of checks and balances. A new
electoral law entrenched the power of the ruling party: ‘although in both the
2014 and the 2018 elections Fidesz failed to win more than 50% of all votes
cast, it both times secured a two-thirds parliamentary majority’ (Krekó & Enyedi,
2018, p. 42). In an extraordinary speech in 2014, Orbán confirmed that Hungary
is turning its back on liberal democracy and sees autocratic Eastern states such
as Russia and Turkey as its role models. He stated that ‘we must abandon lib-
eral methods and principles of organizing society and the liberal worldview . . .
because liberal values today mean corruption, sex, and violence’ (Orbán, 2014).
In the same speech, Orbán extolled the virtues of the labor-based economy of
‘healthy’ Eastern peoples with the tired, immoral, Western world subordinated to
financial capitalism (Orbán, 2014).
Orbán’s loyal party apparatchiks were appointed to run the judicial system,
the Constitutional Court, and most other state institutions. Much of the media,
including the public broadcaster, are under direct party control and now function
as propaganda outlets. Hungary fell from 23rd to 87th in the international list of
press freedom, under Sierra Leone. All the country’s important public officials
belong to the prime minister’s loyal personal network. The prime minister, the
leader of Parliament, and the president were roommates and close friends in the
same college. According to Freedom House (2020), Hungary registered the larg-
est cumulative democratic decline in Nations in Transit history after its score fell
for ten consecutive years.
Political scientists debate how best to characterize Hungary’s populist autoc-
racy. Some call it a quasi-fascist state, as Orbán’s propaganda methods foment-
ing division, hatred, and nationalism employ the methods used by Mussolini,
Goebbels, and Hitler (Crano & Gaffney, this volume). Others define it as a post-
communist mafia state (Magyar, 2016), focusing on the all-encompassing corrup-
tion and Godfather-like hierarchical power structures. Orbán’s childhood friend,
until 2010 a humble gasfitter, has now become the richest man in Hungary, with
a personal fortune twice that of Queen Elizabeth II. Orbán’s son-in-law has also
become a multi-billionaire, despite being accused of racketeering and corrup-
tion by the EU. Transparency International shows that corruption has become
endemic in Hungary since 2010, yet the number of significant corruption pros-
ecutions has dropped to almost zero (Krekó & Enyedi, 2018, p. 44).
Orbán and his party monopolize all legislative and executive power, and also
seek to dominate most spheres of social life, including commerce, education,
theatre, the arts, churches, and even sports and women’s reproductive choices. Yet
this de facto one-party state is not without some semblance of political legitima-
tion. Orbán has now been re-elected three times in elections commonly described
as not fair, and only partly free. This leads us to perhaps the most fascinating
aspect of Orbán’s populist autocracy. How can state-controlled propaganda be
used so effectively to generate sufficient electoral support for what is, in essence,
222 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

an autocratic one-party state? This is a question that our empirical analyses in the
second half of the chapter will also explore.

The Role of Damaged National Identity

Manipulative government propaganda exploiting Hungarians’ damaged sense of
national identity played a critical role in the promotion of autocracy. Advocating
conspiracy theories, creating enemies (foreigners, Jews, the EU), and emphasiz-
ing the moral superiority of the ‘people’ are key strategies (Mols & Jetten, 2016;
Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup; Krekó, this volume). The need for a positive group
identity is a universal human characteristic shaped by evolutionary processes,
and has been an adaptive feature of human groups in our ancestral environment
(Harari, 2014; von Hippel, 2018). In his classical ‘minimal group’ experiments,
Tajfel showed that even the most superficial and meaningless group member-
ship can easily trigger a strong sense of group identity and discrimination against
out-groups (Tajfel & Forgas, 2000; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In these experiments,
participants are assigned to meaningless ‘groups’ and then are asked to distribute
rewards to anonymous strangers identified only as in-group or out-group mem-
bers. Even transparently random group memberships decided by the flip of a
coin can produce strong in-group identification and spontaneous discrimination
against out-group members. This work shows that as a means of achieving posi-
tive self-esteem, humans possess a powerful motivation to see their own group as
better than other groups (Tajfel & Forgas, 2000).
This mechanism also plays a critical role in political thinking and collectiv-
ist populist ideology, especially when the reference group cannot provide a real
basis for a positive group identity. Traumatic group experiences require narra-
tive explanation, often built around themes of injustice, betrayal, powerlessness,
and victim mentality (Bibó, 1946). Populism becomes a truly dynamic politi-
cal force when autocratic leaders can exploit the collective narcissistic emotions
produced by compromised group identity (Albright, 2018; Ditto & Rodriguez,
this volume). Similar mechanisms also played a role in motivating Trump voters,
Brexit supporters, and the advent of populist leaders such as Kaczyński and Orbán
(Lantos & Forgas, 2020). In the case of Hungary, damaged national identity can
be traced to repeated historical traumas that characterize the last five hundred
years of Hungarian history (Bibó, 1946, 1991; Lendvai, 2012). For example, the
loss of territory after World War I still remains a painful trauma in Hungary,
while Austria has long forgotten its loss of a major empire. As we will see in the
next section, Hungarian national identity today is characterized by a deep sense
of insecurity, inferiority, and lack of self-confidence, compensated by an overly
unrealistic, grandiose, narcissistic evaluation of the in-group’s virtues and entitle-
ments, predisposing many Hungarian voters to a kind of ‘political hysteria’(Bibó,
1946; see also Krekó, this volume).
 When Populism Triumphs 223

The Language of Political Identity

The quantitative analysis of linguistic narratives in school texts, historical nov-
els, and everyday conversations offers an excellent way to document the dam-
aged sense of national identity in Hungary (László, 2005, 2014; László & Ehman,
2013). Such narrative analyses focused on three topical domains: (1) the causes of
historical events, (2) emotional reactions, and (3) and national self-evaluation. László
and his colleagues showed that Hungarians predominantly describe themselves as
victims who have little causal influence on events and mostly blame outsiders for
their failures. Their emotional reactions are dominated by sadness, fear, frustra-
tion, helplessness, and self-pity (László, 2005, 2014).
Despite such a deeply pessimistic view of history, narrative language analyses
also document a surprisingly grandiose and narcissistic self-evaluation of Hungar-
ians, emphasizing their superiority and moral greatness and the de-valuation of
external groups, especially neighbors (László, 2014, p. 96). The significant ten-
sion between perceived helplessness and negative emotions, on the one hand,
and national self-aggrandizement, on the other, is effectively resolved by holding
foreigners solely responsible for failures (lost world wars, Holocaust, etc.). It is
this tendency that is actively exploited by Orbán’s propaganda machinery through
emphasizing foreign enemies (the EU, Jewish financiers, liberals) and reinterpret-
ing history by financing various ‘historical’ institutes that extoll the superiority,
moral virtues, and innocence of the nation (Figure 12.1).
This damaged sense of national consciousness is also confirmed by Csepeli
(2018), who ingenuously compared the vocabulary of the Hungarian national
anthem with those of surrounding countries. While neighboring nations’ anthems
feature words such as ‘beauty, splendor, life, dawn, freedom, glory, love, fortune,
joy, wealth, pride, victory, happiness, strength’, the Hungarian anthem is replete
with words such as ‘misfortune, sin, punishment, sad, moan, slavery, beaten, war,
thundering sky, mounds of bones, ashes of your fetus, sea of flames, death growl,
mourning, blood of the dead, torment’. This pattern of victim mentality and
self-pity promotes a psychological state of learned hopelessness and openness to
populist manipulation and propaganda.
The Hungarian language itself also plays an important role in defining national
identity. According to Eurostat (2016), very few Hungarians speak foreign lan-
guages, and this is a major cause of cultural and intellectual isolation. On the
other hand, language also functions as a key symbol of national uniqueness, often
invoked to support a grandiose and narcissistic sense of national identity. Many
Hungarians who speak no foreign languages routinely claim that Hungarian is the
most beautiful and expressive language in the world. Naïve and unsubstantiated
claims that runic writing is actually a brilliant and ancient Hungarian invention (!)
resulted in many localities now proudly displaying their names in runic writing—
even though almost no one can actually read it (Figure 12.1).
224 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

FIGURE 12.1 Examples of Hungarian government propaganda. Top left: ‘Our mes-

sage to Brussels: we demand respect for Hungarians! Top right: ‘Let’s
not allow Soros to have the last laugh!’ Middle left: ‘Let’s not give in to
blackmail: Defend Hungary’. Middle right: ‘You have a right to know
what Brussels is planning for you’. Bottom left: Runic writing of local-
ity names. Bottom right: ‘Hungary will not give in!’

Populist Attitudes in Survey Data

This kind of damaged national identity is also documented by representative
national surveys (Keller, 2010). For example, Kelemen (2010; Kelemen et al.,
2014) and Szilágyi and Kelemen (2019) found that in 2019, the majority of
 When Populism Triumphs 225

respondents supported statements expressing deep pessimism and helplessness,

such as ‘a strong political leader is needed to solve the country’s problems’ (80%),
‘democracy in Hungary will not function as it should for many decades’ (72%),
‘political parties do not really represent the interests of the people’ (69%), ‘people
lived better before the change of regime’ (55%), ‘the average person has no influ-
ence on public life’ (55%), ‘the Hungarian economic and social structure should
be radically transformed’ (70%), ‘the state of our society is getting worse every
year’ (63%), ‘not everyone in Hungary has the opportunity to get rich and pros-
per’ (54%), and ‘most domestic political decision do not serve the public good’
(55%) (Szilágyi & Kelemen, 2019, pp. 192–193). These attitudes are particularly
strong among rural, poorer, and less educated respondents.
Similar results were reported in the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s national survey
in March 2020. The majority of respondents believe that corruption (60%), pub-
lic education (58%), health (63%), democracy and freedom of the press (50%),
poverty (54%), and the international perception of the country (52%) have all
declined in the last ten years (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2020, p. 86). Perceptions
of the rule of law are similarly negative. The majority of respondents believe that
‘the law is applied differently to influential people than to the average person’
(82%), ‘not all people are equal before Hungarian courts’ (65%), ‘law and justice
in court judgments are often separated’ (76%), ‘the outcome of cases largely
depends on the person of the judge’ (75%), ‘it is not worth litigating because it
only favors lawyers’ (58%), and ‘the Hungarian judiciary is not independent of
politics’ (71%) (Szilágyi & Kelemen, 2019).
Remarkably, such strongly negative opinions coexist with an unrealistically
romanticized and grandiose national evaluation, as the majority of voters felt
that ‘for me, Hungary is the most beautiful place in the world’ (80%; Szilágyi &
Kelemen, 2019). This pattern of schizoid national identity also produces a feel-
ing of collective narcissism, when the moral superiority and entitlements of
one’s own group is unquestionable, and other groups are denigrated and receive
no empathy (Bar-Tal, 2000; Golec de Zavala, Dyduch-Hazar, & Lantos, 2019).
Such a damaged sense of national identity may predispose voters to willingly
embrace political propaganda that satisfies their need for positive group identifi-
cation. Feelings of vulnerability and narcissism also played a role among Trump
voters and British Brexit voters (Federico & Golec de Zavala, 2018; Lantos &
Forgas, 2020).

Collective Narcissism and the Role of Populist Propaganda

The need for positive group identity also promotes experiences of collective nar-
cissism, a term first used by theorists of the Frankfurt School. Collective narcis-
sism is motivated by a fragile, unstable self-esteem, which can be remedied by
identifying with a privileged group imagined to be grandiose (Forgas & Lantos,
2020; Lantos & Forgas, 2020). Similar psychological dynamics are revealed by the
226 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

minimal group experiments, according to which people gain an important part

of their positive self-esteem by extolling the virtues of highly valued in-groups
(Tajfel & Forgas, 2000; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Collective narcissism may be
measured with items like ‘I insist that my group gets the respect it deserves’ (Golec
de Zavala, Cichocka, Eidelson, & Jayawickreme, 2009). In the second part of our
chapter, we present research exploring the links between populism, collective
narcissism, and related psychological constructs.
Populist propaganda plays a key role in the political exploitation of collec-
tive narcissism and threatened group identity. Simple, endlessly repeated political
messages glorifying the group and creating external enemies and conspiracies is
a well-established strategy also used by Mussolini, Hitler, and aspiring dictators
ever since (Albright, 2018; Crano & Gaffney, this volume). Populist propaganda
works because ‘our political values are determined by our identity and emotions
based on the perception of the world, and these are largely shaped by the politi-
cal actors themselves’ (Kovach, 2020, cited in Illés, 2020). Collective narcissism
is characterized by hypersensitivity to perceived attacks on our group, triggering
fear and anger towards out-groups (Golec de Zavala et al., 2019; Marcus; Petersen
et al., this volume). Autocratic leaders routinely emphasize the relentless struggle
against their enemies (Albright, 2018). In Hungary, Orbán’s propaganda during
the past ten years variously portrayed the EU, refugees, the opposition, or George
Soros as mortal threats to national survival (Figure 12.1).
Media influence is thus crucial for populist success. Orbán’s media empire
by 2017 included Hungary’s national broadcaster; all regional newspapers; its
second-largest commercial television company; most popular websites; the sole
national commercial radio network; the only sports daily; the only news agency;
and a large number of papers that purvey what can only be described as cen-
trally controlled propaganda journalism (Krekó & Enyedi, 2018, p. 46). In 2017
alone, about US$250 million was spent on billboards, leaflets, television ads,
and ‘national consultations’, mass mailings to every voter, a strategy first used by
Goebbels. These messages attacked Hungary’s ‘enemies’ such as refugees, Brus-
sels, and George Soros (Figure 12.1). Hungary’s propaganda expenditure before
the last election was several times the official amount spent by both sides on the
Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom. And this propaganda seems working:
Hungarians today are among the most xenophobic people in Europe and the
least worried about corruption, and they fear Russia less than they fear Brus-
sels and George Soros. In one recent survey, 51% of Fidesz voters said that they
would prefer Russia to the United States when choosing a strategic partner, and
Vladimir Putin is more popular than Angela Merkel or Donald Trump (Krekó &
Enyedi, 2018, p. 47).
After 2015, refugees were identified as a mortal threat to national survival—
even though almost no refugee wanted to stay in Hungary. The EU’s inability to
manage the refugee crisis allowed Orbán to exploit this issue for years. Another
target of xenophobic propaganda was George Soros, a successful financial
 When Populism Triumphs 227

entrepreneur and philanthropist of Jewish-Hungarian descent. This campaign was

also characterized by barely disguised anti-Semitism. The more recent anti-EU
campaign offers a clear example of the narcissistic nature of populist propaganda
(Figure 12.1). Several empirical studies now confirm that populism is related to
a variety of psychological variables such as collective narcissism, an issue we shall
turn to next.

The Psychological Components of Populism

Based on the theoretical and conceptual considerations outlined earlier, we next
report three studies conducted in 2017, 2018, and 2020, exploring the psycho-
logical underpinnings of populist attitudes and voting behavior, including negative
attitudes towards the EU, narcissistic attitudes towards Hungary, and preference
for Orbán’s regime.

Study 1: Collective Narcissism and Conservatism Predict

Support for Populist Politics
In a 2017 study (Lantos & Forgas, 2020), a convenience sample of 284 volunteer
participants aged between 18 and 72 were recruited on popular internet sites and
completed an online survey in Hungary. Participants responded to the 5-item
collective narcissism scale (Golec de Zavala et al., 2009, e.g., ‘I will not be satisfied
until the Hungarian nation obtains the respect it deserves’). Attitudes towards the
national in-group, a national out-group (the UK), and the EU were also meas-
ured. Support for Fidesz, the populist ruling party, was assessed by asking partici-
pants whether they voted for Viktor Orbán in the 2014 elections, and whether
they intended to vote for him in the next (2018) election. Political conservatism
was also measured on a five-point liberal–conservative scale.
Results showed a significant link between collective narcissism and populist
voting in the 2014 election, rpb = .21, p = .004, and voting intentions in the next
(2018) election, rpb = .32, p < .001. Next, in four multiple linear regressions, we
explored the relationship between collective narcissism, political conservatism,
attitudes towards Hungary and the EU, and towards a neutral country, the UK,
while controlling for demographic variables. The results confirmed that collective
narcissism was a significant and reliable predictor of all of these measures. Col-
lective narcissism was also the most reliable predictor of support for the populist
Fidesz party.
In subsequent mediational analyses, we used collective narcissism as the pre-
dictor, populist voting as the outcome variable, and conservatism as the mediator.
Collective narcissism significantly predicted populist voting in both the previous
and the forthcoming election. However, this effect was significantly mediated by
conservatism (Figure 12.2). These results confirm our theoretical prediction that
a vulnerable national identity and feelings of collective narcissism are implicated
228 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

Conservatism

Collective Voting 2018

Narcissism
*** Voting 2014
0.97 (0.25)
0.33 (0.20)

FIGURE 12.2 The psychological antecedents of populist voting preferences: the direct

and indirect effect of collective narcissism on Fidesz support in 2014
(N = 194) and Fidesz support in 2018 (N = 240). Political conservatism
functions as a significant mediator of the effects of collective narcissism
on populism.

in populist political preferences. However, conservatism was a significant media-

tor between collective narcissism and voting behavior.

Study 2: Feelings of Deprivation and Collective

Narcissism in Populist preferences
In the next study (Lantos & Forgas, 2020), we studied the relationship between
perceived grievance and a sense of relative deprivation, and collective narcissism
and conservatism (Ditto & Rodriguez, this volume). The study was carried out in
2018, with a convenience sample of 271 online participants aged between 18 and
92, and recruited on popular internet sites. Questions again assessed collective
narcissism (as earlier), as well as perceptions of grievance and relative deprivation
(‘Over the past five years the economic situation of those similar to me in Hungary
has been better/worse than that of immigrants living in Hungary’). Populist polit-
ical preference was again assessed by asking about past and intended future voting
for the ruling populist party, Fidesz, and conservatism was measured as previously.
Results showed a significant link between collective narcissism and voting for
Fidesz. Multiple linear regressions found that collective narcissism was a signifi-
cant predictor of political conservatism, as well as self-reported relative depriva-
tion. A damaged sense of national identity and a sense of collective narcissism
and relative deprivation are likely to make voters especially vulnerable to populist
propaganda addressing their need for positive group identification.
 When Populism Triumphs 229

In further mediational analyses, we again used collective narcissism as a predic-

tor and conservatism as a mediator predicting three different dependent variables:
(1) perceived grievance and relative deprivation, (2) populist voting in the 2014
and (3) 2018 Hungarian elections. Collective narcissism significantly predicted
perceived grievance and relative deprivation, but this effect was again signifi-
cantly mediated by conservatism. When conservatism was also included in the
model as a mediator, the effects of collective narcissism became nonsignificant
(Figure 12.3). Voting support for Orbán’s populist Fidesz party was again signifi-
cantly predicted by collective narcissism, but this effect was again mediated by
conservatism (Figure 12.3).
These studies show that even though collective narcissism plays an impor-
tant psychological role in the genesis of populist political preferences, its effect is
mediated by other factors such as political conservatism. In other words, unless a
person is already committed to a conservative ideology, feelings of collective nar-
cissism may not necessarily produce a preference for populist political alternatives.
In the next study, we explored a variety of additional psychological variables in
the genesis of populist political attitudes.

Study 3: The Psychological Components of Populism

In our most recent study (February–March 2020), 440 volunteer Hungarians
recruited on popular internet sites completed an online questionnaire measuring a

Conservatism

Collective Voting 2018

Narcissism Voting 2014
0.18 (0.24) Relative Deprivation
0.18 (0.22)
0.05 (0.06)

FIGURE 12.3 Result of the mediation analysis of collective narcissism as the predic-

tor and conservatism as the mediator on three dependent variables: (1)
perceived grievance and relative deprivation, (2) Fidesz support in 2014
(N = 265), and (3) Fidesz support in 2018 (N = 155). Political con-
servatism significantly mediates the effects of collective narcissism on
these variables.
230 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

range of variables shown as follows (373 females, 67 males, ages 18–77, M = 28.71,
SD = 10.56. Participants were offered a chance of winning books as a reward.
Responses to each question were on a 1–5 agree–disagree scale.
The study assessed populism (15 questions), collective narcissism, individual
narcissism, self-esteem, just world beliefs, system skepticism, authoritarianism,
nationalism, need for cognition, uncertainty avoidance, depression, conspiracy
beliefs, conservatism, and personality (for summary of variables and items, see
Table 12.1).

TABLE 12.1 Summary of the variables studied and the questions used in Study 3. For
the 15 populism items, the three factors obtained and factor loadings for
each item are also shown. Items marked by * are sourced from Szilágyi and
Kelemen (2019).

Variable Questions/Items
POPULISM it is a moral duty to fight for the groups we belong to,
Factor 1 Collectivism .70; it is our duty to subordinate ourselves to the
national interest, .70; individuals are often wrong,
but the nation is always right, .68; a strong leader is
often best able to express the will of the people, .53;
every method is justified to achieve the interests of the
people/group, .52; people have the right to decide who
they want to admit to their group, .52; the people are
always right, and those who disagree are traitors, .50;
and democratic processes often prevent the expression
of the popular will, .44
POPULISM political elites care only about themselves and ignore the
Factor 2 Anti-elitism interests of the common people, .78; our society was
always divided into the ‘elite’ and the ‘people’, .71; the
political leaders are often more decent and sensible than
the common people (reverse-scored), .58; the more
power a leader has, the more mistakes he/she will
make, .46
POPULISM no group is worth sacrificing your individual rights for,
Factor 3 Tolerance/ .70; minorities have the right to fight against the will of
Rigidity the majority (reverse-scored), .58; and individuals who
criticize our group should also be listened to, .51
COLLECTIVE my nation deserves special treatment; many people don’t
NARCISSISM (based on understand the importance of my nation; I will never
Golec de Zavala et al., be satisfied until my nation gets the recognition they
2009) deserve
INDIVIDUAL I am a narcissist; I insist upon getting the respect and
NARCISSISM recognition due to me; I am an extraordinary person
SELF-ESTEEM* I have high self-esteem; I am mostly satisfied with myself;
I seldom feel envy towards others; I can be proud of
many things in my life
 When Populism Triumphs 231

Variable Questions/Items
JUST WORLD BELIEFS* the world is generally not fair; most of the time, we can
only rely on ourselves; the end mostly justifies the mean
SYSTEM SCEPTICSM* democracy does not work in Hungary; our society is
fundamentally corrupt; the leaders only worry about
their own interests
AUTHORITARIANISM* only a strong leader can protect the country from outside
attacks; it’s great when leaders tell us exactly what to
do; it’s important for people to be able to act both in an
obedient and commanding way; everyone should know
where their place in the world lies
NATIONALISM* I am proud to be born a Hungarian; Hungarians are
among the most talented people in the world; my
nation is surrounded by enemies
NEED FOR I enjoy working on complicated problems; I am curious
COGNITION* about everything; I try to avoid situations that require
too much thinking
UNCEERTAINTY I dislike uncertain situations; I prefer to live life according
AVOIDANCE* to the rules
DEPRESSION* I mostly feel alone in the world; I am often unhappy; life
does not have much meaning; our fates are governed by
invisible forces
CONSPIRACY BELIEFS I think that many very important things happen in the
(after Bruder, Haffke, world, which the public is never informed about;
Neave, Nouripanah, & I think that politicians usually do not tell us the true
Imhoff, 2013) motives for their decisions; I think that government
agencies closely monitor all citizens; I think that events
which superficially seem to lack a connection are often
the result of secret activities; I think that there are secret
organizations that greatly influence political decisions
CONSERVATISM indicate your political views on a liberal–conservative
scale
PERSONALITY the ten-item personality inventory (TIPI) scale assessing
extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
neuroticism, and openness

Principal Components Analysis of the Populism Scale

To discover the psychological features of populist thinking, responses to the
15 populism questions were first subjected to a principal components analy-
sis resulting in three interpretable factors, collectivism, anti-elitism, and intolerance
(overall Cronbach’s alpha = .58; factor 1 = .73; factor 2 = .55; factor 3 = .27;
KMO = .78). The first factor contained eight questions measuring collectivism,
the second factor contained four items measuring anti-elitism, and the third fac-
tor featured three items assessing rigidity vs. tolerance (for items and loadings, see
Table 12.1). Overall, these dimensions reveal the underlying content of populist
232 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

thinking, with considerable face validity (Pauwels, 2017). The collectivism and
rigidity subscales were positively correlated, r(438) = .23, p < .001. Interestingly,
collectivism and anti-elitism subscales were negatively related, r(438) = −.17,
p < .001, and there was no correlation between the anti-elitism and rigidity
subscales, r(438) = .02, p = .66. There is growing evidence from 32 Western
European parties between 1989 and 2008 that anti-elitism differs across left- and
right-wing populism (Roodujin & Akkerman, 2017). Also, once a populist party
like Orbán’s Fidesz acquires autocratic power, the populist concept of anti-elitism
becomes confounded, as our results also suggest. Populists in power often change
their tune, and their followers rapidly embrace their own populist elites, while
distrusting foreign or opposing elites with unchanging ferocity. As Krekó (this
volume) argues, when populism triumphs, it often reveals its true face, which is
tribalism.

The Psychological Predictors of

Populism: Regression Analyses
Next, we used multiple regression to explore the relationship between psycho-
logical variables and populism.
Overall populist belief was significantly predicted (beta values in brack-
ets, R2 = .53) by (1) collective narcissism (.32, p < .001), (2) just world beliefs (.19,
p < .001), (3) conspiracy beliefs (.18, p < .001); (4) authoritarianism (.17, p < .001),
and (5) conservatism (.16, p < .001), as well as (6) low need for cognition (.08, p = .046).

Separate Populism Dimensions

The predictors of the three populism subscales (collectivism, anti-elitism, and rigidity/
tolerance) were also explored. Collectivism was predicted (R2 = .64) by (1) collec-
tive narcissism (.37, p < .001), (2) authoritarianism (.26, p < .001), (3) conservatism
(.17, p < .001), (4) low system skepticism (.11, p = .002), (5) conspiracy beliefs (.11,
p = .003), (6) just world beliefs (.08, p = .02), (7) low need for cognition (−.08,
p = .02), and (8) nationalism (.08, p = .03). Anti-elitism was predicted (R2 = .39)
by (1) system skepticism (.43, p < .001), (2) conspiracy beliefs (.18, p < .001), (3) just
world beliefs (.17, p < .001), and (4) low authoritarianism (.10, p = .03). The third,
rigidity/tolerance aspect of populism (R2 = .13), was predicted by (1) collective
narcissism (.16, p = .01), (2) just world beliefs (.15, p = .01), (3) low need for cogni-
tion (.11, p = .04), (4) low nationalism (.10, p = .06), and (5) low system skepticism
(.10, p = .06). Overall, these results suggest that populist ideology is significantly
predicted by a relatively small number of tightly organized psychological vari-
ables, such as collective narcissism, authoritarianism, nationalism, conservatism,
conspiracy ideation, system skepticism, unjust world beliefs, and low need for
cognition.
 When Populism Triumphs 233

Populist Voting
Next, we explored the variables that best predict actual voter support for Hungary’s
populist ruling party, Fidesz. Fidesz support was significantly predicted (R2 = .34)
by collective narcissism (.23, p = .04), low depression (.23, p = .03), and introversion
(.21, p = .04). This pattern appears consistent with previous results indicating that
collective narcissism plays an important role in the genesis of political populism, a
question that we further explored in the subsequent mediational analyses.

Mediational analyses linking psychological

variables to populism
Based on the multiple regression analyses, mediational analyses tested the role of
various predictor and mediator variables in producing populist thinking and vot-
ing. In interpreting the results of regression as well as mediational analyses, we
need to be careful to recognize that such analyses cannot support causal conclu-
sions, and are suggestive rather than definitive about the pattern of relationships
revealed (Fiedler, Schott, & Meiser, 2011).

Predicting Populist Voting

The first mediational analysis indicated that collective narcissism predicts popu-
list voting intentions as also found in other countries (Forgas & Lantos, 2020).
A mediation model with the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Model 4, Hayes, 2018)
revealed a significant overall model: likelihood ratio χ2(2) = 65.92, R2 = .14
(Cox & Snell); .29 (Nagelkerke), p < .001, and with 10,000 bootstrapped samples
found that collective narcissism significantly predicted conservatism, and con-
servatism as a mediator further predicted Fidesz support. The indirect effect of
collective narcissism on Fidesz support was significant, b = .31, SE = .25, 95%CI
[0.04,0.76] (Figure 12.4).

Predicting Overall Populism Scores

Collective narcissism also predicted overall populism with conservatism as a medi-
ator (significant overall model: R2 = .38, F(2, 437) = 132.45, p < .001). Collective
narcissism also significantly predicted conservatism, and conservatism predicted
populism. Again, the indirect effect of collective narcissism on populism was sig-
nificant, b = .03, SE = .01, 95%CI [0.01,0.05] (Figure 12.3).

Predicting Populism Subscales

We also analyzed the effects of collective narcissism and conservatism on the three
separate populism subscales. Collective narcissism predicted collectivism (overall
234 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

Conservatism

Collective Fidesz support

Narcissism Overall populism
*
0.75 (0.32) Collectivism / Anti-Elitism / Rigidity
***
0.24 (0.02)
*** ***
0.41 (0.03) / -0.01 (0.04) / 0.15 (0.04)

FIGURE 12 4 The direct and indirect effects of collective narcissism on Fidesz support
(N = 137) and populism scores (N = 440), mediated by conservatism.

model R2 = .53, F(2, 437) = 246.74, p < .001) and tolerance/rigidity (overall
model: R2 = .07, F(2, 437) = 16.88, p < .001), and it predicted anti-elitism nega-
tively (overall model: R2 = .05, F(2, 437) = 12.70, p < .001). Collective narcissism
also predicted the mediator, conservatism, positively in all three cases. Conserva-
tism in turn predicted collectivism and tolerance/rigidity positively, and anti-elitism
negatively. The indirect effect of collective narcissism on collectivism (b = 0.09,
SE = .02, 95%CI [0.06,0.12]) and on tolerance/rigidity (b = 0.04, SE = .02, 95%CI
[0.001,0.07]) was significant and positive, while it was significant and negative on
anti-elitism (b = −0.08, SE = .02, 95%CI [−0.12,−0.04]).

Populism and Voting Intentions

In a further mediation analysis using PROCESS macro for SPSS (Model 4, Hayes,
2018), we looked at the relationship between populism as predictors, populist
voting (Fidesz support) as the criterion, and collective narcissism, nationalism,
and conservatism as potential mediators. The overall model predicting Fidesz
support was significant, likelihood ratio χ2(2) = 62.17, R2 = .16 (Cox & Snell);
.34 (Nagelkerke), p < .001. Populism predicted both collective narcissism and
conservatism, but not nationalism. Conservatism in turn predicted Fidesz sup-
port, while in this model collective narcissism and nationalism did not. The indi-
rect effect of the populism on Fidesz support via conservatism was positive and
significant, b = 0.56, SE = 6.72, 95%CI [0.04,1.66], while the indirect effects via
collective narcissism, b = 0.41, SE = 10.81, 95%CI [−0.67,1.82], and national-
ism, b = 0.02, SE = 2.17, 95%CI [−0.29,0.48], were nonsignificant (Figure 12.4).
We also checked these effects entering each of the three subscales of the pop-
ulism measure separately as predictors. Only the collectivism (β = .41, p < .001),
but not the anti-elitism (β = −.15, p = .08) or rigidity (β = .14, p = .10) indepen-
dently predicted Fidesz support. A mediation model for the latter two variables
 When Populism Triumphs 235

thus cannot be tested; however, observing an indirect effect is nevertheless possi-

ble (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). The direct effects of collectivism, b = 1.97, SE = .82,
95%CI [0.37,3.58], and tolerance/rigidity, b = 0.92, SE = .45, 95%CI [0.03,1.80]
on Fidesz support were significant, but anti-elitism was not, b = −0.56, SE = .43,
95%CI [−1.40,0.28]. In all three models, each of the indirect effects were nonsig-
nificant. The fact that anti-elitism was an inconsistent predictor of populist voting
here makes sense, since in Hungary’s case populists themselves have become the
new elite.
It appears that a relatively small number of tightly clustered and interdepend-
ent psychological variables play a key role in populist ideation and populist voting
intentions. Support for populist parties tends to be contingent on the presence of
psychological factors, such as collective narcissism, conservatism, relative depriva-
tion, and the general identification with populist ideology. This pattern makes
sense if we consider that the highly effective propaganda strategies employed by
the populist Hungarian government emphasize precisely such narcissistic themes,
including fighting against enemies and detractors (such as refugees, Soros, the
EU), seeking the respect and recognition due to Hungarians, and emphasizing
national greatness, moral superiority, and innocence of the nation (Figure 12.1).
Further, our results also suggest that the influence of such populist propaganda is
significantly mediated by a variety of other factors, such as receptive voters having
a conservative worldview to begin with, experiencing a sense of grievance and
relative deprivation, and already sympathizing with populist ideology.

Collective
narcissism

Nationalism

Populism 2.08 (1.13) Fidesz support

Conservatism

FIGURE 12.5 The direct and indirect effects of populism on Fidesz support, medi-
ated by collective narcissism, nationalism, and conservatism (N = 137).
Populism significantly predicts collective narcissism and conservatism,
mediating populist voting intentions.
236 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

Discussion and Conclusions

We started this chapter by arguing that populist political systems and leaders, once
they acquire power, are notorious for dismantling and undermining democratic
institutions and establishing dictatorial patterns of governance. We also suggested
that within the EU, the recent history of Hungary offers an exemplary case wor-
thy of focused study of how such a shift to dictatorship occurs. Although Hun-
gary is not by itself an important country, its recent history offers a cautionary
tale of what might happen once populism becomes government policy. Since the
election of Orbán’s Fidesz government in 2010, the country has turned from a
democracy to a quasi-dictatorial system.
In the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2019, Hungary is now ranked
dead last in the EU, EFTA, and North America regions. In the 2019 edition of
the Sustainable Governance Indicators, Hungary and Turkey occupy the two
bottom places out of 40 countries when it comes to the rule of law. In the 2019
edition of the Global State of Democracy (International Institute for Democracy
and Electoral Assistance, 2019), Hungary was listed as a country that has seen the
most widespread democratic erosion in the past five years.
It is remarkable that this dramatic turn to illiberalism occurred with the support
of a reasonable minority of the Hungarian population, who re-elected Orbán’s
government three times (even though these elections suffered from numerous
serious shortcomings). To understand how this occurred, we argued that we need
a multi-faceted psychological analysis of the mental representations and political
ideas of voters, taking into account the historical circumstances that shape politi-
cal ideas (Bibó, 1946/1986, 1991). The recent literature in political psychology
offers a range of interesting hypotheses about how voters’ thinking may undergo
such a dramatic transformation in a relatively short time (see also Marcus; Bar-
Tal & Magal; and Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup, this volume). In our introductory
review, we argued that a damaged sense of national identity, the emotional need
for positive group identification, and feelings of collective narcissism might play
an important role in promoting populist ideologies and populist voting intentions.
In the case of Hungary, we argued that historical grievances and a culture
of victim mentality resulted in feelings of collective narcissism that made some
voters especially receptive to propaganda messages exploiting their sense of vul-
nerable group identity. The ruling populist party was able to successfully exploit
this mentality and claim political legitimation by emphasizing external threats,
create conspiracy theories, and at the same time affirm the moral greatness and
grandiose achievements of the group. There is even a strange state-sponsored cult
of ‘hungaricums’, officially listing foods, practices, and inventions that are some-
times spuriously claimed to be uniquely Hungarian and thus confirm the genius
of Hungarian people. Obviously, a country with realistic sense of self-confidence
would not need official committees to determine which sausages, soups, spices,
or drinks people should be collectively proud of from now on.
 When Populism Triumphs 237

Such a simplified and endlessly repeated propaganda strategy is not a new

invention. Populist leaders regularly use this method to strengthen their political
legitimacy (Albright, 2018; also see Crano & Gaffney, this volume). Demagogic
propaganda claims that Hungary is in a life-and-death struggle for recognition,
protects Christianity, exposes the crimes of Soros agents and conspirators, and
resists the colonizing efforts of the EU and international financiers seem naïve
and absurd in light of reality, but Orbán has proved uniquely successful in dis-
seminating such dishonest messages (Kelemen, 2010; Krekó, 2018; László, 2014).
Exploiting narcissistic feelings is also effectively served by the deliberate falsifica-
tion of history. In Hungary today a number of lavishly state-supported institutions
propagate narcissistic historical themes, such as ancient triumphs, heroic national
virtues, and the responsibility of others for failures.
The results of our empirical studies broadly suggest that the feelings of inad-
equacy and a threatened group identity result in collective narcissism that in turn
is significantly related to the acceptance of populist ideology and support for the
dominant autocratic one-party state. We have also found, however, that the links
between perceived relative deprivation and collective narcissism, on the one hand,
and populist voting, on the other, is neither simple nor direct. Rather, important
mediators such as political conservatism play a critical role in turning feelings of
collective narcissism into effective populist voting intention. It is also interest-
ing that in our work, it was the collectivism component of collective narcissism
that turned out to be the most robust predictor as well as mediator of populist
voting support. We argued in our introduction that one of the defining features
of populism is that it represents a return to the pre-enlightenment value system
based on collectivism and group identification rather than individual autonomy
and liberty. It is telling that items emphasizing the primacy of the group rather
than the individual in our collectivism subscale also emerged as a powerful factor
in populist voting.
These results should be seen in the broader context of the international rise of
populist ideation. The link between threatened group identity and populist vot-
ing has now been convincingly demonstrated in a number of countries, includ-
ing the USA, Britain, Poland, and others (Federico & Golec de Zavala, 2018;
Lantos & Forgas, 2020; Marchlewska, Cichocka, Panayiotou, Castellanos, &
Batayneh, 2018). The current research in Hungary adds an important dimension
to this work. It turns out that populism can remain an effective political strategy
even after populist leaders and parties acquire political power, and in a sense, they
themselves become the ‘elites’ that populists typically denounce. The political
legitimacy of such newly installed autocrats can be effectively maintained by the
continuing exploitation of feelings of inferiority and victimhood. Populist ideol-
ogy and practices represent a serious and lasting threat to liberal democracies. In
combating this danger, we need a more thorough understanding of the psycho-
logical processes that underlie populist support.
238 Joseph P. Forgas and Dorottya Lantos

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13
POPULISM IN POWER
The Tribal Challenge

Péter Krekó1

Introduction
Cas Mudde, probably the most famous scholar on populism, wrote an article
on the “populist zeitgeist” more than 15 years ago (Mudde, 2004), in which he
claimed that “populist discourse has become mainstream in the politics of western
democracies” (p. 541). A decade and a half later, this prophetic vision seems more
timely than ever. Furthermore, we can argue these days that it is not just populist
rhetoric that has become mainstream; populist attitudes and populist govern-
ance have done so as well. While most of the early literature on populism in the
Western world focused on populist parties in opposition, populists such as Donald
Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orbán in Hungary,
Matteo Salvini in Italy, and Lech Kaczinsky in Poland are all indications of the
trend that populist politicians are capable of taking and often keeping execu-
tive power as well (see also Forgas & Lantos, this volume). But what happens to
populist politicians and the attitudes of their voters when they are in government?
What are the deeper social psychological drivers of populist politics? This chapter
aims to respond to this question based on the available political science literature
and our own empirical study.

Populist Attitudes: Myth or Reality?

While populism is a vague concept with many definitions, mainstream politi-
cal science literature tends to define it as a “thin” ideology (Mudde, 2004) that
emphasizes the division between the “good” people vs. the ruling elites. The
minimalist definition of populism relies on these two features: an appeal to the
people (people-centrism) and mobilization against the elites (see for example
 Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge 241

Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). Populism has a “chameleonic” nature (Taggart,

2004), in the sense that it quickly adapts to the social-political environment in
an attempt to be successful. In the last decade, however, social science literature
has gone beyond analyzing the political style and strategies of the voters, turn-
ing its attention towards populist attitudes—the mindset and opinion of populist
voters (for an early attempt, see Akkerman, Mudde, & Zaslove, 2014). A recent
overview and comparison of seven populism scales (Castanho Silva, Jungkunz,
Helbling, & Littvay, 2020) revealed that all scales invented to calculate meas-
ures of populism contain three components: people-centrism, anti-elitism, and
anti-pluralism.
While some populist measurement tools have methodological shortcomings,
populist attitudes seem to go hand in hand with low political trust and belief
in conspiracies, and predict populist party identification (Castanho Silva et al.,
2020). Populist attitudes are not without internal contradictions, though, espe-
cially when it comes to the relationship with the political elites. In a Dutch
sample, for example, Akkerman et al. (2014) found that populist attitudes corre-
lated positively with elitism scales, so populist voters expressed a favorable opinion
towards a possible rule of the experts and a certain kind of distance from the
ordinary people. So, populism, in reality, is not always consequential in its anti-
elitism—even in opposition. And the so-called populists, once in government,
add even more confusion to the picture.

When Anti-Establishment Becomes the Establishment:

Populists in Government
While hard-core populist parties in government are still more the exception than
the rule in the Western world, the examples are numerous and important from the
last decade, from the US, Brazil, and the UK through Austria and Italy to Hun-
gary and Poland. Populism is being tested in executive power in many countries
in the Western world. Traditionally, political science literature has been much
busier analyzing populists as outsiders, opposition parties, and protest movements
(Barr, 2009) than their activities in governmental power.
Experiences with populists in power dissolved many wishful myths about the
nature of populism. One widespread misconceptions has been that populism is
irreconcilable with power, as it loses its anti-elitist appeal and cannot keep up
with the expectations it raised. But, as Enyedi (2018, p. 1) notes, populists in
government can be surprisingly successful, as “inhibitions that constrain other
political actors from using norm-breaking methods for keeping governmental
power do not apply to populists, and therefore they can be surprisingly resilient in
office.” Populists can build “populist establishments” and are capable of not only
destroying institutions but building them as well. It also means that the descrip-
tion of populism as merely an “anti-establishment” and anti-elitist position is a
simplification that does not apply for populists in power. Furthermore, so-called
242 Péter Krekó

populist parties in Central and Eastern Europe can exhibit features of “illiberal
elitism” as well; the Hungarian governmental party Fidesz is an excellent example
of this trend (Enyedi, 2016).
Previous research in the Western Balkans indicated that voters supporting
so-called populist politicians in government do not necessarily share the anti-
establishment, anti-elitist position of their respective parties—as they have now
become the establishment themselves. For example, in Montenegro, where Milo
Djukanovic and his party, DPS, have ruled since Montenegro gained independ-
ence in 2006 (and, de facto, even before), voters of his “state-sponsored populist”
regime (Džankić & Keil, 2017) showed remarkably low levels of anti-elitism,
compared to opposition parties such as the Democratic Front (Todosijevic, 2018).
At the same time, voters for Djukanovic and DPS expressed remarkably high
levels of exclusive national identity. Džankić & Keil concluded that in Monte-
negro we can observe “the growth of a new kind of populism, a state-sponsored
populist discourse that is very different from populism as understood in Western
Europe” (p. 1).
We see an even more clear pattern in Serbia, where voters of the nationalist
populist incumbent president of Serbia, Aleksander Vucic, were those most (!)
convinced that politicians are trustworthy, and they expressed by far the least anti-
elitist opinions. At the same time, voters for Vucic proved to be most supportive
of the idea of a strong leader, even if the leader bends the rules to get things done
(Todosijevic, 2018).
Populism in government seems to be a strange creature that does not neces-
sarily even look populist. The anti-elitist, anti-establishment features mostly con-
sidered to be the core of populism tend to disappear—or, at least, change their
outlook, as also suggested by the data in Hungary presented by Forgas and Lantos
(this volume).

Populist Establishments Within the European Union:

Hungary and Poland
Hungary and Poland can be regarded as the early birds of the “populist zeitgeist.”
In these Central and Eastern European countries, populists were elected “before
it was cool”: eleven years ago in Hungary and six years ago in Poland. Viktor
Orbán returned to power in 2010, and his rhetoric on government became much
more populist than it was during his first term of governance, between 1998
and 2002 (Hawkins et al., 2019). He did not waste time and implemented deep
institutional and political changes that added up to a new “transformation”—but
an illiberal one (Krekó & Mayer, 2015; Krekó & Enyedi, 2018; Forgas & Lantos,
2020). When the PiS, led by Jaroslaw Kaczyński, obtained governmental power
in 2015, they were able to build on Orbán’s experiences of how to develop a
populist establishment without facing tough consequences.
 Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge 243

The rhetorical justification of these transformative measures was that they

all express the will of the people. Both Kaczyński and Orbán are using the
textbook political rhetoric of populism (see Table 13.1), reflecting the core of
populism as people-centric and anti-elite as well as a Manichean divide of good
vs. the evil and uninhibited anti-pluralism. Jaroslaw Kaczyński summarized his
populist political credo a few years ago as “Vox populi, vox Dei,” referring to the
Latin phrase meaning “Voice of the people, the voice of God.” Orbán claimed
after a manipulative, government-organized (and, finally, invalid) referendum
in 2016:

It will be small consolation that the peoples of Europe will not forgive the
leaders who completely changed Europe without first asking its people. Let
us be proud of the fact that we are the only country in the European Union
which has asked people whether or not they want mass immigration.

(For references, see Krekó, Molnár, Juhász, Kucharczyk, & Pazderski, 2018, and
see Table 13.1).
In our empirical research, conducted in 2017, I and my colleagues at the
Budapest-based think-tank Political Capital Institute (Krekó et al., 2018) tried
to discover how this populist rhetoric resonates with and manifests in public
opinion of these two populist establishments. We were particularly curious about
how much anti-elitism is visible in the voter bases of these parties. Do voters of
populist parties in power show real populist attitudes?
Todosijevic (2018) found a pattern in Hungary that was similar to that
described earlier for Montenegro and Serbia: the voters of Viktor Orbán’s party,
Fidesz, were the least (!) anti-elitist among groups of party supporters.
To measure populist attitudes comparably, we conducted representative public
opinion polls in both countries using almost identical methodologies. Compara-
bility was ensured by employing the same polling technique (computer-assisted
personal interviews (CAPI) on representative samples of the adult population)
and using the same questionnaire. The poll was conducted by Kantar Hoffmann
in Hungary and by Kantar TNS in Poland in December 2017. We aimed to
measure different facets of populism with items from pre-existing scales that have
already been tested and widely accepted: Silva et al. (2018) and Akkerman et al.
(2014) (for more information on the scales see the following; items are shown
in Table 13.2). Although we were not aware of their comparative research when
we started the study, Silva et al. (2020, p. 12) found that these two scales pre-
sented good model fit and high factor loadings in this test, therefore having high
internal consistency. While we aimed to use the original subscales, based on our
preliminary calculations we decided to combine items from the two scales in
two subscales (Manichean worldview and anti-elitism), which resulted in higher
reliability and conceptual and internal consistency of these constructs (still,
244 Péter Krekó

TABLE 13.1 Populist statements by populist leaders Viktor Orbán and Jaroslaw Kaczyński

People- You can see how in many European countries the distance between the
centrism people and their democratically elected governments increases day by
day. Minister Antal Rogan will be responsible for ensuring that this
does not happen to us in Hungary. I ask him to persevere in finding
points of consensus between the people and the Government.
—Viktor Orbán, upon the formation of the new government, May 18,
2018
Source: http://www.miniszterelnok.hu/prime- minister-viktor-orbans-
speech-upon-the-formation-of-the-new-government/
Anti-elitism The question is, if the Union in its current shape, with its horrible
bureaucracy and institutionalized undermining of the nation state, is
able to survive. . . . According to me, no.
—Jaroslaw Kaczyński
Source: https://www.politico.eu/list/politico -28 -class—of-2017-
ranking/jaroslaw-kaczynski/
Manichean Therefore they [our opponents] will stop at nothing: they will not
worldview argue, but censor; they will not fight, but pinch, kick, bite and sow
hatred wherever they go. We are calm and good-humoured people,
but we are neither blind nor gullible. After the election we will of
course seek amends—moral, political and legal amends.
—Viktor Orbán, March 15, 2018
Source: http://www.miniszterelnok.hu/orban-viktors-ceremonial-
Speech-on-the-170th-anniversary-of-the-hungarian-
revolution-of-1848/
Anti- In Poland, there is a horrible tradition of national treason, a habit of
pluralism informing on Poland to foreign bodies. . . . And that’s what it is. As if
it is in their genes, in the genes of Poles of the worst sort.
— Kaczyński, in response to some opposition politicians complaining
to European authorities about Law and Justice’s actions in office
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/world/europe/poland-law-and-justice-party-jaroslaw-
kaczynski.html

Cronbach’s alphas remained relatively low in some cases due to the low number
of items and the presence of reverse items).
The scales were the following (for the items, see Table 13.2):

(1) people-centrism—painting the common people as a homogeneous group

and emphasizing the idea of a general will driving political processes and sov-
ereignty in politics (based on Castanho Silva et al., 2017, 3 items, α = 0.39
in Hungary and 0.47 in Poland);
(2) political anti-elitism—the idea that a small, powerful group has illegitimately
taken over the state and subverted it for its own benefit (based on Castanho
Silva et al., 2017; Akkerman et al., 2014, 4 items, α = 0.64 in Hungary and
0.49 in Poland);
TABLE 13.2 The first two factors obtained in the factor analysis of 17 populism-related items in Hungar y and Poland (in two separate factor analysis),
and the factor loadings of items. Political tr ibalism and plebeian pluralism emerged in both countr ies, with similar content.

Hungary Poland

Political Plebeian Political Plebeian

Tribalism Pluralism Tribalism Pluralism
PC1 Politicians should always listen closely to the problems of the people. −0.163 0.613 −0.044 0.632
PC2 Politicians don’t have to spend time among ordinar y people to do a good job.* −0.511 0.031 −0.509 0.056
PC3 The will of the people should be the highest pr inciple in this countr y’s politics. 0.054 0.573 0.193 0.446
AE1 Independent of which parties are in power, the gover nment is pretty much run by a −0.011 0.222 0.110 0.493
few big interests looking out for themselves.
AE2 Independent of which parties are in power, gover nment officials use their power to −0.475 −0.151 −0.356 −0.153
tr y to improve people’s lives.
AE3 Independent of which parties are in power, quite a few of the people running the 0.047 0.236 −0.033 0.639
gover nment are crooked.
AE4 Elected officials talk too much and take too little action. −0.135 0.192 0.002 0.409
MA1 You can tell if a person is good or bad if you know their politics. 0.694 −0.175 0.551 −0.015
MA2 The people I disagree with politically are not evil. 0.106 −0.432 0.011 −0.269
MA3 The people I disagree with politically are just misinfor med.* 0.531 −0.131 0.477 0.033
MA4 Politics is ultimately a struggle between good and evil. 0.513 −0.150 0.472 0.113
PL1 In a democracy it is important to make compromises among differ ing viewpoints. −0.269 0.596 −0.035 0.373
PL2 It is important to listen to the opinion of other groups. −0.310 0.565 −0.044 0.223
PL3 Diversity limits my freedom.* −0.556 0.226 −0.551 0.133
EL1 Politicians should lead rather than follow the people. 0.225 0.131 0.354 −0.043
EL2 Our countr y would be gover ned better if important decisions were left up to 0.360 −0.005 0.493 0.041
successful business people.
EL3 Our countr y would be gover ned better if important decisions were left up to 0.093 0.090 0.252 0.269
Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge

independent experts.
245

Extraction method: Pr incipal likelihood, with Var imax rotation var iance explained by the two factors: 31 percent in HU and 30 percent in PL. KMO = 0.82 (HU) 0.81
(PL); Bartlett’s Test of Spher icity: X>M3451, df = 136, p = 0.000 in HU yp—2411, df = 136, p = 0.000 in PL).
*: reversed items. See the source and the exact descr iption of the items in Table 13.2.
246 Péter Krekó

(3) Manichean worldview—an understanding of politics as an ultimate struggle

between good and evil, which means that compromise with the other side is
morally unacceptable (based on Castanho Silva et al., 2017; Akkerman et al.,
2014, 4 items, α = 0.63 in Hungary and 0.43 in Poland);
(4) pluralism—a willingness to compromise between conflicting values, a ten-
dency to listen to different viewpoints, and the need to listen to dissenting
voices (based on Akkerman et al., 2014; 3 items; α = 0.55 in Hungary and
0.55 in Poland);
(5) elitism—a view that instead of politicians, businesspeople and experts should
lead the country (based on Akkerman et al., 2014; 3 items, α = 0.52 in Hun-
gary and 0.53 in Poland). The exact items are included in Table 13.2.

We also measured authoritarian tendencies, the need for following the decisions
of a strong leader instead of having long debates between different viewpoints,
with one item that is similar to that used in the World Values Surveys: “Our
country would be governed better if important decisions were left up to a strong
leader instead of elected politicians.” We also measured the tendency to support
political violence with a binary item, where voters had to choose between two
options: “In a democracy the use of violence to reach any goal is completely
unacceptable,” vs. “In case it is necessary to achieve important goals, one must
even turn to the use of violence” (based on Bartlett, Birdwell, Krekó, Benfield, &
Gyori, 2012).
In the following, we highlight six main findings of attitudes of supporters of
populist establishments—e.g. voters of PiS and Fidesz.

(1) Mixed results in people-centrism. In Hungary, we found lower levels of people-

centrism among supporters of the governmental parties, but found higher
levels in Poland. In Hungary, voters of the right-wing opposition Jobbik
Party were found to be significantly more people-centric than other parties,
including Fidesz (df = 671, F = 3,428; p = 0.05). In Poland, voters of the
liberal Nowoczesna Party were found to be the most people-centric (but not
significantly higher than the PiS voters.). When we compared governmental
voters to opposition voters, we found significantly lower levels of anti-elitism
among Fidesz voters in Hungary (t = −2.6, df = 575, p = 0.01) and signifi-
cantly higher levels in Poland (t = 2.1, df = 402, p = 0.37; see Figures 13.1
and 13.2).
(2) Low levels of anti-elitism. In both countries, we found lower levels of anti-
elitism among voters of the populist governmental parties than among oppo-
sition supporters. In Hungary, we found a pattern similar to that Todosijevic
(2018) described: voters of the governmental Fidesz were the least anti-elitist
among voter groups. Governmental voters were significantly less anti-elitist
in Hungary than opposition voters (t = −7.7, df = 576, p = 0.000). In Poland,
voters of the governmental PiS party were also found to be significantly more
 Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge 247

4.5

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

governmental
governmental
governmental

opposition

governmental

opposition

opposition

governmental

opposition

opposition
people-centrism* anti-elitism** manicheanism* pluralism** elitism

FIGURE 13.1 Differences in populism-related attitudes among government (Fidesz)

vs. opposition (combined) voters, Hungary (means on a 1–5 scale).
Supporters of the populist Fidesz party were less people-centric, anti-
elitist, and pluralistic, but more Manichean (understanding politics as
the ultimate war between Good and Evil) than opposition voters.
Note: *: p<0.05; **: p<0.01

anti-elitist than opposition voters (t = −2.2, df = 373, p = 0.026; see Fig-

ures 13.1 and 13.2).
This does not necessarily mean, though, that voters of populist parties
are more supportive towards all kinds of elites. While supporters of populist
establishments are more in favor of their own domestic political elites, they
reject the international elites. In both Poland and Hungary, governmental
voters trust the symbol of the international political elites (the European
Parliament—the directly elected parliamentary assembly of the European
Union) much less than do opposition voters. At the same time, PiS and
Fidesz supporters trust the national parliaments—dominated by their beloved
parties—more than supporters of the opposition (See Figure 13.3 below).
(3) Strong black-and-white thinking. In both countries, voters of populist govern-
mental parties showed higher levels of absolutist, moralizing Manichean atti-
tudes. Interestingly, we could see that some opposition voters show high
levels of such attitudes as well, which might be the result of increasing polari-
zation in both countries (see also Marcus, this volume). In Hungary, voters
of the progressive-liberal Democratic Coalition (the party of ex-PM Ferenc
Gyurcsány), and voters of the liberal Nowoczesna (which later merged into
the center-right Civic Platform) in Poland showed above average levels of
black-and-white Manichean thinking, as harsh opposition counterpoints to
248 Péter Krekó

4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0

governmental
governmental

governmental

governmental
opposition

governmental

opposition

opposition

opposition

opposition
people-centrism* anti-elitism* manicheanism pluralism elitism**

FIGURE 13.2 Differences in populism-related attitudes among government (PiS) vs.

opposition (combined) voters, Poland (means on a 1–5 scale). Govern-
mental voters were found to be slightly more people-centric and more
supportive of the governing political elite, but less supportive of busi-
ness elites and experts in politics.
Note: *: p<0.05; **: p<0.01

FIGURE 13.3 Level of trust towards the national parliaments and the European Par-
liament (EP) among supporters of governmental parties vs. opposition
parties. In both Hungary and Poland, supporters of the ruling populist
parties support their own political elites more but reject international
elites in the EU, as opposed to opposition supporters, who trust the EP
more than their own parliament.
Source: Krekó et al., 2018. Calculations are based on European Social Survey Round8 data (edition
2). Fieldwork period: Hungary (May–September, 2017), Poland (November 2016–February 2017).
 Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge 249

the governmental parties. But if we compared the absolutist Manichean atti-

tudes of governmental voters to all opposition voters combined, we would
see significantly higher levels of black-and-white thinking among Fidesz vot-
ers in Hungary (t = 2.6, df = 649, p = 0.012). In Poland, governmental sup-
porters showed higher levels of black-and-white Manichean thinking, but
this difference was not significant (see Figures 13.1 and 13.2).
(4) Low levels of pluralism in Poland. In Hungary, supporters of Fidesz were found
to be the least pluralist across the party supporter groups, and governmen-
tal voters were significantly less pluralist than opposition voters combined
(t = −3.8, df = 653, p < 0.001). In Poland, pluralist attitudes were not dis-
tinctive, and there was no significant difference found between supporters of
political parties, nor between voters of the government and the opposition
combined (see Figures 13.1 and 13.2).
(5) Higher support of elitism in Poland. In Hungary, governmental voters and oppo-
sition voters were similarly elitist—which here means support of the idea
of non-elected businessmen and experts running the country rather than
elected politicians. In Poland, however, supporters of the populist right-wing
governing party PiS were significantly less elitist than voters of the opposi-
tion (t = −3.6, df = 310, p = 0.000; see Figures 13.1 and 13.2). It could seem
surprising in the light of the fact that, as we saw earlier, PiS voters were more
supportive towards the political elites. At the same time, these results are not
necessarily logically incoherent, as supporters of the government can see
experts and businessmen as a challenge to the legitimacy of their beloved
elected leaders.
(6) Higher support of political violence in Poland. In Poland, voters of the govern-
mental Law and Justice Party were more supportive of the idea that “in
case it is necessary to achieve important goals, one must even turn to the
use of violence.” Nineteen percent of governmental voters were supportive
of this idea, compared to 11 percent of opposition voters (χ2 = 4.8; df = 1;
p = 0.027). We found no such significant differences in Hungary.

To summarize: we found that voters for ruling populist parties in government

in Poland and Hungary did not necessarily show “typical” populist attitudes as
we would expect from the textbook definitions of populism. This is especially
the case in the two core features of populism: anti-elitism and people-centrism.
In Hungary, Fidesz voters are less people-centric than opposition voters—which
means they are less supportive towards the democratic idea that people should
always make the final decisions in politics. In both countries, supporters of the
populist governments were less anti-elitist than opposition voters. On the other
hand, some secondary features of populism are strongly visible among voters
of populist establishments. We found higher levels of black-and-white, morally
absolutist Manichean worldview and a stronger rejection of pluralism in Hungary,
and lower support for the idea that businessmen and experts have to run politics
250 Péter Krekó

in Poland. Furthermore, voters of PiS party in Poland were more supportive

towards violence than opposition voters. In short: the pattern we see in the atti-
tudes here do not fit into the minimalist definition of populism.

Conspiracy Theories Among Governmental Voters in Hungary

As considered earlier, populism and conspiracy theories are often interconnected,
both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, populism is not separable from
conspiracy theories, as a conspiracy theory is a “populist theory of power” (Fen-
ster, 2008; Yablokov, 2015). Conspiracy theories are based on the assumption
that some elite groups have secret, malevolent plans against the ingroup (the
“people”). In terms of attitudes, strong links were found between populist atti-
tudes and partisanship and certain forms of conspiracy theories, including anti-
vaccination (Castanho Silva, Vegetti, & Littvay, 2017).
In another representative survey we conducted at the Political Capital Institute
in Hungary, we discovered a more nuanced picture (Krekó, Molnár, & Simono-
vits, 2019). Voters of Fidesz, the governing party that extensively used conspiracy
theories in its public communication in the last few years (e.g. Krekó & Enyedi,
2018), were more supportive towards theories of external intervention, such as
the conspiracy of the Western superpowers, the Jews, or the Muslims (Hungary
has practically no Muslim population). At the same time, we found stronger
support for different kinds of conspiracy theories among the opposition. Oppo-
sition voters had a stronger conspiracy mentality—an assumption that there is
some conspiracy behind world events. Also, they were more supportive of neutral
conspiracy theories (e.g. chemtrails, anti-pharma, anti-bank theories), and also,
obviously, of anti-governmental conspiracy theories.
We see a similar pattern here as with the anti-elite attitudes: voters of rul-
ing domestic populist establishments are less afraid of domestic threats and
conspiracies—but strongly suspicious about any form of foreign intervention
that they feel can threaten the stability of the system that their populist leaders
established. This finding, again clearly goes against the general simplification that
populist politics is inevitably anti-establishment.

Populism or Tribalism?
The empirical results listed earlier pose a challenge to the conventional concept of
and research on populism. The construct, “populism,” seems easy to capture as a
political reality on the “supply side,” as a political strategy, but difficult to grasp on
the “demand side,” as a social psychological reality (see also Bar-Tal & Magal, this
volume). Voters of populist parties in power do not necessarily exhibit classical
“populist attitudes” such as anti-elitism and people-centrism, in neither Central
and Eastern Europe nor in the Western Balkans (Todosijevic, 2018). Voters in this
 Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge 251

region show lower levels of anti-elite and anti-establishment attitudes and, at the
same time, do not necessarily show higher levels of people-centrism.
A revision of the measurement tools might help us in the revision of our
concepts as well. Based on our research, it appears that measuring attitudes with
populism scales make sense only if we re-combine and re-label them.
A factor analysis that I ran on the 17 items of all five of the populism scales for
the purpose of this chapter revealed a structure that differs from the conceptual
approach of populism introduced earlier. As we can see in Table 13.2, the first
factor in both the Polish and the Hungarian samples is an attitude dimension,
the core of which is the absolutist, moralizing Manichean worldview and under-
standing of politics as warfare. The item loading highest on this factor is: “you can
tell if a person is good or bad if you know their politics.” It is combined with a
strong rejection of pluralism, lower level of anti-establishment attitudes, and lower
people-centrism. This attitude dimension explains a significant ratio of the total
variance of all the 17 populism-related items we included in the research: 19 per-
cent in Hungary and 17 percent in Poland. Also, this absolutist, intolerant Mani-
chean and anti-pluralistic attitude set is positively associated to authoritarianism
(R2 = .26, β = .51, t = 17.5, p < 0.001 in Hungary, R2 = .23, β = .48, t = 14.3,
p < 0.001 in in Poland), and slightly increases the likelihood of supporting violent
solutions (Exp(B) = 1.3; p = 0.012; Nagekerle R2 = .014 in Hungary; Exp(B) =
1.29; p = 0.029; Nagekerle R2 = .013 in Poland).
One might label this attitude dimension as political tribalism, as this attitude is
about understanding politics as a kind of religious warfare between good and evil
that justifies suppressing dissent, rallying around the leader of the own tribe, and
support for violent solutions. This attitude dimension was found the be significantly
stronger among governmental voters in Hungary (t = 4.5, df = 585, p < 0.001).
It is important to note that the scree plots in the factor analysis in both coun-
tries revealed a two-factor solution. The second attitude dimension we found
is almost the opposite of the previous one: a combination of higher levels of
people-centrism, pluralism, and some anti-elitist attitudes. The highest loading
item on this factor was: “Politicians should always listen closely to the problems of
the people.” We labelled this attitude dimension as plebeian pluralism, and this atti-
tude was associated with decreased support of political violence in both Hungary
(Exp(B) = 0.46, p < 0.001, Nagekerle R2 = .089) and Poland (Exp(B) = 0.47,
p < 0.001, Nagekerle R2 = .093; see Table 13.2 for details). But, in the following,
we will elaborate on the concept of political tribalism.

The Nature of Political Tribalism and Its Specifics

As our research shows, supporters of populist parties in power can manifest atti-
tudes that can contradict the core concept of populism, in particular lacking
people-centrism and anti-establishment positions. Based on the findings laid out
252 Péter Krekó

earlier, it appears that political tribalism as a term may be more suitable to explain
the political tendencies of supporters of ruling populist parties than populism.
Political tribalism is an understanding of politics that is all about righteous
power, the ultimate war between good and evil, where no compromise is pos-
sible other than defeating the other tribe. To be successful in this political war,
political rivals should be seen as enemies, leaders of the tribe should be uncon-
ditionally trusted, and dissent within the own political tribe must be suppressed.
This combination of morally binary black-and white thinking, anti-pluralism,
and authoritarianism makes populist rulers a dangerous threat against democratic
societies. This view of contemporary governmental populism is fundamentally
different from a traditional understanding, where populism was seen as an ulti-
mately democratic phenomenon (see for example, Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017).
This may be best illustrated by Canovan’s understanding (2002) of populism as
“the Ideology of Democracy.”
Advocates of the term populism can argue, however, that the “chameleonic”
nature of populism applies to populist attitudes as well. Anti-elitism and people-
centrism may manifest in supporters of populist parties in opposition who want
to obtain the power via mobilizing their voters against the incumbent elites,
referring to the will of the masses. This political ideology can rapidly change,
however, when populists acquire power, as now the electorate can pose a threat
to their position of power. Interestingly, a qualified form of anti-elitism can occur
in populist establishments as well, directed at foreign elites. While populists in
opposition are concerned with the national elite, populists in government often
channel discontent against international elites and their domestic allies. If the
anti-elitist opposition party becomes the elite itself, the voter base seems to easily
adapt to this new situation. We can remember that government voters in Poland
and Hungary see the national parliament as trustworthy but do not regard the
European Parliament the same way.
If voters of ruling “populist” parties manifest attitudes that redefine the
boundaries of the original term, some re-conceptualization could be useful. The
argument is not that we should abandon everything we know about populism.
Conceptually, the term effectively captures political mobilization and rhetorical
strategy in democratic societies that aim to take over the power—and then keep
it—justifying it as “the will of the people,” and points to the conspiracies of the
rival elites.
At the same time, populism is not a simple or singular psychological reality,
but rather an adaptable political strategy mimicking a democratic façade to attack
liberal democracies. When populism becomes a governmental force, it reveals its
real face, which is tribalism—both as a political practice or, as we defined in this
chapter, an attitude set. In Table 13.3, we tried to summarize some differences
between the concepts of populism and tribalism.
The term “tribalism” as an extreme form of ingroup identification and inter-
group conflict is not my invention. Tribalism identified a dangerous, and ancient,
 Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge 253

TABLE 13.3 Differences between populism vs. tribalism.

Populism Tribalism
Relationship to democracy Democratic Autocratic, un-democratic
Relationship to the leader People-centric, egalitarian Leader-centric, authoritarian
(the members of the group (the leader defines the
defines the ingroup) ingroup: tribe)
Direction of conflicts Vertical (“people vs. elites”) Horizontal (“us” vs. “them”)
Attitudes High people-centrism, low High anti-pluralism,
anti-elitism absolutist black-and-white
(Manichean) thinking,
authoritarianism

form of political polarization recognized by several leading scholars (see for exam-
ple: Wind, 2020 or “pernicious polarization: McCoy, Rahman, & Somer, 2018).
It is more and more widely accepted that the distinction between ingroups and
outgroups, rivaling social identities, and tribal mindset and behavior have evolu-
tionary roots (Park & van Leeuwen, 2015; Greene, 2013; Hobfoll, 2018; Clark,
Liu, Winegard, & Ditto, 2019; Harari, 2014).
Populist rhetoric might be an important tool to unlock this ancient predisposi-
tion. As Forgas and Lantos (2020, p. 287; see also Forgas & Lantos, this volume)
put it in the previous volume of this series:

Evolutionary psychological research on the fundamental characteristics

of human cognition now confirms that humans are indeed highly predis-
posed to embrace fictitious symbolic belief systems as a means of enhancing
group cohesion and coordination. . . . Populism is designed to exploit these
tendencies.

Practical Implications: Consequences and

Cures of Political Tribalism
We argued here that the real danger that liberal democracies face these days is
more political tribalism, not just populism. This is a phenomenon that we can find
on both the left and right, among conservatives and self-identified “liberals” as
well (Clark et al., 2019). The consequences reach well beyond politics, totally
undermining positivist views that facts matter—or even exist. Motivated rejection
of scientific findings, due to their mismatch to our core ideological beliefs, was
found to be extremely widespread in the US population in a study a few years
ago (Lewandowsky & Oberauer, 2016). While this tendency was more present on
the right side of the political spectrum, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the
rejection of scientific facts were found to be universal and present on both sides
of politics.
254 Péter Krekó

Some argue that tribal demands and absolutist, intolerant, and even violent
political ideologies are at least as popular on the left side of the political spectrum
as on the right (Haidt & Lukianoff, 2018). But if we look around in the Western
world now, we can see that the political right seems to have some advantage in
tribal politics based on the absolutization of political identities, even if it was
(pseudo-)liberal ideologies and movements that put group-based identity in the
center of politics in the democratic Western world (Fukuyama, 2018). The dan-
gers of tribalism are multifold, and not only in new and fragile democracies such
as Poland and Hungary. The nature of tribal politics is that it destroys moral and
democratic norms. Tribalism kills dialogue and puts monologues first—why talk
to the Dark Side? Moral universalism based on Enlightenment values and human-
ism disappears and gives way to moral relativism and particularism. It is not for
cynical, but rather for absolutist moral considerations: that everything is justified
to guarantee the survival and win of your tribe.
If these are the premises, the conclusions can be dire. Corruption can become
acceptable, or even a moral act (Blais, Gidengil, & Kilibarda, 2017; Anduiza,
Gallego, & Muñoz, 2013), as are the accumulation of resources in a tribal war.
This is illustrated by a statement of the consultant of the Hungarian government,
András Lánczi, who once claimed “what others call populism is the rationale
of politics of Fidesz,” arguing for creating a strong national bourgeoise (using
corrupt methods) via public money to be able to defeat the post-communist,
globalist elites. Also, norms towards democratic transgressions might be toler-
ated or even cheered if it helps our own group (Eisinger, 2000; McCoy et al.,
2018). As successful tribal wars need strong tribal myths, tribalism drives both the
creation and the spread of disinformation. Tribal partisanship and emotions can
make people highly receptive to misleading information and fake news (Faragó,
Kende, & Krekó, 2019; Forgas, 2019; Forgas & Baumeister, 2019). Also, tribalism
can justify violence (Hobfoll, 2018), as was also found in our empirical research
from Hungary and Poland.
This chapter argued for a reconsideration of the term populism in light of
the empirically demonstrable behavior of populist regimes in power. The data
show that tribalism is a more characteristic and universal feature of populist rule,
based on empirical research in a small set of countries. Obviously, more stud-
ies are needed on the exact relationship between populism and tribalism on the
level of psychological attitudes, when populists are both in government and in
opposition. Also, we need more work on the exact conceptualization and opera-
tionalization of tribalism. Once we recognize the highly dangerous and disruptive
nature of tribal politics for Western liberal democracies, more research is needed
on exactly how to counter this phenomenon effectively. Research so far sug-
gests that changing the elite discourse (McCoy et al., 2018), perspective taking
(Broockman & Kalla, 2016), removing political labels from positions and people
during discussions (Hawkins & Nosek, 2012, or making electoral systems more
proportional (McCoy et al., 2018; Gidron, Adams, & Horne, 2018) might be
 Populism in Power: The Tribal Challenge 255

promising avenues. These are all strategies that are based on classical Enlighten-
ment values and a humanist and universalist (rather than tribalistic) social ori-
entation. Unfortunately, research focusing on interventions against populism/
tribalism is still rare, so social psychologists need to speed up their efforts to find
the cures. The future of our democracies is at stake.

Note
1. Associate Professor, Eotvos Lorand University of Sciences; Reagan-Fascell Fellow at
the National Endowment for Democracy

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14
THE RISE OF POPULISM
IN THE USA
Nationalism, Race, and American
Party Politics*

Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

The Nationalistic Turn in American Partisan Politics

Populist parties have expanded their electoral support and increased their presence
in national parliaments across western democracies in recent years, generating
considerable public and scholarly attention (Mudde, 2013; Mudde & Kaltwasser,
2018). Populism’s broad reach is evident in the successful Brexit vote, the 2016
presidential election of Donald Trump, and the entry of populist parties into
government in various democratic countries, including Austria, Brazil, Hungary,
India, Italy, and Poland. There is some contention surrounding the meaning of
populism, but the emphasis in recent right-wing populist rhetoric on nativism
and opposition to immigration underscores the central role played by national-
ist ideology in shaping its policy agenda. Both populism and nationalism uphold
the primacy of “the people”, be it over the establishment (populism), foreigners
(nationalism), or both (Brubaker, 2020). In this chapter, we focus on national-
ism as a central feature of contemporary right-wing populism and consider its
increased connection to support for the Republican Party in the United States
(Bonikowski, 2017).
The 2016 US presidential election campaign and Trump presidency under-
scored the centrality of nationalism and populism to contemporary American
party politics (Bartels, 2018). As Bartels (2018) notes, by 2017 Republicans were
largely united around nationalistic issues such as support for building a wall on the
southern border, respecting the flag, and opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.
The link between nationalism and Republican partisanship is not entirely new,
however. Republicans supported these issues well in advance of Trump’s presi-
dential candidacy (Feldman, Weber, & Federico 2020; Sides, Tesler, & Vavreck,
2019). Looking back in time, the nationalistic turn in Republican Party politics
was evident in the Bush administration’s support of the 2003 Iraq War. It was
 The Rise of Populism in the USA 259

also on display in Congressional Republican opposition to immigration reform

in 2005 (Feldman, Huddy, & Marcus 2015; Wroe 2008). Trump attracted addi-
tional support from Americans holding anti-immigration and nationalistic views
in the 2016 presidential election (Reny, Collingwood, & Valenzuela, 2019; Mutz,
2018), but this was a continuation of a decade-long trend.
Nonetheless, the influence of public nationalism on Republican identification
and partisan polarization has received less scholarly attention than various other
social and political factors. Partisanship grounded in nationalism extends partisan
conflict beyond domestic policy to include the use of military power overseas,
international trade and economic relations, immigration policy, and domestic
multiculturalism and deserves greater research scrutiny than it has received.
The growing partisan divide over nationalism in the US raises several ques-
tions: First, have Americans become more nationalistic over time, fueling support
for the Republican Party and nationalistic candidates? Second, has nationalism
become more politically relevant, mobilizing nationalists to support the Republi-
can Party? Third, is the link between nationalism and support for the Republican
Party confined to the White majority? A nation is often equated with its ethnic or
racial majority, leading to lower levels of national attachment among members of
non-majority groups, potentially undermining the success of nationalistic appeals
among them (Devos & Banaji, 2005; Sidanius, Feshbach, Levin, & Pratto, 1997;
Theiss-Morse, 2009). Even if levels of nationalism are similar among members of
majority and minority groups, it may be especially appealing to White Americans
because it elevates their majority status over that of ethnic and racial minorities.
In support of this hypothesis, Hajnal and Rivera (2014) find that anti-immigrant
sentiment has fueled White support for the Republican Party over time. Carter
and Pérez (2016) also demonstrate that national pride increases anti-immigration
attitudes among White Americans but has the opposite effect among Blacks. In
sum, nationalism may have attracted a growing number of strongly nationalistic
Whites to the Republican Party because they are more nationalistic than Blacks
or nationalistic appeals have greater resonance for them.
To better understand the role of nationalism within contemporary American
partisan politics, we delve briefly into the psychology of national attachments.
Nationalism is only one of several different subjective attachments to a nation,
but it features prominently in the rhetoric of right-wing populist political par-
ties such as the AfD in Germany, the National Rally in France, or the Swedish
Democrats. In the following section, we review the crucial difference between
nationalism and patriotism to explain their distinct psychological origins, cor-
relates, and political consequences.

The Psychology of National Attachments

There is a clear distinction between patriotism and nationalism in research on
national attachments (Kosterman & Feshbach, 1989). Nationalism is typically
defined as a sense of “national superiority and dominance”, whereas patriotism is
260 Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

defined as positive feelings and a sense of pride in one’s country (De Figueiredo &
Elkins, 2003, p. 175; Osborne, Milojev, & Sibley, 2017). It is helpful to think
of this as the difference between an in-group attachment (patriotism) and out-
group derogation (nationalism). The distinction is grounded in The Authoritarian
Personality, in which the authors differentiated simple love of country, labeled as
patriotism, from “blind attachment to certain national cultural values, uncriti-
cal conformity with the prevailing group ways, and rejection of other nations as
outgroups”, termed pseudopatriotism (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, &
Sanford, 1950, p. 107). Nationalism is the intellectual heir of pseudopatriotism.
In this study, we focus primarily on the link between nationalism and partisan-
ship, but it is important to additionally consider the link between partisanship and
patriotism because the two forms of national attachments are strongly related yet
have differing political effects.
Nationalism reflects a sense of national superiority and is linked to height-
ened xenophobia, negative views of immigrants, anti-Semitism, the derogation
of foreigners, classic racism, and a stronger social dominance orientation (Ariely,
2012; Blank & Schmidt, 2003). It is typically assessed by asking respondents to
agree or disagree with statements such as “the world would be a better place if
other countries were more like ours” (Kosterman & Feshbach, 1989). In contrast,
patriotism influences attitudes towards one’s country and co-nationals. It fosters
adherence to national norms, can fuel positive attitudes towards immigrants, and
generates trust in a country’s institutions (Gross, Brewer, & Aday, 2009; Huddy &
Del Ponte, 2019; Satherley, Yogeeswaran, Osborne, & Sibley, 2019). Patriotism
is typically measured by assessing a sense of pride and positive feelings for the
nation, and unlike nationalism, it does not generate out-group derogation (de
Figueiredo & Elkins, 2003).
The difference between nationalism and patriotism parallels another widely
studied distinction between ethnonational and civic conceptions of the nation.
This distinction is typically assessed in surveys by asking respondents a series of
questions about the desired attitudes and behaviors of “true” or “good” citi-
zens. In the US, Citrin and colleagues distinguish between a civic view of a
true American as someone who supports the fundamental values of equality and
individualism and an ethnonational view that Americans need to believe in God
or have been born in the US (Citrin & Wright, 2009). Lindstam, Mader, and
Schoen (2019) develop a similar distinction between ethnonational and civic
understandings of what it means to be a true German. Individuals who endorse
an ethnonational view of national identity share a nationalistic opposition to
immigration (Citrin, Reingold, & Green, 1990; Schildkraut, 2011; Sengupta,
Osborne, & Sibley, 2019). There is a similar parallel between patriotism and civic
conceptions of the nation (Sibley, 2013). Those who rank highly the civic aspects
of American identity are more supportive of immigration, and more inclined to
think that volunteering, donating money to charity, and serving in the military
 The Rise of Populism in the USA 261

is an obligation they owe to other Americans (Citrin & Wright, 2009; Lindstam
et al., 2019; Schildkraut, 2011). Bonikowski and DiMaggio (2016) estimated a
latent class model on the 2003/2004 International Social Survey Program – Gen-
eral Social Survey American national identity data and found that nationalism and
ethnonational conceptions of the nation converge. In sum, ethnonational con-
ceptions have much in common empirically with nationalism, and civic concep-
tions have parallel effects to those of patriotism. In this study, we combine these
scales to create new scales of nationalism and patriotism in which ethnonational
conceptions of the nation are included in a measure of nationalism and civic con-
ceptions are included in a measure of patriotism.

Nationalism and Partisanship

There is no inherent ideological reason why someone who identifies strongly
with the United States, feels pride in the nation, or expresses strong nationalistic
sentiments should favor one or another side of politics. Indeed, in the past Amer-
icans with a strong national identity have been found equally on the political left
and right (Huddy & Khatib, 2007). There is also little evidence that patriotism
or nationalism exhibit ideological bias. In our past research analyzing the 1996
GSS national identity data, neither liberal–conservative ideology nor partisanship
was significantly associated with national pride or nationalism (Huddy & Khatib,
2007). Symbolic patriotism (pride in being American, the flag, and anthem)
is stronger on the political right than left (Hurwitz & Peffley, 1999; Karasawa,
2002). But this may have more to do with the flag than pride per se. Opposi-
tion to the Vietnam war was ultimately more common on the political left, and
flag burning became synonymous with left-leaning, anti-war sentiment. There
is no evidence that a more general sense of national pride or nationalism exhibit
ideological bias.
There are conditions, however, in which national attachments become politi-
cized, as seen in the example of the flag and symbolic patriotism. In research on
multi-party western European democracies, we find that nationalistic opposition
to the EU is more common in countries with a right-wing nationalist party
(Huddy, Del Ponte, & Davies, 2020). In countries that lack a neo-nationalist
party, however, the link between nationalism and EU opposition is far weaker.
Moreover, the best-educated nationalists are most opposed to the EU in western
European countries with a neo-nationalist political party and vote for such par-
ties when present. The best educated citizens are more fully exposed to political
rhetoric than others and can best assimilate its content, supporting the notion
that partisan rhetoric politicizes nationalism (Zaller, 1992). If we extrapolate these
findings to the US, they suggest that the Republican Party may have increased the
link between nationalism and partisanship over time through intensified nation-
alistic rhetoric and policy.
262 Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

Research Hypotheses and Data

We draw on data in the 1996, 2004, and 2014 GSS national identity modules to
test our central hypothesis. First, we examine whether nationalism has increased
in the US over time (H1), increased over time among White Americans (H1a),
and is higher among White than Black Americans (H1b). Second, we examine
whether the link between nationalism and Republican partisanship and Repub-
lican presidential candidate vote choice has increased over time (H2) or has
increased over time among White but not Black Americans (H2a). To test these
hypotheses, we first verify the empirical validity and distinctiveness of nationalism
and patriotism.
Sample. The 1996, 2004, and 2014 General Social Surveys (GSS) include a
national identity module developed by the International Social Survey Programme
(ISSP). Roughly half of all respondents interviewed in each year answered ques-
tions related to patriotism, nationalism, and national identity (N = 1,367 in 1996;
N = 1,216 in 2004; N = 1,274 in 2014). All data are weighted in subsequent
analyses (using the variable wtss).

Differentiating Nationalism and Patriotism

Measurement Model. We ran confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on 23 items in
the ISSP national identity module that measure nationalism and patriotism,
including traditional scale items and related measures of national conceptions
(ethnonational and civic). The best fit was a two-factor (nationalism and patri-
otism) solution, which included a methods factor for items that were asked in
agree–disagree format (V17–V22) and correlated errors between items assessed
on the same response scale (e.g., proud, important; all original analyses available
from authors on request). Nationalism and patriotism are highly correlated in the
measurement model (r = .90) but remain distinct. Nationalism is best defined by
items such as believing that to be a good American it is important to have been
born in the US, be Christian, have lived most of one’s life in the country, or agree
that it is better to be a citizen of the US than any other country. Patriotism is
anchored by feeling proud of the armed forces, the country’s political history, and
the country’s international sports performance plus seeing it as important to feel
American in order to be a good American.
We also examined whether the measurement model worked equally well for
Black and White Americans by running a set of increasingly restrictive CFAs and
found that the model was invariant to race. As seen in Table A2 in the Online
Appendix, it passed tests of configural, metric, and scalar invariance. We created
additive scales for nationalism and patriotism. The two additive scales are more
modestly correlated (r = .50) than in the measurement model. Each scale contains
a mix of traditional and national conception items. Both scales and all analytic
variables are coded 0–1 unless otherwise noted.
 The Rise of Populism in the USA 263

Determinants. Nationalism and patriotism are empirically distinct and have

somewhat different determinants, as seen in Table 14.1. In these analyses, we
control for patriotism when analyzing the determinants of nationalism, and vice
versa, to identity their unique determinants. Nationalism is uniquely associated
with being religious, not having a recent immigrant background, being female,
being less well educated, having lower income, and being more conservative and
authoritarian. Patriotism is uniquely associated with being male, better educated,
and less authoritarian. Survey year and race also shape nationalism and patriotism,
a point to which we will return. For current purposes, Table 14.1 makes clear
that nationalism and patriotism attract differing kinds of adherents and, thus,
constitute distinct forms of national attachment. Strong nationalists are less well-
educated, less affluent, more religious, conservative, and authoritarian, whereas
strong patriots are better educated and less authoritarian.

Levels of Nationalism Over Time, By Race

Our first hypothesis concerns whether nationalism has increased among Ameri-
cans, or at least among White Americans, over time. In contrast to expectations
that nationalism has strengthened over time, regression coefficients in Table 14.1
suggests that it has declined. The positive coefficient for 2004 and the negative
coefficient for 2014 indicate that nationalism was stronger in 2004 than 1996, and
weaker in 2014. There is also some suggestion that nationalism is higher among
Black than White Americans (after controlling for education and income), an
unexpected finding. In contrast, patriotism was stronger in 2004 (possibly linked
to the ongoing Iraq War) but no stronger in 2014 than in 1996. These trends are
visible in Figure 14.1, which depicts weighted means for nationalism and patriot-
ism by year and race.
Figure 14.1 indicates that nationalism was uniformly stronger in 2004 than
in 1996 for White and “other” Americans and weaker in 2014 for Whites and
Blacks, suggesting a recent decrease, not increase, in nationalism. Black Ameri-
cans are also slightly more nationalistic than Whites or other racial/ethnic groups
at all three time points, in defiance of the notion that nationalism is higher among
White Americans. Patriotism exhibits a similar trend over time among Whites,
for whom patriotism increased in 2004 and then reverted to prior levels in 2014.
In contrast, patriotism is lower among Blacks than Whites and remained constant
among Blacks over time. In contrast to nationalism, Blacks are also less patriotic in
1996 and 2004. These findings dispel the notion that nationalism has increased in
the US in recent years or that it is stronger among White than Black Americans.

Nationalism and Support for Nationalistic Policies

Before we test key hypotheses concerning a link between nationalism and sup-
port for the Republican Party, we take one last step to verify that nationalism
264 Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

TABLE 14.1 Determinants of nationalism and patriotism.

Nationalism Patriotism

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Nationalism 0.52 (.02)*** 0.50 (.02)***

Patriotism 0.46 (.02)*** 0.42 (.02)***
2004 0.02 (.01)*** 0.02 (.01)***
2014 −0.02 (.00)*** −0.02 (.00)*** 0.00 (.02) 0.00 (.01)
White −0.01 (.01) −0.01 (.01) 0.00 (.01) −0.01 (.01)
Black 0.03 (.01)*** 0.03 (.01)** −0.05 (.01)*** −0.05 (.01)***
Issue spending −0.05 (.01)*** −0.01 (.01) 0.00 (.01) −0.01 (.02)
Ideology (conservative) 0.01 (.00)*** 0.00 (.00)
Authoritarianism 0.05 (.01)*** −0.02 (.01)**
Religious 0.05 (.01)*** 0.03 (.01)*** 0.01 (.01) −0.00 (.01)
attendance
Parent immigrant −0.02 (.01)*** −0.01 (.01) 0.01 (.01) −0.00 (.01)
Female 0.01 (.00)* 0.01 (.00)** −0.02 (.00)*** −0.02 (.01)***
Age (decades) 0.01 (.00)*** 0.01 (.00)*** 0.01 (.00)*** 0.01 (.00)***
Education (years) −0.26 (.02)*** −0.23 (.02)*** 0.11 (.02)*** 0.11 (.03)***
Real Income (log) −0.01 (.00)*** −0.01 (.00)*** 0.01 (.00)*** 0.00 (.00)
Constant 0.60 (.03)*** 0.50 (.03)*** 0.15 (.03)*** 0.25 (.04)***
Observations 3,421 2,224 3,421 2,224
R-squared 0.40 0.41 0.33 0.29

Note: Entries are OLS regression coefficient with standard errors in parentheses. All variables are
coded 0–1 except age, education, and income. Data are weighted. *** p < .01, ** p < .05, * p < .1

0.8 0.8
Nationalism

Patriotism

0.7 0.7

0.6 0.6

0.5 0.5
1996 2004 2014 1996 2004 2014
White Black Other White Black Other

FIGURE 14.1 Nationalism and patriotism by year and race (weighted means).

and patriotism perform as expected. In our past research conducted in western

Europe, nationalism boosted opposition to immigration while promoting support
for protectionist trade and cultural policies whereas patriotism had the opposite
effect, decreasing opposition to both nationalistic policies (Huddy et al., 2020).
We expect nationalism to boost support for policies that reduce the influence or
presence of foreigners within a country. Patriotism is likely to have the opposite
effect and drive support for such policies in countries with established norms of
support for free trade and immigration. During the roughly 20 years of this study,
 The Rise of Populism in the USA 265

the US qualified as a pro-immigration, free-trade nation, and thus we expect pat-

riotism to drive support for immigration and opposition to protectionist policies.
In the GSS data, anti-immigration views are assessed by four items combined
to form a reliable scale (α = .96): Viewing immigrants as responsible for increas-
ing crime rates, being good for the American economy, taking away jobs, and
increasing or decreasing the number of immigrants. Protectionist policies are
assessed with a moderately reliable scale (α = .64) made up of four items: America
should limit the import of foreign products, America should follow its own inter-
ests, foreigners should not be allowed to buy land in America, and TV should
give preference to American films.
We regressed anti-immigration and protectionist views on nationalism, patriot-
ism, and various control variables. Findings are presented in Table 14.2. There is a
large, statistically significant link between nationalism and both anti-immigration
and protectionist policies, as expected. Patriotism also has the expected oppo-
site effect, promoting support for immigration. Patriotism, however, does not
increase opposition to protectionist policies, suggesting weak or nonexistent
norms in support of free trade.
Table 14.2 also includes an interaction between race and both nationalism and
patriotism to test whether these relationships differ between Blacks and Whites.
For immigration, the answer is no. Nationalism boosts and pride undermines an
anti-immigration stance to the same degree for Blacks and Whites, indicating that
nationalism is associated with opposition to immigration regardless of race. At
low levels of nationalism, both Blacks and Whites are staunchly pro-immigration.
At greater levels of nationalism, they are strongly anti-immigration. In contrast,
Blacks are slightly less likely than Whites to support protectionist policies based
on nationalism, but the effect of nationalism is sizeable in both racial groups.
These effects vary only slightly with year. Nationalism has slightly stronger effects
on support for anti-immigration policies in 2004 than in 1996 and 2014, and
slightly weaker effects on protectionism in 2014 than in 1996 (see Table A3 in
the Online Appendix).
In sum, nationalism performs as expected in driving support for nationalistic
policies such as opposition to increased immigration, negative views of immi-
grants, free trade, and restricting foreign cultural influence. The effects of nation-
alism do not differ dramatically between Black and White Americans, suggesting
that it captures antipathy to the presence and influence of foreigners regardless
of race.

Nationalism, Partisanship, and Vote Choice

Partisanship. Our central question concerns the link between nationalism and
Republican partisanship. Has this association increased over time in tandem with
nationalistic Republican policies such as a visible anti-immigration stance? Or
has it increased over time among White Americans? The answer to the latter
266 Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

TABLE 14.2 Nationalism, patriotism, and support for anti-immigration and protectionist
policies.

Anti-Immigration/Immigrants Protectionism

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Nationalism 0.59 (.03)*** 0.60 (.03)*** 0.58 (.03)*** 0.60 (.03)***

Patriotism −0.25 (.03)*** −0.24 (.03)*** −0.04 (.03) −0.04 (.03)
Black 0.03 (.02)** 0.10 (.06) 0.03 (.02)* 0.15 (.06)**
Black * nationalism −0.08 (.08) −0.21 (.09)**
Black * patriotism −0.01 (.06) 0.04 (.08)
2004 −0.04 (.01)*** −0.05 (.01)*** −0.03 (.01)*** −0.04 (.01)***
2014 −0.06 (.01)*** −0.06 (.01)*** −0.02 (.01)** −0.02 (.01)**
White 0.06 (.01)*** 0.06 (.01)*** 0.03 (.01)** 0.03 (.01)**
Religious −0.03 (.01)*** −0.03 (.01)*** 0.00 (.01) 0.00 (.01)
attendance
Parent immigrant −0.14 (.01)*** −0.14 (.01)*** −0.06 (.01)*** −0.06 (.01)***
Female 0.00 (.01) 0.00 (.01) −0.01 (.01) −0.01 (.01)
Age (categorical) −0.00 (.00) −0.00 (.00) −0.00 (.00)** −0.00 (.00)*
Education (years) −0.16 (.03)*** −0.16 (.03)*** −0.18 (.02)*** −0.17 (.03)***
Real income (log) 0.00 (.00) 0.00 (.00) −0.01 (.00)** −0.01 (.00)**
Constant 0.41 (.05)*** 0.40 (.05)*** 0.37 (.04)*** 0.36 (.04)***
Observations 3,366 3,366 3,392 3,392
R-squared 0.28 0.28 0.25 0.26

Note: Entries are OLS regression coefficient with standard errors in parentheses. All variables are
coded 0–1 except age, education, and income. All data are weighted. *** p <.01, ** p < .05,
* p < .1

question is yes. In an ordered probit analysis, we regressed the 7-point standard

partisanship measure, which ranges from strong Democrat to strong Republican,
on nationalism, patriotism, year, race, and their interactions along with the same
demographic controls included in earlier analyses (see Table A4 in the Online
Appendix). The three-way interactions make coefficients difficult to interpret.
We thus plotted the predicted effects of nationalism on the probability of being a
strong Republican by year and race in Figure 14.2 (based on the ordered probit
analysis in Table A4).
Several trends are apparent in Figure 14.2. First, nationalism is increasingly
linked to a strong Republican identification over time, but only among White
Americans. In 1996, there was no link between nationalism and partisanship
among Whites, but there was a substantial link in 2004 and 2014 (Panel A).
This provides evidence that nationalism and partisanship have become associated
over time among White Americans. Moreover, the probability of being a strong
Republican is sizeable among the strongest nationalists. In the 2014 GSS sample,
the probability of being a strong Republican was roughly .03 among the weakest
and .25 among the strongest nationalists. In additional analyses (not shown here),
in which the dependent variable was simply being a Republican (regardless of
strength), nationalism was linked to Republicanism among Whites in all three
 The Rise of Populism in the USA 267

Panel A. White Americans

Panel B. Black Americans

FIGURE 14.2 Nationalism and the probability of strong Republican identification by

race and year.
268 Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

years, although its effects were substantially larger in 2014 than in 1996 or 2004.
This suggests that the association between nationalism and Republicanism has
increased over time, as has the link with strong Republican partisanship.
There is no evidence, however, that nationalism drives support for the Repub-
lican Party among Black Americans. As seen in Panel B, the probability of being a
strong Republican is unrelated to nationalism among Blacks in all years. Moreo-
ver, the probability of someone being a strong Republican is lower among Blacks
than Whites regardless of level of nationalism. Indeed, the probability of being
a strong Republican is close to 0 among those scoring higher than .5 on the
nationalism measure. Similar findings are observed for analyses that predict being
Republican, Independent, or Democratic. In 2014, the probability of being a
Republican was .06 among highly nationalistic African Americans compared to
.66 among comparable nationalistic Whites.
Vote Choice. In the GSS, Americans were asked who they had voted for in the
previous presidential election. In 1996, the question referred to the 1992 election
(George H. Bush vs Bill Clinton); in 2004, it referred to 2000 (George W. Bush
vs. Al Gore); and in 2014, it referred to 2012 (Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama).
The Republican won in 2000 and the Democrat in 1992 and 2012. The percent
who reported voting in the past election was 66% (1996), 64% (2004), and 65%
(2014), and analyses of vote choice are based on this reduced sample (N = 2,418).
Voting for the Republican candidate was regressed on nationalism, patriotism,
race, year, their interactions, and demographic controls (Table A5 in the Online
Appendix). In these analyses, nationalism boosted support for the Republican
candidates in all three elections and had substantially stronger effects in 2004 (the
2000 election) and 2014 (the 2012 election) than in 1996 (1992 election). Once
again, these effects are largely confined to White Americans (Table A5).
To more clearly depict the effects of nationalism on vote choice among Whites
across the three elections, the predicted values of voting for the Republican can-
didate are plotted in Figure 14.3 across the range of nationalism by year for Whites
(based on analyses in Table A5). As seen in this figure, nationalism increases sup-
port for the Republican candidate in all years, although its effects are far more
pronounced in 2004 and 2014 than in 1996. At the highest levels of nationalism,
the probability that White Americans voted for the Republican candidate was
roughly .8 in the most recent two presidential elections. In contrast, Whites low
in nationalism were relatively unlikely to vote for the Republican presidential
candidate.
The reduced sample of African American voters made it difficult to accurately
depict the same relationship for Blacks. We can, however, plot the predicted
probability of the Black and White Republican vote in all three elections com-
bined. Those trends are depicted in Figure 14.4 (based on Table A5). Figure 14.4
makes clear that support for the Republican presidential candidate increases dra-
matically across the range of nationalism for Whites, whereas it has little effect
among Black voters. Once again, confidence intervals are large and estimates
 The Rise of Populism in the USA 269

FIGURE 14.3 Nationalism and probability of Republican vote among Whites by year.

FIGURE 14.4 Nationalism and probability of Republican vote by race (all three years).
270 Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

imprecise at the lowest levels of nationalism among Blacks, but the probability
that no Black voter supported the Republican candidate is a possible outcome.
The starkest contrast in Republican voting exists between Black and White voters
at the highest levels of nationalism. The probability of a highly nationalistic White
voter supporting the Republican candidate is roughly .68 compared to .03 among
a highly nationalistic Black voter.

The Political Effects of Patriotism

So far, we have largely focused on the political effects of nationalism. We included
patriotism in all analyses, and it is important to contrast its political effects with
those of nationalism. Despite being highly correlated, the two forms of national
attachment have differing effects, as noted earlier in the discussion of anti-
immigration policies.
We did not begin with strong hypotheses concerning the effects of patriotism
on partisanship and vote choice. Some past studies have reported a link between
symbolic patriotism and political conservatism, but in other studies, in which pat-
riotism is measured independently of questions about the flag and anthem, there
is no political bias. In the GSS data, patriotism is largely non-partisan, as seen in
regression analyses included in the appendix (Table A4). In these tables, patriot-
ism has a significant positive relationship with Republican partisanship in 2004
but not in other years. Moreover, this does not differ significantly by race. The
heightened effects of patriotism on Republican support in 2004 can be seen in
Panel A of Figure 14.5, which plots the probability of being a strong Republican
across the range of patriotism among Blacks and Whites combined. The same
trend is observed in analysis of Republican vote choice. Patriotism is not signifi-
cantly linked to vote choice except in 2004, and this does not differ by race. Panel
B of Figure 14.5 demonstrates the greater effect of patriotism on Republican vote
choice in 2004 than in other years.

By Year (Blacks and Whites Combined)

We did not expect patriotism to boost Republican identification and vote choice
in 2004 and have no way to determine what enhanced its effects in that year. One
possibility is that the ongoing Iraq War, initiated by a Republican administra-
tion, inspired patriotic support for Republicans in 2004. The 2004 GSS survey
occurred just a few years after the 9/11 terror attacks and the Bush administra-
tion had argued that a war in Iraq was necessary to reduce the chances of future
terrorism and the threat posed to the US by Saddam Hussein. Obviously, this
could not explain patriots’ support for Bush in the 2000 election (Figure 14.5B),
but retrospective measurement of past vote is notoriously inaccurate and often
colored by subsequent events.
 The Rise of Populism in the USA 271

Panel A. Republican Partisanship

Panel B. Republican Vote Choice

FIGURE 14.5 Patriotism, Republican ID, and Republican vote.

272 Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

Importantly, the trends depicted in Figure 14.5 make clear that nationalism
and patriotism have differing effects on partisanship and support for Republi-
can presidential candidates. Nationalism appears increasingly linked over time to
Republican partisanship among White Americans, a trend that likely strength-
ened in 2016. But it has no effect on partisanship among Black Americans. In
contrast, the link between patriotism and partisanship is more episodic and simi-
lar across racial groups. When the country is threatened, an administration that
responds with force will attract patriotic support. This implies that patriotism
could lend support equally to the Democratic or Republican Party depending on
the political circumstances.

Conclusion
The recent growth of right-wing populist political parties in western democracies
has drawn attention to nationalism, a common feature of the populist political
agenda in which the national ethnic majority (equated with “the people”) is pit-
ted against elite forces that promote diversity, globalization, and multiculturalism
(Brubaker, 2020). This raises a pertinent question about whether the success of
populism is due to rising levels of nationalism. Our research and that of others
suggests this is not the case (Bonikowski, 2017; Huddy et al., 2020). The GSS
data analyzed in the current study demonstrates that, if anything, nationalism was
lower in the US in 2014 than in 2004. Levels of nationalism have also remained
relatively constant in western European countries in recent years. Instead of ris-
ing nationalism, the success of populist parties can be traced to their support for
nationalistic policies such as opposition to immigration or the imposition of trade
tariffs to undercut free trade. Our findings are consistent with other research
showing that political rhetoric is needed to translate societal trends, such as an
increase in the immigrant population, into policy attitudes (Bruter, 2003; Hop-
kins, 2010). In the case of populism, economic and cultural threats to the major-
ity ethnic group may further heighten the political resonance of nationalistic
rhetoric (Bonikowski, 2017).
The clear caveat to our findings, however, is the limited appeal of the Repub-
lican Party for strongly nationalistic Black Americans. There is no question that
nationalism measures the same thing for White and Black Americans. Regard-
less of race, nationalistic Whites and Blacks oppose increased immigration, hold
negative views of immigrants, and support protectionist policies. The key dif-
ference is that nationalistic Whites, but not Blacks, have moved to support the
Republican Party over time. What explains Black indifference to the Republi-
can Party’s appeal to nationalism? One very likely explanation, but one we could
not test in the current study, is that the Democratic Party is associated with
support whereas the Republican Party is viewed as hostile to Black interests,
generating strong group norms of Black Democratic identification (Grossman &
Hopkins, 2016; White, Laird, & Allen, 2014). This is a potential downside of
nationalistic rhetoric, which elevates the majority ethnic group over racial and
 The Rise of Populism in the USA 273

ethnic minorities. The same process may occur in other western democracies
that contain sizeable minority groups. There, too, minority status may conflict
with personal nationalistic tendencies, limiting the political appeal of national-
ism and populist parties.
Finally, we need to underscore the differing political effects of distinct forms of
national attachments in the US and elsewhere. Despite their positive association,
nationalism and patriotism have opposing political effects. In the US, nationalism
promotes opposition to immigration, increases support for trade protectionism,
and boosts White support for the Republican Party over time, whereas patriotism
promotes support for immigration and increases opposition to trade protection-
ism across racial lines. We find similar trends in western Europe, where strong
nationalism fuels opposition to immigration, free trade policies, and the EU, and
promotes electoral support for populist parties, whereas patriotism strengthens
support for the same policies and the EU (Huddy et al., 2020).
In conclusion, our findings call into question the future success of nationalist
populist partisan appeals within mainstream American politics and other western
nations. To date, nationalism has had limited appeal in western democracies, and
the success of anti-establishment parties has been limited (Mudde, 2013; Norris,
2005). As Mudde (2013) points out:

Despite some striking high and recent results, the alleged populist right
“wave” is clearly not lapping (equally) at the shores of all West European
countries. In fact, PRRPs [populist radical right parties] are represented
in the national parliaments of just half of the 17 West European countries.
(2013, p. 3)

Mudde argues that anti-establishment parties remain excluded from “the more
than 200 national governments that have been formed in Western Europe since
1980” (Mudde, 2013, p. 4). That assessment has changed slightly in recent years
with anti-establishment parties entering government in Italy (2018) and Austria
(2017) and making inroads into the European parliament.
Nationalistic appeals have had greater success in the US. Donald Trump won
the 2016 election with a strongly nationalistic platform and slogan: Make Amer-
ica Great Again. But findings in the current study make clear that nationalistic
appeals are only successful among White Americans. As the US population diver-
sifies in coming years, the success of a nationalistic appeal is likely to decline. Of
course, time will tell. But the need for national unity has become glaringly obvi-
ous amidst the coronavirus pandemic, tilting the playing field towards unifying
patriotic rather than divisive nationalistic political appeals.

Note
* The online appendix is available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/access/datafile/
4279004
274 Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte

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15
THREAT, TIGHTNESS, AND THE
EVOLUTIONARY APPEAL OF
POPULIST LEADERS
Michele J. Gelfand1 and Rebecca Lorente

Threat, Tightness, and the Evolutionary Appeal of

Populist Leaders
For decades after the Cold War ended, many believed that the world would
become more united. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama (2006) predicted that
the historic triumph of free market capitalism over communism would soon
mean all nations would adopt liberal democratic governments. Following this
universal adoption, a globalized marketplace would promote connectivity and
result in fewer wars, bringing about “the end of history.” Others, like journalist
Thomas Friedman (2005), argued that the surge in global markets and online
networks was producing a world that had become “flat,” wherein people were on
a level playing field worldwide. And with the tidal wave of globalization, people
around the globe—many of whom are wearing Levi’s jeans, drinking Starbucks
coffee, and listening to the same music—would become more similar. Indeed,
before it became a common mantra of Silicon Valley, internet pioneers like Marc
Andreessen predicted the digital frontier would provide a platform for humanity
to come together and put to rest its many age-old divisions.
Despite the promise that the world is flattening—that globalization and tech-
nology will unite us—the state of global affairs couldn’t be further from this opti-
mistic prediction. While we have more contact, we find ourselves feeling more
divided (Vinnakota, 2017), democracy has been eroding worldwide (Pudding-
ton & Roylance, 2017), and autocrats have gained increasing support (see also
Bar-Tal & Magal; Huddy & Del Ponte; and Marcus, this volume). Russian Presi-
dent Vladimir Putin remains immensely popular even though he stands accused
of brazenly jailing his political opponents and killing journalists (Druzhinin,
2017). In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte—who once bragged about
 Evolutionary Appeal of Populist Leaders 277

personally gunning down drug dealers from his motorcycle—has received sup-
port from many Filipino citizens (Aquino, 2017). In Europe, support for populist
parties rose to a 30-year high (Tartar, 2017), resulting in the election of nation-
alist leaders in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic and contributing to
the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union (see also Forgas &
Lantos, this volume). Meanwhile, as of 2018, Donald Trump maintained more
party support than any president since World War II except George W. Bush after
9/11, according to Axios’s Mike Allen (2018; see also Feldman, this volume).
Many theorists had argued that democratic governments would be more the
norm than the exception in the 21st century, which begs the question: Why the
sudden global appetite for power-hungry leaders with a penchant for breaking
laws and ethical codes? Indeed, all of these autocrats are popular not in spite of
their authoritarian tendencies, but because of them. Perhaps a better question,
then, is: If people around the world see these leaders as the solution, what do they
regard as the problem?
Many explanations have been offered for the rise of populist leaders with
autocratic leanings, including such divisions as red versus blue, urban versus rural,
religious versus secular, populist versus elite, among others (Gelfand, 2018). All
of these divides exist, and there are many important factors that drive support
for autocrats, as noted in this volume. In this chapter, we argue that we are also
witnessing the reemergence of a deeper cultural fault line driving these dynamics,
namely the desire for “cultural tightness and the leaders who can deliver it.” Tight
cultures are defined by strict rules and social order, tradition, and predictability.
Loose groups eschew rules, welcome new ideas, and embrace tolerance (Gelfand
et al., 2011). As elaborated upon later in this chapter, research shows that threat
lies at the heart of variation in cultural tightness–looseness. Throughout history,
when groups experience ecological or human-made threat, they desire a strict
social order and strong leaders who can create it (Gelfand, 2018; Jackson, van
Egmond et al., 2019). Leaders can also take advantage of this psychology and
exaggerate threat to gain support. The strategy is enormously successful because it
taps into a deep evolutionary principle that has helped human groups survive for
millennia. Together, these dynamics provide a perfect storm that allows autocratic
leaders to gain wide-spread popularity.
In what follows, we first discuss research on threat and the evolution of tight-
ness. We then discuss the implications of this research for recent election dynam-
ics. With recently developed computational dictionaries, we can also track the use
of threatening language of autocratic leaders that tightens communities. Based on
our theory and findings, we then discuss some specific recommendations. While
specific leaders will come and go, as long as people feel threatened—whether of
terrorism, disasters, immigrants, or otherwise—they are more likely to vote for
the tightness that autocrats promise to deliver. Accordingly, we to need move
beyond weeding out these particular personalities and address the deeper cultural
roots of the desire for tightness.
278 Michele J. Gelfand and Rebecca Lorente

How Threat Tightens Cultures

To understand the rise of autocrats, we need to step away from current political
dynamics and consider the history of human culture, particularly its relationship
with warfare, famine, and other collective threats. Tight–loose theory—which has
been supported by computer models, international surveys, and archival data—
suggests communities require strong rules and punishments in order to coordi-
nate to survive collective threats (Gelfand et al., 2011; Gelfand, Harrington, &
Jackson, 2017).
Herodotus, who is generally considered the “father of history,” was one of
the first to document tight–loose differences in the Histories. Writing about the
Persians, Herodotus noted their looseness and openness to foreign ideas: “There
is no nation which so readily adopts foreign customs as the Persians. Thus, they
have taken the dress of the Medes, considering it superior to their own; and in
war they wear the Egyptian breastplate” (Herodotus, 1998, I.135). By contrast,
he described the Egyptians as having very strong norms, especially for cleanliness,
religion, and authority relations (Herodotus, 1998, II.37). Centuries later, Pelto
(1968) documented differences in the strength of norms across traditional socie-
ties, observing that the Hutterites, Hanno, and Lubara were “tight” in that they
had strong norms, were very formal, and had severe punishments for norm vio-
lations. By contrast, the Kung Bushmen, Cubeo, and Skolt Lapps were “loose,”
with weaker norms and more tolerance for deviance. Pelto speculated that these
differences might arise from ecological conditions which forced communities to
coordinate and cooperate.
Building on this, Gelfand and colleagues (2011) argued that norm strength
is adaptive to certain features of ecological environments, which in turn affords
a suite of adaptive social and psychological processes. They tested a multilevel
theory of tightness–looseness (TL) in a study of over 6,800 individuals across 33
nations (see Figure 15.1). At the most macro level, they theorized that societies
with chronic threat develop strong norms and punishments of violators in order

FIGURE 15.1 A multilevel theory of cultural tightness-looseness.

 Evolutionary Appeal of Populist Leaders 279

to coordinate to survive. By contrast, societies that lack exposure to chronic eco-

logical threats can afford to have weaker norms and tolerance for deviance given
that they have less need for coordinated social action. In support of this notion,
they found that tightness correlated with an extensive array of historical and ecologi-
cal threats. Tight societies had a greater historical prevalence of natural disasters,
food scarcity, population density, and territorial threats compared to loose socie-
ties. They also showed that the strength of societal norms is reflected and pro-
moted through societal institutions (e.g., the media, government, criminal justice)
that foster narrow versus broad socialization (Arnett, 1995) and everyday situations
that restrict the range of acceptable behavior (Mischel, 1977). In particular, tight
cultures had more autocratic governing bodies, more police per capita, less media
openness, fewer political rights and civil liberties, and greater religiosity than loose
societies. Everyday situations were stronger—restricting the range of acceptable
behavior—in tight cultures compared to loose cultures. Finally, at the individual
level, people exposed to chronically higher situational strength had greater felt
accountability (Frink & Klimoski, 1998)—that is, have a greater likelihood of being
monitored, evaluated, and punished or rewarded based on their behavior. Greater
felt accountability in turn implicates a broad suite of psychological processes that
are recruited in the service of avoiding sanctions in tight cultures. For example,
individuals from tighter nations were found to score higher on measures of cau-
tiousness, dutifulness, self-regulation and impulse-control, self-monitoring, and
need for structure. A multilevel structural equation model provided support for
the system of TL—the interplay between ecological and historical factors, socio-
political institutions, everyday situations, and individual differences.
Notably, research has shown that as groups tighten to deal with coordination
needs, they also experience a number of trade-offs associated with order ver-
sus openness. Tight groups have more monitoring, order, and self-control, which
is critical for coordinating in the face of threat (Gelfand, 2018). For example,
tight countries generally have less crime, more security people per capita, more
uniformity, and less debt, alcoholism, and obesity (Gelfand, 2018). While loose
groups struggle with order, they are much more open. For example, loose cul-
tures are less ethnocentric and more tolerant of people from stigmatized groups
( Jackson, van Egmond et al., 2019), more creative (Chua, Roth, & Lemoine,
2015; Harrington & Gelfand, 2014), and more open to change (De, Nau, & Gel-
fand, 2017). This trade-off can also be seen longitudinally. Jackson, Gelfand, De,
and Fox showed that the U.S. has been gradually loosening over 200 years while
also showing associated increases in creativity as well as debt.
TL has also been shown to have similar patterns within nations. For example,
Harrington and Gelfand (2014) examined how TL varies across states in the U.S.
As with the national level, state-level tightness—as assessed by numerous archival
measures reflecting latitude versus constraint—was positively related to ecological
and historical threat. Compared to looser states, tight states had higher death rates
due to natural disasters, greater food insecurity, and more disease prevalence. The
280 Michele J. Gelfand and Rebecca Lorente

order versus openness trade-off found at the national level also applied to the state
level. Tighter states had higher trait conscientiousness ( John, Naumann, & Soto,
2008), greater social organization (e.g., lower mobility, less divorce), and greater
self-control (e.g., less recreational drug and alcohol abuse and debt) (Gelfand,
2018). Looser states, in contrast, had higher trait openness ( John et al., 2008), less
discrimination (e.g., lower rates of EEOC claims and more women- and minority-
owned businesses), and higher creativity (e.g., more utility patents and artists per
capita). While looser states were more disorganized and had more self-control
failures, they were also more creative and tolerant as compared to tighter states.
Variation in TL can also be seen in other large countries, such as China. In
a study of over 11,000 individuals across 31 provinces, Chua, Huang, and Jin
(2019) found some notable similarities in patterns of TL variation. Tightness at
the province level was associated with measures of threat, including the extent
to which a province was destroyed and occupied during World War II, whether
a province was located on a national border, number of environmental emer-
gencies, communicable diseases, and amount of pollution. As in Figure 15.1,
socio-political variables predicted province-level tightness, including stronger
governmental controls (government employees per capita) and religious
­presence—both of which restrict the range of behavior. Tightness was related to
behavioral constraints in everyday situations and personality differences, includ-
ing self-monitoring, conscientiousness, and openness.
Differences in tightness–looseness extend beyond the modern era. Indeed,
human groups have long faced ecological threats such as resource stress and war-
fare and have needed to overcome strains on coordination imposed by growing
social complexity. Jackson, Gelfand, and Ember (2020) expanded research on
TL in industrialized countries to a global sample of non-industrialized societies
from the ethnographic record. The strength of norms and punishments were
measured across six domains of life that are universally important for human
groups—law and ethics, gender, socialization, marriage, sexuality, and funerals
and mourning—all of which were interrelated and comprised a single latent fac-
tor. And, as with modern nations and states, tight pre-industrial societies tended
to have more threats, including greater pathogen prevalence, warfare, food scar-
city, and population pressure. Tightness was correlated with social complexity
across cultures, perhaps because social complexity engenders a heightened need
for the large-scale cooperation and coordination tightness can provide.
In sum, research on TL in modern nations, states, and pre-industrial societies
supports the notion that when there is threat, tightness tends to evolve. While
these findings are correlational, recent evolutionary game theoretic models
(EGT) illustrate that threat causes the evolution of tightness at the popula-
tion level. For example, Roos, Gelfand, Nau, and Lun (2015) created an EGT
model wherein agents played a public goods game, in which they either coop-
erated or defected. There was also a punishment phase in which an agent could
punish other agents. Agents had different punishment strategies, including
 Evolutionary Appeal of Populist Leaders 281

(R)esponsible punishers who punished defectors, (A)ntisocial punishers who

punished cooperators, (S)piteful punishers who punished indiscriminately, and
(N)on-punishers who didn’t punish anyone. Levels of threat were manipulated
by subtracting a certain amount τ from everyone’s payoff. They found that dif-
ferent degrees of norm strength were evolutionarily adaptive to societal threat:
In a society with higher threat, tighter cooperation norms and responsible pun-
ishment evolved as evolutionary stable strategies in both public goods and coor-
dination games. Put differently, as societal threats increased, agents who abided
by cooperative norms and punished others for deviating thrived and had an
evolutionary advantage over agents that did not adhere to and enforce norms.
These EGT models suggest that differences in tightness arise as a cultural adap-
tation to threat.

Leaders, Tight and Loose

Research has also shown that threats do not just lead to the desire for stronger
rules; they also catalyze support for independent leaders. In a study of over 6,900
managers spanning 400 organizations and 29 countries, Aktas, Gelfand, and
Hanges (2016) showed that beliefs about what makes a leader effective vary con-
siderably across cultures. People in loose cultures preferred visionary leaders who
are collaborative, while people in tight cultures viewed effective leaders as those
who were independent and largely autonomous. In other surveys, people in tight
cultures were more likely to prefer political systems that have a strong leader or are
ruled by the army and to believe the most important responsibility of the govern-
ment is to maintain order in society (Gelfand et al., 2011).
Beyond national leaders, research has also found that tightness is associated
with more moralizing and authoritarian conceptions of God for many of the same
reasons it leads to more support for authoritarian leaders. The belief that God is
punitive generally increases rule following (Norenzayan et al., 2016; Purzycki
et al., 2016; Shariff & Norenzayan, 2011), and accordingly, such beliefs would
presumably be particularly adaptive during times of threat. Recent research has
indeed found evidence linking threat, tightness, and belief in a punitive God.
Caluori, Jackson, Gray, and Gelfand (2020) found that people’s concern about
conflict correlates with belief in a punitive God—one who is punishing, wrathful,
stern, and strict—as compared to a belief in a loving God—one that is compas-
sionate, caring, generous, and forgiving. Experimentally increasing the salience of
conflict also increased people’s perceptions of the importance of a punitive God,
as mediated by people’s desire for a tightly regulated society. And in a longitudinal
study, Caluori et al. (2020) also found that fluctuations in conflict over 200 years,
as measured from the Conflict Catalog (Brecke, 2001), predicted and preceded
higher frequencies of bible passages in which God was depicted as punitive and
punishing wrongdoers. More generally, when there is threat, punishing gods
are psychologically attractive given that they provide order in the face of chaos
282 Michele J. Gelfand and Rebecca Lorente

( Jackson et al., in press), just as autocratic governmental leaders are desired in

tight societies that experience a chronic history of threat. Indeed, in their analy-
ses of over 80 non-industrial societies, tight societies were found to emphasize
moralizing high gods and had autocratic leaders who had fewer checks on their
power ( Jackson et al., 2020).

Temporary Tightening of Groups

While the preceding research was mainly focused on chronic threat and the evo-
lution of tight norms and independent leaders, it’s important to note that when
threats—real or imagined—are made accessible, they can temporarily tighten indi-
viduals as well. In a series of ecological priming studies, Gelfand and Lun (2013)
showed that whether it was terrorism threats, high population density, or patho-
gens, people began to desire stricter rules when reminded of collective threat. In
one study, participants were randomly assigned to read a school newspaper article
about a terrorist threat warning system that was being implemented either at one’s
own university or at another university in a different country. Consistent with field
research on territorial threats (Gelfand et al., 2011), they found that individuals who
were primed with threats to their own territory had a stronger desire to punish
social norm violators and showed more ethnocentric attitudes.
Another study tested whether making population density accessible would
make people less tolerant of socially deviant behavior. Participants were randomly
assigned to read one of two versions of an article describing that the campus of
the participants’ university is one of the highest (or lowest) in population density
compared to other similar universities. The message was supported by statistical
graphs and quotes about student life throughout the article. As with the field data
linking population density with tightness (Gelfand et al., 2011), those who were
primed to think that their university campus had high population density were
more likely to consider socially deviant behavior to be less justifiable and reported
more agreement with such statements as “We should restrict and control entry of
people into our country more than we do now”; “When jobs are scarce, employ-
ers should give priority to American people over immigrants”; “Our people are
not perfect, but our culture is superior to others”; and “Our way of life needs
to be protected against foreign influence” than those primed with low popula-
tion density. Beyond the lab, a quasi-experimental ecological priming paradigm
was used to examine how the activation of pathogens affected tightening in the
field. Research assistants approached individuals who were either about to see the
movie Contagion (a movie about the spread of pathogens) or who had just seen
the movie outside of movie theaters. As predicted, people who had just seen the
movie Contagion had tighter mindsets; they had more negative reactions to social
deviance. In all, these examples show that even when threats are primed, they can
temporarily tighten individuals.
 Evolutionary Appeal of Populist Leaders 283

Tight–Loose and Election Dynamics

We have seen that during times of threat, groups tighten because strict norms
encourage the coordination necessary to maintain order (Gelfand et al., 2011).
From an evolutionary perspective, having strict rules and punishments can pro-
vide the cohesion that helps groups to survive real threat. We reasoned that this
same cultural principle can be extended to election dynamics. More specifically,
we predicted that during elections, when people feel threatened—whether it
is real or imagined—they would show a greater desire for tight rules, begin to
show suspicion of outsiders, and desire strong leaders who can return them to a
tight social order. Leaders who have strong autocratic tendencies satiate this need.
Moreover, as we discuss next, autocrats reinforce these psychological tendencies by
fostering a culture of threat and targeting those who are most vulnerable.
In a set of studies, Jackson, van Egmond et al. (2019) examined the connection
of threat, desired tightness, prejudice toward outgroups, and voting intentions for
candidates who used autocratic appeals to garner voter support. The first study,
conducted in the U.S. during the 2016 primary election, surveyed a sample of
over 500 Americans that was nationally representative in terms of race, politi-
cal affiliation, and region. Respondents indicated their concern for ten socio-­
ecological threats (e.g., natural disasters, terrorism, pathogens, debt, immigration,
an attack from North Korea or Iran, among others), as well as their desire for
cultural tightness, dislike of outgroups, and the candidate they intended to vote
for. Controlling for participants’ state of residence and political orientation, they
found a significant relationship between intentions to vote for Donald Trump and
perceived socio-ecological threat, desired cultural tightness, and prejudice toward
outgroups. Additionally, a serial mediation path model examining the effect of
perceived threat on intention to vote for Trump via support for tightness and
prejudice revealed a significant indirect effect (see Figure 15.2). This indicates that
threatened voters’ intentions to vote for Trump could be explained by their desire
for tighter norms and prejudice. Put simply, the strongest Trump supporters were
those who felt that America was under grave threat and believed that the country
needed tighter rules and less tolerance toward anyone who seemed different or
“un-American.”
The link between threat, tightness, and support for autocratic leaders was also
replicated in France prior to the 2017 election. Three days before the first round
of the election, a sample of 320 French participants completed the same measures
of perceived socio-ecological threat, desired cultural tightness, and prejudice as
their American counterparts had the year prior. They also reported the candi-
date they intended to vote for in the election. Consistent with the results of the
American study, intention to vote for Marine Le Pen was significantly related to
perceived socio-ecological threat, desired cultural tightness, and prejudice toward
outgroups. The serial mediation path model examining the effect of perceived
threat on intention to vote for Le Pen via support for tightness and prejudice
284 Michele J. Gelfand and Rebecca Lorente

FIGURE 15.2 A serial mediation path model showing the effects of threat on inten-
tion to vote for Donald Trump (top) and Marine Le Pen (bottom) via
support for cultural tightness and prejudice.
Note: All effects have been standardized so they can be interpreted as effect sizes. Single-starred asso-
ciations are significant at the p < .05 level; double-starred associations are significant at the p < .005
level. The X–Y path inside the parentheses is the total effect, whereas the effect outside the parenthe-
ses is the direct effect. Adapted from Jackson, van Egmond et al. (2019).

indicated that threatened respondents’ voting preferences could be explained

through desired tightness and prejudice. While these studies are correlational,
they support a general pattern: Perceptions of threat are linked to a desire for
higher tightness, which, in turn, reflected in support for autocratic leaders who
promise to provide that order.
Similar patterns have been found in other studies. For example, Sprong et al.
(2019) examined how another threat—economic inequality—related to support
for strong political leaders. In their theory, economic threats are related to feelings
of anomie, or the feeling that ones’ society was breaking down—what we would
refer to as extreme looseness—which in turn drives support for strong leaders. In
surveys of over 7,000 individuals in 28 countries, they examined objective and
subjective inequality, perceptions of anomie, and participants’ feelings about hav-
ing a strong political leader. Mediational models showed that the belief that eco-
nomic inequality existed increased feelings of anomie, which increased feelings of
wanting a stronger political leader. Similar to Jackson et al. (2019), this suggests
that people who are experiencing economic inequality are more likely to believe
that their country is too loose and want leaders who promise to return them to a
tight social order (see also Zhao & Cao, 2010 for an analysis of rising anomie as a
function of rapid social change, and Nowak, Gelfand, Borkowski, & Kruglanski,
 Evolutionary Appeal of Populist Leaders 285

2017, for a discussion of autocratic recidivism—a desire for autocrats to cope with
the normlessness that can occur after former autocrats are ousted).
These dynamics have also been observed across Europe (Gelfand, 2018). For
example, many supporters of the U.K.’s desire to leave the European Union
were working-class and rural voters—demographic groups that have been expe-
riencing increased threat. Fearful working-class voters also drove the candida-
cies of far-right politicians in Poland, the Netherlands, and Austria. Likewise,
the desire for a safer and more secure Turkey was behind Erdogan’s successful
referendum that granted him unprecedented power. All of these patterns sug-
gest that one important driver of support for autocratic leaders is feelings of
threat that catalyze the desire for tightness and leaders who promise to provide
it. Summarizing these trends in their book Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit,
and Authoritarian Populism, Norris and Inglehart (2019) concluded that a prime
driver of support for populist leaders in Europe is cultural backlash—a strong
desire for security, rules, and traditions amid the perception that immigrants
were threatening their countries’ social order (see also Forgas & Lantos; and
Krekó, this volume).
Notably, threats need not be real to drive electoral dynamics. Manufactured
or highly exaggerated threats also can produce the same psychological tighten-
ing and desire for autocratic leaders. For example, in a study of more than 1,000
U.S.-born citizens, Gelfand and Denison (2019) found that respondents tend to
overestimate the percentage of people living in the U.S. who immigrated illegally
and these estimations vary across party lines. Republicans estimated that 18% of
the U.S. population was made up of people who were living there illegally, while
the Democrats estimated that statistic to be less than 13% on average. (The actual
figure, according to a 2017 Pew Research study, is closer to 3%; Radford, 2019).
Importantly, these misperceptions have important psychological consequences.
People who overestimated the number of people illegally living in the U.S. were
much more likely to perceive immigrants as a threat, and these perceptions, in
turn, were related to the desire for tighter rules and intentions to vote for Trump
in 2020. One prime source of this fake threat is from autocratic leaders them-
selves, as we will discuss.

How Leaders Activate Threat and Desired Tightness

Autocrats around the world have expertly capitalized on the tight–loose fault line.
As noted, when we perceive threats (whether real, imagined, or manipulated), we
crave social order—and strong leaders who can enforce it. Many autocrats capital-
ize on this psychology. They deliberately foster a culture of threat and fear and, in
doing so, can capitalize on the tightening impulse that naturally follows. Indeed,
anecdotal evidence suggests that autocrats around the world are conducting these
“threat experiments” on their nations’ citizens. For example, Matteo Salvani, as
if reading from a tight–loose text book, declared that “We are under attack. Our
286 Michele J. Gelfand and Rebecca Lorente

culture, society, traditions and way of life are at risk.” Viktor Orban claimed that
Hungarians have to get rid of “Muslim invaders.” Le Pen’s rhetoric is equally
alarming: Globalization and Islam will “bring France to its knees.” Threat consti-
tutes the foundation of their narratives, with the goal of inspiring fear and being
perceived as the only person who can deliver safety. “I alone can fix it,” claimed
Trump. This strategy is enormously successful because it taps into a deep evo-
lutionary principle that has helped groups deal with threat (also see Crano &
Gaffney; Vallacher & Fennell, this volume). People who feel their nations are “on
the brink of disaster” will want tighter rules and strong-arm rulers to survive.
To illustrate the use of threatening rhetoric among autocratic leaders, we cre-
ated a new threat dictionary using computational linguistic techniques (Choi,
Shrestha, Pan, & Gelfand, 2020). Text analysis has become an important tool
for researchers interested in using written content to detect markers of social
and psychological processes (Bauer, 2000; Holtgraves, 2013; Pennebaker, Fran-
cis, & Booth, 2001). For example, studies have utilized the occurrence of specific
words in texts to identify linguistic traces of aggression (Pennebaker, 2011), deceit
(Burgoon, Blair, Qin, & Nunamaker, 2003), moral judgment (Graham, Haidt, &
Nosek, 2009), positive emotions (Abe, 2011), suicidal ideation (Wiltsey Stir-
man & Pennebaker, 2001), and more.
Among the many breakthroughs in the analysis of language is the development
of computational “word embedding” models that can convert a database of texts
into a quantifiable network of words mapped along a multi-dimensional vector
space (Mikolov, Chen, Corrado, & Dean, 2013; Mikolov, Sutskever, Chen, Cor-
rado, & Dean, 2013; Mikolov, Yih, & Zweig, 2013). Individual words that often
co-occur within the main database are assigned coordinates nearby one another
in the vector space, which indicates they share more semantic similarity. For the
purposes of creating an index of threat-related words, we leveraged several pre-
trained models that utilize this word embedding method. We avoided determin-
ing our own set of words linked to the concept of threat, a process laden with
researcher bias. Instead, we located hundreds of words near “threat” across three
different pre-trained models based on a repository of Wikipedia, Twitter, and
randomized online content (Mikolov, et al., 2013). A sample of these words are
provided in Table 15.1.
Choi et al. (2020) used this index to analyze the speeches of 2016 U.S. presi-
dential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In politics, the content
and style of a politician’s rhetoric can be indicative of their underlying strategy for
engaging constituents. We hypothesized that Trump would invoke more threat
words on the campaign trail as a method of appealing to conservative voters
who have been shown historically to be more sensitive to threat ( Jost, Glaser,
Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Jost, 2017). We collected speeches from their pub-
lic appearances as nominees for their respective political parties. The results of
our comparison revealed a significant difference in the usage of threat words by
Trump. Importantly, threatening language also has distinct consequences. Choi
 Evolutionary Appeal of Populist Leaders 287

TABLE 15.1 Sample words from the threat dictionary.

Threat Caution Looming

Danger Inflicted Horrific
Turmoil Tensions Scary
Warned Attack Tragic
Precautions Problematic Nightmare
Catastrophe Anguish Damage
Trouble Chaos Toxic

et al. (2020) analyzed newspaper articles that spanned over 150 years and found
threatening language was associated with tightening. Specifically, threatening lan-
guage predicted words reflecting tightness (e.g., restrain, comply, adhere, enforce,
constrain, forbid, prohibit) over looseness (e.g., allow, freedom, flexibility, open-
ness, encourage, leeway) ( Jackson, Gelfand, De, & Fox, 2019) as well as lan-
guage reflecting greater tribalism. Applying the threat dictionary to an analysis of
200,000 tweets, Choi et al. (2020) found that tweets with threatening language
were much more contagious (i.e., more likely to be retweeted) than tweets with-
out such language. In all, with tools like the threat dictionary, we can begin to
examine when threatening language is being propagated through social media
and identify its consequences.

Implications
In this chapter, we’ve described how the rise of autocrats may be understood
through cultural dynamics that have a long history in human groups. Research
on modern nations, states, and non-industrial groups has shown that strict social
norms generally evolve as a response to collective threat. Tightness serves a func-
tion during such periods, as it makes it easier to discourage defectors and increase
coordination. Threats need not be real or chronic to cause tightening; they can
be fake or exaggerated and produce the similar effects.
Building on this research, we suggest the rise of autocrats may be due, in part,
to two interrelated processes: At the individual level, people who feel threatened
desire greater tightness and have more prejudice toward outgroups, which pre-
dicts their desire for leaders who promise to return them to a tight social order.
Yet leaders also capitalize on this psychology and use threatening language to
reinforce their appeal. To be sure, these are not the only factors that contribute
to the appeal of autocrats, as this volume attests. Yet they illustrate that one factor
underlying the rise of autocrats reflects feelings of threat and associated tightening.
This analysis suggests that the recent trends in populism are not necessar-
ily due to some particular personalities or a historical accident. These leaders
will come and go, but as long as people feel they are facing threats, they may be
288 Michele J. Gelfand and Rebecca Lorente

attracted to autocrats who satiate the need for a tight social order. Accordingly,
rather than focusing on weeding out particular personalities, to deal with the rise
of autocrats we need to address the deeper cultural roots of the desire for tight-
ness: perceptions of threat. Some of this threat is real, particularly for the working
class in many countries. As technological advances jeopardize working-class jobs,
the threat of poverty is a real fear in these communities. Indeed, the World Eco-
nomic Forum predicts that by 2020, 5 million jobs will be lost worldwide due to
Artificial Intelligence (AI), and jobs filled by the working class are at the highest
risk for discontinuation (Gray, 2016). For example, estimates suggest that over
75% of predictable physical work, such as packaging and assembly line weld-
ing, could be automated by rapidly spreading technology. On the other hand,
jobs that require managing others and making decisions—more characteristic
of upper-class jobs—are projected to be less affected by AI (Chui, Manyika, &
Miremadi, 2016). Quite clearly, globalization presents a looming threat for the
working class, whereas it manifests as an opportunity for those in the upper class.
More generally, as globalization increases, a new tight–loose axis is increasingly
dividing groups around the world, with relatively well-off loose cultures that
embrace innovation, change, and diversity on one side, and lower-class tight cul-
tures that are financially threatened and seek stability, tradition, and rules on the
other. From this perspective, it perhaps is not surprising that autocratic leaders
are attractive because they promise to dismantle the social structures that have left
them behind and return them to a familiar traditional order.
To counter these trends, policy-makers need to develop new structures that
help reduce the objective threat experienced by many working-class communities
across the world. Given that the nature of jobs is changing rapidly, the United
States and other nations need to develop employment-training mechanisms and
partnerships to help people to be prepared for new jobs. For example, Partners
for a Competitive Workforce, a tristate partnership centered in Ohio, Kentucky,
and Indiana, includes more than 150 organizations, ranging from employers and
workforce boards to education and training institutions and community groups.
Together, they identify the skills needed in sectors such as healthcare, manufac-
turing, construction, and IT, and help develop training programs to fill these
needs. The results of this partnership have been very promising. According to
a 2014 report, of the 7,800 individuals who have been trained, 80% obtained
employment, and 73% remained employed for a year. Furthermore, turnover and
recruitment costs have been reduced for more than 750 businesses (The White
House, 2014). We need to empathize with people who have been displaced due
to the rise of AI and develop formal structures that can help retrain them to cope
with these threats.
In addition to objective threat, we also need to develop mechanisms to deal
with fake or exaggerated threat. In the 21st century, many threats have actually
declined (Pinker, 2012). As for those that persist, such as cultural disruptions caused
by migration, peoples’ characterizations of them can be highly exaggerated. For
 Evolutionary Appeal of Populist Leaders 289

example, the Pew Research Center (2018) published data showing that 35% of
Americans believe most immigrants are in the country illegally, whereas in actu-
ality, 76% immigrated to the U.S. legally (B. Jones, 2019). Likewise, perceptions
that immigrants are dangerous are unfounded. A Gallup poll in 2019 reported
that 42% of people said that immigration in the United States was making
crime worse ( J. Jones, 2019). However, Landgrave and Nowrasteh (2018) found
that legal immigrants were 78% less likely to be incarcerated than native-born
­Americans. The notion that immigrants are a threat to the economy has also
been grossly exaggerated. In 2019, 25% of respondents in a Gallup poll said
that immigrants are worsening job opportunities in the U.S. ( J. Jones, 2019).
Yet research has found that immigration has had no significant effect on wages
for native-born A­ mericans (Preston, 2016) and, indeed, can be beneficial to the
U.S. economy (Frazee, 2018) and boost innovation (Pethkokoukis, 2018). The
notion that immigrants pose a symbolic threat—namely that they don’t want to
speak the language and don’t want to acculturate—are also exaggerated. Studies
show that immigrants do value learning English in the U.S. (Dowling, Ellison, &
Leal, 2012) and that the vast majority desire to integrate aspects of American
culture into their own identities (Lyons-Padilla, Gelfand, Mirahmadi, Farooq, &
Egmond, 2015).
Tackling exaggerated and unfounded threats is no doubt difficult, but research
on the factors that promote positive intergroup attitudes can be useful. When
groups exist in their own “echo-chambers,” they have little opportunity to have
their biased beliefs and extreme stereotyping challenged. The more policy-makers
and community leaders can help develop spaces for immigrant and native popula-
tions to have positive interactions—and to allow them to see their similarities (Pet-
tigrew, 1998)—the more we will be able to counteract exaggerated threats that are
tightening up communities and enabling autocrats to satiate the need for order.
Examples of such initiatives can be seen around the globe. In the Netherlands,
for example, cities and municipalities around the country organize a yearly “Week
of Dialogue.” Each day during that week, groups of residents from diverse back-
grounds are brought together in small groups to discuss specific themes, such as
identity or feeling at home, which allows them to showcase their experiences,
dreams, and to develop a sense of shared humanity (Together in the EU, 2017).
Germany also has several programs designed to celebrate cultural diversity and
create bridges between migrant and native populations. Every year, over 500
cities around the country organize an Intercultural Week with events that pro-
mote solidarity and intercultural dialogue and celebrate diversity (Together in the
EU, 2017). Finland has a similar program called HELMO (Helsinki Multicultural
Education Services), aimed at increasing dialogue and cultural understanding in
the general public, as well as in specific groups, such as social workers, day-
care workers, and new immigrants entering the workforce (Together in the EU,
2017). Likewise, the global educational network CEDAR (Communities Engag-
ing with Differences and Religion) has launched a variety of programs around the
290 Michele J. Gelfand and Rebecca Lorente

world aimed at enabling people to acknowledge and accept their differences in

order to work together on creating a civil society. CEDAR programs seek to cre-
ate a shared sense of belonging among participants, as well as to teach the skills
necessary for creating a shared life among people with disparate ideologies and
backgrounds.
Another way to help people to understand “the other” is to use the newly
developed Diary Contact Technique (DCT; Jackson, Gelfand, Ayub, & Wheeler,
2019). In the DCT, individuals read real diary entries written by either a member
of their own culture or another culture over a week or longer period. In a rand-
omized controlled study with Americans and Pakistanis, Jackson, Gelfand, Ayub
et al. (2019) found that individuals who received outgroup diaries perceived less
cultural distance between the two groups after the intervention, as compared to
the group who received ingroup diaries, who showed no change in perceived
cultural distance. Moreover, reductions in cultural distance were associated with
decreases in negative stereotyping of outgroups. The DCT could fruitfully be
used to help reduce exaggerated threats of immigrants among other contexts
where there are strong cultural divides.

Conclusion
The 21st century has witnessed the eroding of democracy and the rise of auto-
crats worldwide. In this chapter, we examined how cultural fault lines that have
defined groups throughout history are in part driving these dynamics—namely
the desire for tight cultures in contexts where there is rising threat. By helping to
reduce threat—whether real or perceived—we may be able to strengthen democ-
racies and diminish the appeal of autocrats worldwide.

Note
1. Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.
[email protected]

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PART IV

Populist Narratives and

Propaganda
16
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STUDY
OF POPULISM
Minority Influence and Leadership
Processes in the Rise and Fall of Populist
Movements

William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

Extreme views permeate civic interactions, rendering compromise and mutual

understanding difficult, if not impossible. Immovable attitudes on both sides of
contentious issues exacerbate the gulf between proponents of competing causes
and diminish chances of progress on crucial issues, presaging growing intolerance
and repression (Gibson, 2013; Goldstein, 2014; Sullivan, ­Piereson, & Marcus,
1982). Committed partisans often are unwilling to entertain opposing views.
This reality may be disastrous. Motivating extremists to moderate their posi-
tions may facilitate more openminded debate and convergence of actions that are
mutually acceptable—or at least tolerable. A key factor in the miasma of blame
and counter-blame is populism, the focus of this volume. Although noteworthy
exceptions can be cited, populism is not a prominent feature of social psycho-
logical research ( Jetten, 2019). This is surprising, as populism touches upon so
many of social psychology’s central concerns, including inter- and intragroup
relations, communication and persuasion, social identity theory, minority and
majority group influence, and extremism, among others. Instead, research on key
features of populism have been left primarily to theorists and researchers in politi-
cal science and sociology. There are many reasons for lack of social psychological
attention, but one seems to stand out—lack of a clear definition of the construct.
Judis (2016) argued that to attempt a definition is a mistake, because no overarch-
ing set of beliefs or traits adequately defines the construct. Considering the broad
historical swath in which extremely diverse “populist” groups have acted world-
wide, one is inclined to agree, but to do so removes the study of populism from
focused scientific consideration.
Despite years of useful research, no consensual definition of populism has
arisen. However, noteworthy similarities among many populist movements have
298 William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

been identified in the US over the past 200 years. We will examine some of these,
with an occasional nod to European movements that until recently have evolved
differently from those in North America. This is not to ignore the importance of
European movements, which today are clearly on the ascent (e.g., Italy’s Five Star
Movement, France’s National Front), but rather to recognize that the American
brand(s) of populism often differ in subtle and not-so-subtle ways from European
varieties, and often are more tractable. A central differentiator of populist move-
ments is that the European varieties often morph into distinct political parties.
The powerful two-party system characterizing the American electoral process
leaves little room for a populist movement to attain legislative power, without
which such movements are absorbed into the mainstream or wither. This is not to
suggest that populist movements do not shape American politics. They do, but in
indirect ways by insurgent groups and rhetorically skilled leaders influencing and
politicizing people’s existing attitudes. In the American two-party system, there is
little room for a third party take over; rather, change requires an insurgent pres-
ence molding, shaping, and altering major political parties from within.
This chapter points to the many foci of social psychological research that can
inform and be informed by close consideration of populism. Through historical
and contemporary American examples of populism, we show that key features
of successes and failures are informed by the integration of two prominent social
psychological perspectives on social influence: the leniency model of minority
group influence and social identity theory.

Common Features of Populist Groups

Relative Deprivation (RD)

We begin with a consideration of features that characterize many populist
movements and that many consider fundamental to the construct. A useful
descriptive feature of populism involves a widespread, shared sense of relative dep-
rivation (RD) among adherents (Carrillo, Corning, Dennehy, & Crosby, 2011;
Moghaddam, 2008; Pettigrew, 2002, 2015). Pettigrew (2015) argued that RD was
based on perceptions of status or identity loss, and the resultant anger in response.
The perception of absolute decline does not matter nearly as much as relative
loss (Smith & Kessler, 2004; Smith & Pettigrew, 2015), a characterization that
complements Inglehart and Norris’ (2017) thesis, which suggests that changes to
a country’s economy that “leaves out” some workers, as well as cultural backlash
toward a society’s changing demographics, provide the backbone of most populist
movements’ platforms. This is inherently tethered to RD, wherein the people
represented by the populist group feel deprived economically and/or socially
compared to other groups (e.g., immigrants, the financial 1%, etc.). Perceived
relative loss rouses anger, also a motivating factor in the life course of populist
 Minority Influence, Identity, and Populism 299

movements. Gaffney and associates (2018) expanded this view, placing RD solidly
in a social identity framework. They argued that only when anger was perceived
as widely consensual was its effect linked to rising populism, and this relation
was mediated via perceptions of RD. Growth and development of shared relative
anger are heightened by selective exposure, in which those experiencing RD are
more likely to shun counter-attitudinal messages and seek out attitude-congruent
messages, reinforcing consensual perceptions of ill-treatment (Hameleers, Bos, &
de Vreese, 2018). Widespread availability of social media facilitates the transmuta-
tion of RD from a series of isolates to an entity of individuals sharing common
concerns. Far from a simple egocentric response to ill treatment, of which there
is plenty to go around, populism requires consensus around an identified source
of discontent, reinforced by an aggrieved group whose perception of an injustice
legitimizes their dissatisfaction. This process is accelerated by social media, facili-
tating exposure to communications that bolster the commonality of grievances.

Political Orientation
Politically based differences do not provide useful discrimination of the many
populist movements that have evolved. Populist movements on both ends of the
spectrum have arisen and prospered—or died (Chermak & Gruenewald, 2015).
We are not concerned now with those that have risen to capture the mainstream
of political life, even attaining supreme authority (e.g., communism, fascism,
Nazism), as this is not the explicit case with the American brand of populism.
It should be noted, however, that the success of populist movements at running
the show (though few attain that position) has not produced much in the way of
happy endings, as was anticipated by experimental research on minority groups
that rise to positions of power (Prislin & Christensen, 2005; Prislin, Sawicki, &
Williams, 2011). Historically, US populist groups have proven most successful
when they form part of the loyal opposition.

The People, the Establishment, and the Elites

Left or right, populist movements share the common thread of RD. However, dif-
ferences do distinguish left- from right-wing populism. Judis (2016) suggests that
left-wing populists generally favor “the people” over “the establishment,” whereas
right-wing populists appear to favor “the people” over “the elites,” whom they
perceive as advantaging a group other than themselves (e.g., racial, ethnic, and
religious minorities, undocumented immigrants, the poor, or other groups to
which the budding populist does not belong). This bifurcation brings to mind
Kazin’s (1995) views on the nature of populism, which he viewed as a play that
casts some individuals into the role of the noble everyman, untouched by irrel-
evant concerns like wealth or power, and distinguishes those admirable people
300 William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

from powerful “elites” (via wealth, education, high birth), whose actions are
motivated by self-interest, not cooperation, altruism, or the public good. Kazin’s
distinction is interesting. It fits well with considerations of in-group/out-group
membership, and who in society defines representativeness and prototypicality—
major features of the social identity framework that occupies a key role in the
current analysis (Abrams & Hogg, 1999; Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971;
Tajfel & Turner, 2004; Turner, 1985; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Weth-
erell, 1987).

Insecurity and the Status Quo

It is difficult to imagine circumstances in which a populist revolution would arise
in communities in which the “livin’ is easy,” but this is not unerringly correct.
Populist sentiments arise in groups whose perceived self-interest is threatened;
RD plays an important role in perceptions of disadvantage. Even when sub-
sistence needs are met adequately, dissatisfaction with one’s lot vis-à-vis that of
unknown strangers or even one’s neighbors may be sufficient to stimulate a sense
of unfair deprivation of a lifestyle that is remembered as having been available in
the past. This mindset gives rise to dissatisfaction with the status quo and a long-
ing to return to better times, real or imagined. The sense of being left behind,
unable to ensure a life for oneself or one’s children, is at the heart of many popu-
list causes.
The Tea Party movement that arose in 2008 and gained traction in the US
in Barak Obama’s second term was a conservative-leaning group that called for
lower taxes, lower national debt, isolationist policies, rejection of universal health-
care, a balanced budget, and other economically conservative reforms to cut the
size and spending of the federal government (Przybyla, 2010). The goal of this
group was to return to a world before Obama. Ahh, nostalgia. The Tea Party was
not a coalition of a poor, disenfranchised minority. It consisted largely of older
(55% vs. 32% of poll respondents) white men (61%), who were more religious
than the general population (44% identified as “born-again Christians”), and who
identified with the Republican Party (66% voted Republican always or usually).
The movement was not of the economically downtrodden—Tea Party adherents
considered themselves middle-class or above (Przybyla, 2010). In absolute terms,
the average Tea Partier was doing fine, but not as fine as they remembered (also
see Golec de Zavala, this volume).

Roots

Know Nothings and the American Party

It would be a mistake to assume the Tea Party came into being in the Ameri-
can political system fully formed, without strong precedents. The US political
 Minority Influence, Identity, and Populism 301

landscape is strewn with the detritus of populist movements, most of which

enjoyed a few moments in the spotlight and then faded. One of the earliest
of these was the Know Nothings, a Protestant citizens’ secret group opposed to
immigration and Catholics. There is a symmetry to these targets, as at that time
(mid-1800s) the bulk of immigrants were Irish Catholics. An often-overlooked
feature of the life and death of the movement was the industrialization of the
east coast, and the dislocation this brought to the status quo ante. Modernization
seriously disrupted the usual patterns and was the source of anger and a sense of
RD, which energized many to join this movement (Mulkern, 1990). Because of
its racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination, the party’s views were not widely
accepted, and ultimately it died of its own internal contradictions. The American
Party was soundly thrashed in the election of 1860, by which time many anti-
slavery members had joined the party that elected Lincoln.
There have been many America First Parties over the years, but the first named
as such was formed in 1943. It was an isolationist, reactionary group steeped in
racism, religious bigotry, and rampant anti-Semitism. At the time of its founding,
the US was engulfed in World War II. The America Firsters’ candidates in the
presidential election of 1944 did not fare well, receiving fewer than 1800 votes of
the 47 million cast. After its name change, a common third-party response to an
electoral drubbing, the party received 42 votes in the election four years later. It
disappeared shortly thereafter. It is curious that the party’s name retains its cachet.
In Trump’s 2016 inaugural address, he invoked an isolationist mantra identical to
the earlier, discredited America First Party’s, when he intoned, “From this day
forward, it’s going to be only America first. . . . America first” (Graham, 2017).

Coughlin, the Kingfish, and Trump

Other less formal and less organized populist factions have emerged over the
years. Often, they were centered around a charismatic figure, like Father Charles
Coughlin (1871–1979), a Catholic priest who gained notoriety with his radio
sermons, which began in 1926 with his Sunday homilies, broadcast from a local
radio in station in Detroit, and grew by 1935 to address a nationwide “congrega-
tion” of more than 300 million weekly listeners (Sayer, 1987). At the height of his
popularity, his “sermons” focused almost entirely on politics, not Jesus, and his
popularity exceeded that of any public figure in the US.
Coughlin, however, had an Achilles’ heel, as Brinkley (1982, p. 83) noted: “As
the years passed, a strain of megalomania wore away his self-restraint until finally
his excesses destroyed him.” The “radio priest’s” popularity was based on his elo-
quence, cunning, charisma, ambition, and apparent defense of common peo-
ple against avaricious ( Jewish) bankers and others (e.g., rich oligarchs) in power
who, in his view, ran the society to their benefit and were responsible for the
Great Depression (Warren, 1996). His initial admiration and praise of Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s “New Deal” changed over time to virulent attacks on communism,
302 William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

Wall Street, Jews, involvement in World War II, FDR, and the New Deal itself.
His increasingly hyperbolic rants against the “international ( Jewish) conspiracy”
and communists, and not-so-subtle admiration of Hitler and Mussolini, even in
1942 with the US heavily involved in the war, proved too much for a nation at
war and the Catholic Church’s attempts to alleviate concerns about its allegiance
to the country. The priest’s access to the mass media was lifted by order of the
Catholic hierarchy, who directed the priest to stop his weekly radio broadcasts.
Further, his popular magazine, Social Justice, a second pillar of his success (and
millions of dollars in weekly contributions) was banned from the US mails for
violating the Espionage Act. Deprived of his mass media megaphones, Coughlin’s
popularity rapidly waned. He retired in 1966 and died 13 years later.
Coughlin’s story is similar to other populist leaders whose influence was based
on personal charisma and a talent for exploiting popular discontent with the
status quo. Perceptions of RD exist in all societies. Upward social comparison
and economic insecurity, exploitation of the less powerful by the more power-
ful, and anger at perceived inequities seem unavoidable. However, the rise of
populist leaders who can exploit these conditions is not a foregone conclusion,
nor is their continued influence after they die or even while they live without
their bullhorns. This suggests a distinction between two forms of populism that
seem to have evolved over time. The first, which we call leader-based populism,
is well organized and headed by a solitary, predominant spokesperson who elabo-
rates and dictates grievances that resonate with adherents. The weakness of this
form of populist group is that it is dependent upon a singular individual with a
consistent message, and when this person dies or is removed, message coherence
may be lost, and the movement founders. A real danger of this form is that the
prototypical leader tends sometimes to drift into demagoguery. The alternative
populist model is a leaderless form in which the movement springs organically
from the populace. Its likelihood of success and longevity is lower, and usually
occurs in extremis. The birth and development of the labor movement in the
US is an example of this type, when leaders emerged in response to intolerable
local conditions (the earliest organized strike occurred in 1768, when journey-
men tailors resisted a wage cut), and only later became organized into large-
scale organizations with powerful leaders (e.g., Eugene Debs, Samuel Gompers,
George Meany, Walter Reuther, John L. Lewis, Cesar Chavez, etc.) The original
leaderless unions were not prone to evolve to totalitarian leadership owing to the
nature of their inception and early development. Only later did strongman leaders
arise. This reversal process in leader-based populist groups is not common.
Contemporaneous with Fr. Coughlin was Senator Huey Long of Louisiana,
who championed the poor of his state and promised them a better life. But when
Sen. Long was assassinated in 1935, his “Share our Wealth” movement died along
with him. His program promised the poor an equitable return in payment for
their labors, and a consequent loss to the “fat cats.” He was loved by the poor
despite not making good on his promises. He was reviled by the rich for trying
 Minority Influence, Identity, and Populism 303

to do so, who claimed his “reforms” were studies of corrupt spending in service
of his grandiose ego.
The Trump phenomenon in the US provides another example of the staying
power of a movement characterized by a strong spokesperson who appears una-
menable to counter-argument or evidence, and a knack for suppressing internal
dissent. One might debate whether the Make America Great Again (MAGA)
movement has made good on its promises to drain the swamp, but for some,
delivery on the promises is less important than the promises themselves.
Nazism, too, was characterized by a powerful leader who capitalized on the
population’s widespread experience of RD, combined with consensually shared
anger triggered by an ever more desperate social and economic situation, and a
consistent message promising better times to come. This message became increas-
ingly accepted. Hitler’s combination is an almost foolproof recipe for the rise of
a populist leader, and he polished all the necessary components of the machinery
to a fine sheen. His rising popularity gave him unlimited power to penalize those
straying too far from orthodoxy, sometimes with fatal results, thus killing dissent
(along with the dissenter). No doubt the bad ending of the war, at least for Hitler,
largely undid his movement, but one can only imagine a different future had that
not been so (see Roth, 2004).
A quick if informal indicator of the rise and likely longevity of a populist
movement involves a simple question: “Who is the spokesperson for Movement
X?” For Coughlin’s movement, it was Coughlin. For MAGA, it is Trump. For the
“Share Our Wealth” movement, it was Long. But consider the Occupy Wall Street
(OWS) movement, which purported that 1% of the US population controlled
99% of the wealth of the nation. Who was its leader? The answer to this question
does not come readily to mind, probably because there was none. The movement
had many non-overlapping goals and spokespersons, but no central organizing
theme other than a strong sense of injustice, anger, and RD. Many Americans
concurred with the movement: some polls reported 40% popular agreement with
OWS’s goals, if not tactics. However, the lack of goal coherence and leadership
spelled OWS’s doom. The movement flared out in less than a year, even though
many of its ideas inform progressive policies today. Fulfilling a need for a power-
ful leader and a unifying and coherent message appear necessary requirements
for a populist movement’s longevity. This source of unique influence arises when
a sub-group of reasonable size shares growing concerns of mistreatment, and a
perceptive leader arises with an understanding of how to exploit these percep-
tions (Gardikiotis, Martin, & Hewstone, 2004) and disseminates them widely
among other like-minded individuals, who share a similar sense that their lot
in life was much better at some earlier (perhaps imagined) time. Without these
factors, strong reactions to the status quo are unlikely. This was theorized from
the earliest days of RD research. Stouffer, Suchman, Devinney, Star, and Wil-
liams (1949) held that immediately available comparisons formed the basis of
RD, and that absolute judgments were not as powerful a determinant as social
304 William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

comparisons, and who could be a better source of social comparison than one’s
earlier self. Notably absent from this list of qualities and qualifications needed
to lead a populist movement is the ability to lie with a straight face, but it often
proves a necessary talent.

A Social Psychological Analysis

As the Sydney Symposium series implies, our focus is social psychology, and so it
is reasonable to consider the relevance of the field to populism. Many answers are
presented in this volume, but our view is focused on theoretical models that have
occupied the discipline for years: they include minority influence, social identity,
and communication and persuasion. In combination, these topics offer a useful
basis for understanding populism and the processes that nurture its development,
growth, success, or failure.

Political Identities and Polarization

Who are the people so inherently good in comparison to elites, the foundation
of many populist movements? The “common” people, the “general populace,”
“the silent majority,” “ordinary people” define themselves in juxtaposition to an
immoral ruling class. Because of this collective definition of identity, an analysis of
populism should examine the construct as a product of both inter- and intragroup
relations. Gaffney and colleagues (2018, p. 20) suggested that

examining political outrage and populist sentiments from a point that starts
with considering people’s collective identities allows scholars to ground
public opinion and political decision making not in individual irrationality,
but in purposeful reasoning and action motivated by concern on behalf of
important identities.

People understand and interpret their self-concepts in part from the knowl-
edge and esteem they derive from their group memberships—their social iden-
tities (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Being a part of a “political revolution” furnishes
people with significant knowledge about the self and the political world. In 2016,
Bernie Sanders’ supporters defined themselves in opposition to the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) and mainstream Democrats. The defining features
of Bernie supporters and their shared understanding of the political sphere acted
on both their emotions (outrage) and behaviors (e.g., how they cast their votes
after Sanders lost the Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton). Because popu-
list movements are characterized by a shared sense of rage toward economic or
political elites, the belief structure of populism is rooted in intergroup relations.
Decades of research on collective action (Klandermans, 2014) suggest that when
collectives become aware of their engagement in a political struggle against a
 Minority Influence, Identity, and Populism 305

perceived oppressor, they are motivated to act together for social change, par-
ticularly if they view their subjugated position as illegitimate (Tajfel & Turner,
1979). Gaffney and colleagues (2018) held that populist movements are protest
movements engaged in what they view as collective action against their govern-
ments. In an analysis of demonstrators and protesters at the 2016 Republican and
Democratic National Conventions, they found that to the extent demonstrators
and protesters felt their anger was characteristic of all Americans, their feelings
of RD positively predicted populist sentiment. This relationship was weaker or
not apparent among people who felt that their anger was unique to their group
in American society. Those who projected their own anger onto all Americans,
and thus likely viewed themselves as part of the American majority, expressed
populist sentiments. This promotes the idea that populism is a belief structure
rooted deeply in intergroup relations—the perceived oppositional relationship of
the people to the government or ruling class. The specific collective call to action
is based on the need to tear down the government so that power rests in the
hands of the people whom the movement purports to represent. Populist groups
operate under the assumption that they understand the will of the people—and
best represent it.

A Vision for the Collective: Popular Leadership

Groups represent shared identities cognitively, through prototypes—amalgamations
of attributes and features that define what the group is and what it is not (Hogg,
2006). Borrowing directly from the language of populism, which divides peo-
ple into distinct factions: “we are the pure people”; “they are the corrupt elite”
(Mudde, 2007, p. 23). This suggests the identity that populists form through
self- and social-categorization processes (Turner et al., 1987). When group mem-
bership becomes psychologically salient (e.g., awareness that someone is a Repub-
lican Party supporter) in comparison to a relevant out-group (e.g., Democrats),
people view themselves and others with respect to the defining features of their
group prototype. Through this process of depersonalization, the group prototype
becomes the prominent source of influence, as people view themselves and oth-
ers through the lens of the prototype while actively attempting to approximate
their in-group prototype (e.g., Hogg & Turner, 1987; Turner, 1991). As a result,
group members who are prototypical, who embody group attributes and best
represent the group’s identity, wield significant influence (Hogg & Reid, 2006).
People tend to elect and support prototypical group members to leadership posi-
tions (Barreto & Hogg, 2017) who, once in leadership positions, can refine and
bolster what is group prototypical (Reicher & Hopkins, 2003). The position of
leadership itself may confer the “right to lead” (Abrams, Travaglino, Marques,
Pinto, & Levine, 2018). For example, in examining the changing nature of the
Republican party, Gaffney and colleagues (2019) showed that Republicans rated
Donald Trump as more prototypical of the Republican Party after he won the
306 William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

presidency then when he was a candidate. This effect was explained partially by
Republicans expressing greater consensus and coalescing around their views of
Trump as representative of their identity group, an indication of the changing
nature of the Republican Party prototype to the “Party of Trump.”
For our analysis, it is important to understand that although out-group mem-
bers may perceive populist leaders such as Trump as selling his followers a bill of
goods, due to his inability to complete his promised border wall, failure to destroy
Obamacare, disastrous Covid-19 response, or general impotence or unwilling-
ness to “drain the swamp,” the in-group is likely swayed by the pledge and not
the follow-through. This also could be an outsider’s perspective of Huey Long.
Recall that populist movements are inspired by the promise and not necessarily
the delivery on the promise, if the intent is pure and is enacted on behalf of the
collective. Abrams and colleagues (2013) reported that group members provide
leaders (especially prototypical leaders) with transgression credit, in which group
members often are willing to overlook a leader’s transgressions or failures, par-
ticularly if they believe the leader is acting in the group’s best interest. A leader’s
lie may be viewed as being “for us, a statement taken out of context, or simply
blown out of proportion by critics and haters.”
Notable contemporary populist movements have a clear figurehead, a visible
leader. In the United States’ example of “Trumpism,” this is clear, but on the
other side of the spectrum, progressives and Democratic Socialists have Bernie
Sanders at the helm. Geert Wilders is the face of the Netherlands’ Party for
Freedom, Marine le Pen leads France’s National Front, and Evo Morales, a for-
mer president of his country, leads the Bolivian Movement for Socialism. These
examples illustrate the importance of leadership to the success of any movement.
Both successful and memorable movements (regardless of their populist tenden-
cies) share the common feature of leadership. “Flat” movements tend to fall flat
(e.g., “Occupy Wall Street”), but when asked to picture a successful movement
such as the American Civil Rights movement, the name Martin Luther King,
Jr. immediately becomes synonymous with the movement, even though his suc-
cess was partly a function of the country’s rejection of more radical solutions
to racism’s ravages (Crano, 2012). The United Farmworkers Association recalls
Cesar Chavez, and Nazi immediately brings Hitler to mind. Father Coughlin
and Senator Huey Long were so central to their populist movements that their
organizations dissipated in their absence. Such is the case when populist move-
ments are led by strong and representative leaders. They are the face of their
movement and so connected to the movement’s identity that it often becomes
feckless in their absence (unless the leader is martyred). Because a leader embodies
the group identity and presents a literal (and visual) representation of the group
to the world, the leader clarifies the group prototype (Hogg & Reid, 2006). The
leader delineates the nature and structure of the group—for in-group and out-
group members. The leader enhances perceptions of a group’s entitativity, a term
coined by Campbell (1958), which refers to the extent to which people perceive
 Minority Influence, Identity, and Populism 307

a collection of individuals as a real or structured group. Groups range from loose

assemblages to tightly knit entitative associations that exhibit high belief similar-
ity among members, cohesiveness, and interdependence (Lickel et al., 2000). As
a result, highly entitative groups stand out, capture attention (Clark & Wegener,
2009), and have clearly defined norms and precise intergroup boundaries. The
more entitative the group, the more clearly defined is its prototype—members
know who is with them and who is not.
Insiders and outsiders alike believe highly entitative groups move as a unit and
are efficient in attaining their goals (Rydell & McConnell, 2005). They engage
perceivers in greater message processing of counter-attitudinal messages and are
more persuasive than groups of low entitativity (Clark & Wegener, 2009). Popu-
list movements, characterized by a strong leader, are attractive to the extent they
provide an unambiguous identity. The importance of a leader who clearly rep-
resents the group cannot be overemphasized. Our analysis suggests that populist
groups that are led and thus defined by a strong leader appear effective in achiev-
ing their goals. This is important to the success and health of the movement—
there would be no reason to advocate tearing down the government and placing
political control in the hands of the people if they did not believe the people
could grasp control and effectively govern themselves. Successful populist leaders
establish entitative groups and avow effective delivery of the group’s promises.
They are selling their vision, not a bill of goods.
Further highlighting the essential role of leadership as a necessity of successful
populist group formation is research on movements that lose their figureheads.
Often, these groups lose momentum because of a loss of entitativity and clarity
of the group prototype. This does not suggest that group members always act
in blind accord with their leaders, but rather that the role of group members in
enacting their leader’s vision is one of engaged followership (Reicher, Haslam, &
Smith, 2012). Loss of leadership likely signals the waning of cohesion and entita-
tivity, complicating the normative structure of the group. Members facing a loss
of leader may experience identity failure (Haslam & Reicher, 2007) and question
the very nature of the group and their membership in it, leading to the eventual
fading of the movement. The importance of a strong, persuasive, insistent, and
charismatic leader whose actions create the essential entitativity of the group can-
not be overstated. Success or failure of a populist movement is defined by such
leadership.
Prototypes and the nature of the groups they represent shift with social con-
texts. We introduced the idea that groups shape and are shaped by leadership and
are changed by new leadership (e.g., the Republican Party’s shift to the “Party of
Trump”; Gaffney, Sherburne, Hackett, Rast, & Hohman, 2019) and the loss of
leadership. More generally, the nature of intergroup contexts shapes the way peo-
ple perceive their group’s prototype. Hogg and associates (1990) showed that the
presence of an out-group polarizes group members’ attitudes away from a relevant
out-group’s position. Polarization occurred by changing the group prototype
308 William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

such that exposure to an out-group position resulted in an increase of perceived

intragroup similarity over intergroup differentiation. This is essential to our gen-
eral thesis, as we maintain that populists, particularly in the US sociopolitical con-
text, gain traction not by forming third parties but rather by changing the nature
of existing political parties from within. Populists take advantage of a polarized
political climate by driving a wedge between contending identities. This was
supported by David and Turner (1999), who showed that extreme in-group fac-
tions cannot effectively change moderate in-group members’ attitudes when the
group context forced a comparison between moderates and extreme in-group
factions. Yet, when the comparative context involved the extreme in-group fac-
tion’s position in juxtaposition to a relevant out-group’s, moderates become more
supportive of the extremist position. This allows the in-group to establish distinct
boundaries between the in-group and the relevant out-group.
An experiment by Gaffney and associates (2014) showed that these processes
may have benefitted the agenda of the Tea Party. Their research provided mod-
erate conservatives with an extreme politically and socially conservative mes-
sage, ostensibly from a Tea Party leader. When the context involved comparison
between moderates and Tea Party members, it was ineffective. However, if the
message elicited an intergroup comparison with the Democratic Party, moderate
conservatives were far more likely to embrace the Tea Party message, particularly
in a context of uncertainty. This suggests the Tea Party message was effective
because aligning with it allowed moderates to distinguish conservatives from the
real out-group—Democrats. Changes to political identity and political groups
evolve from small factions within the group, not from the outside. Insurgents,
although minorities within their groups, are effective at promoting their agenda
to the extent they can cast themselves as part of the in-group—a case study in
successful minority influence (Crano, 2012; Moscovici, 1994).

Relevance of Majority/Minority Influence

Principles to Populism
An analysis of populism that combines social identity and minority influence
concepts may pay dividends in understanding how populist groups form, develop,
or wither. Start with the proposition that populist movements generally begin
as minority groups, often as out-group minorities, which (if successful) become
insurgent in-group minorities. To address the issue of the way populist groups
gain traction, our minority influence-based analysis turns to Moscovici, one of the
20th century’s most prominent social psychologists, who was fascinated with the
question of how a minority attained its goals when it could not force the majority
to agree to its demands (Moscovici, 1976, 1980, 1985). His research established
that minorities could affect the majority in laboratory judgment tasks, but these
effects were apparent only if the group was consistent, persistent, and unanimous.
Failing any of these criteria resulted in failure. Perhaps this is why majorities deal
 Minority Influence, Identity, and Populism 309

so harshly with members who contravene group norms (Marques & Yzerbyt,
1988; Pinto, Marques, Levine, & Abrams, 2010).
Having established that inconsistencies within minority groups destroy their
capacity to influence, the question of how this occurs stimulated considerable
research, and over time many theoretical models were advanced to organize the
wealth of information that had accumulated (e.g., Crano, 1994; Crano & Seyra-
nian, 2009; Erb & Bohner, 2001; Martin & Hewstone, 2008; Mugny & Pérez,
1991). An interesting feature of this literature is that a minority’s influence on the
majority’s beliefs and actions frequently is delayed, if it occurs at all. However,
immediate persuasive effects often ensue in response to a minority’s appeal on
related attitudes associated with the focal attitude. For example, Pérez and Mugny
(1987) found women attending a high school in Spain resisted communications
arguing for relaxation of the country’s anti-abortion laws. This argument was
contrary to their Catholic faith; however, if the message was delivered by an
in-group minority (i.e., young women attending their same school), the women
became significantly more open to the idea of contraception, even though con-
traception was never mentioned in the communication—and also contrary to
Church teachings.
Alvaro and Crano (1997) established that indirect influence of this type
occurred even though participants were unaware of the cognitive proximity of
the attitude under persuasive minority argument and the related or linked atti-
tude. Their study showed that subjects’ attitudes toward “gays in the military”
and “gun control” were strongly related, but subjects indicated a lack of aware-
ness of this linkage. When a communication arguing against gays in the military
(counter-attitudinal for most subjects) was attributed to an in-group minority, no
direct influence was found. However, subjects changed in a conservative direction
on a measure of the related attitude—gun control. The study was replicated with
new subjects, switching the focal and related attitudes, with similar results. Later
research showed that if this “indirect change effect” was large, attitudes on the
focal issue also were likely to change with the passage of time (Crano & Chen,
1998; Gordijn, De Vries, & De Dreu, 2002).
These studies revealed in-group minority members were not derogated as a
result of their counter-normative positions, nor were their pleas rejected out of
hand—it was as if the majority audience listened politely to the minority’s pleas,
understood the issues raised, and disregarded them (Crano, 2017). The problem
with this accommodation is that having processed the minority’s information
with little counter-argumentation (“Why argue? The minority’s position has no
chance”) and no source derogation describe the nearly perfect conditions for atti-
tude change (Crano, Siegel, & Alvaro, 2013). The cognitive dynamics of attitude
change indicate that a strong persuasive message processed attentively with little
counter-argument or source disparagement is likely to have substantial impact
(Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty, Haugtvedt, & Smith, 1995; Petty & Wegener,
1999). To ensure a more certain outcome in minority influence contexts, we add
310 William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

the following constraints: the minority is most likely to succeed if it is in-group;

its message must not threaten the group’s entitativity, and the message must be
strong (i.e., difficult to counter-argue) and personally relevant.
The leniency contract theory was developed to systematize the forces at work in
minority influence. It postulates a quid pro quo, as do all contracts, for the kind
of treatment accorded to in-group minorities. It is understood by both parties
that in recompense for the majority’s kind treatment, it will not change its posi-
tion. However, despite the contract, the minority’s message may change related
attitudes, and if the change is sufficient, it will unbalance the cognitive structure
theorized to link the individual’s attitudes (e.g., Anderson, 1983). Assuming a
strong link between the indirect and focal attitudes, this imbalance will prove
unpleasant (Abelson et al., 1968), and most likely, one of two outcomes will
occur. If the “indirect” change is sufficient, it will pull the focal attitude into
congruity, resulting in delayed focal change. If it is small, the indirect change will
return to its original position (Crano & Chen, 1998). For a complete exposition
of the leniency contract model, see Crano and Alvaro (1998) or Crano and Sey-
ranian (2007, 2009).

Synergy of Leniency Contract With Social

Identity Theory
In concert with the social identity perspective, the change dynamics detailed
and predicted in the leniency contract have the potential to deepen understanding
of the processes of populist group formation (Crano, 2010; Crano & Seyranian,
2009). In combination, these two models provide a useful depiction of the pro-
cess of populist group development. The leniency contract stipulates that in most
conditions, successful minority influence is wielded by a deviant in-group. The
in-group nature of the minority stifles extreme negative reactions, because attack-
ing an in-group member, even if that member occupies a minority position,
endangers group entitativity. To compromise entitativity poses a threat, as the
group contributes to members’ self-identities. Research on intragroup relations is
consistent with this possibility, as most groups are reluctant to lose members, and
often do whatever’s needed to maintain members, even offering in-group devi-
ants a sympathetic hearing. Although groups tend to derogate their “black sheep,”
they also attempt to persuade them to return to the normative fold (Marques,
Abrams, & Serôdio, 2001).
An important determinant of populist success is that the group be viewed as an
integral if somewhat deviant part the majority. If the populist faction’s demands
are seriously incompatible with the status quo, it may be cast as an out-group.
Assuming in-group status, the question then becomes whether the in-group’s
appeal is presented consistently, persistently, coherently, and with no backtrack-
ing. If it fails on any count, its success is unlikely. The context in which the
minority seeks to change the majority is crucial to its success. Populist minorities
 Minority Influence, Identity, and Populism 311

seize on a polarized intergroup context, and because they represent a portion

of the group’s membership, the majority can use their message to distance and
further polarize their out-group rivals (Gaffney, Rast, Hackett, & Hogg, 2014).
A populist group can enhance the likelihood of satisfying leniency contract
requirements by developing or choosing prototypical leaders as the major spokes-
persons for the movement. The odds of populist groups’ survival are enhanced by
a strong leader solely responsible for articulating its positions. Given the require-
ment for consistency and persistence, shared leadership is risky and unlikely to
produce sought-after message unanimity. Shared leadership allows for disagree-
ment among the group’s leaders and inconsistencies among the group’s argu-
ments. Inconsistencies seriously weaken the potential to influence. The failure
of the OWS movement, which should have succeeded given its widespread
appeal in the general population, fits this description well. The movement had no
leader, and its factions were largely incommunicado. Occupy’s message became
so diluted and disjointed that potential adherents did not know precisely what
the group represented. This fits the leniency contact’s recipe for failure. Diffuse
messaging is unlikely when a prototypical leader commands the group’s pulpit.
Such leaders not only personify the movement but are considerably less likely
to advance conflicting positions—and when they do, they often are extended
the benefit of the doubt (Abrams et al., 2018). It is not that a populist group’s
ideology must be based on a single argument—many highly related arguments
may succeed without endangering message unanimity and coherence. Ideally,
however, a simple sentence or phrase should summarize the thrust of the group’s
requisites (e.g., “No New Taxes,” or “End the War”). Backsliding, too, can lead
to a loss of effect, because it might be considered a lack of commitment to “the
cause,” and a consequent dismissal from serious consideration by the majority
(Kruglanski & Mackie, 1990). All-powerful leaders can cause major problems in
other ways (e.g., Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, etc.), but in the developing days of a
populist movement, they may be indispensable, because to strong in-group mem-
bers (“true believers”), prototypical leaders enact a shared vision on behalf of all
(e.g., Hogg & Reid, 2006).
The contribution of social identity factors is not exhausted by clear specifica-
tion of the leadership role most likely to succeed. The theory also lays strong
emphasis on group entitativity, as does the minority influence model. As shown,
a minority’s message that seriously threatens the continuance of the group is likely
to demolish minority influence. In social identity terms, actions that threaten
entitativity will not be tolerated.
Another point of contact between the theoretical positions concerns the
group’s message. Whereas a social identity perspective places strong emphasis
on the persuasive primacy of the message source, minority influence concerns
complement this approach with the requirement that the message is strong and
compelling, difficult to counter-argue, and well-informed by persuasion theory
(Crano, Alvaro, & Siegel, 2019). Perhaps more than social identity’s approach, the
312 William D. Crano and Amber M. Gaffney

leniency contract model is strongly integrated with models of persuasion, which

emphasize the need for conscious attention to the rules of influence that lead to
the success or failure of a populist movement. The content of the populist group’s
message must not only be consistent, persistent, and unanimous, but to succeed
must also be informed by persuasion theory (Crano, 1994, 2012, 2017; Crano
et al., 2013).

Concluding Comments
Clearly, the social identity and minority influence literatures, despite approach-
ing the issue of populism from different angles, offer useful and complementary
models of analyses. Although their underlying assumptions are different, they are
complementary. In part, each provides insights into how and why some move-
ments succeed and others fail. Each succeeds to the extent that it is congruent
with the other. Each model informs the other, and it is difficult to imagine why
their mutual interaction would not profit both. Certainly, both approaches use
different “languages” to argue their cases, but the translation from one to the other
is neither difficult nor forced. The advantage of this integrative approach is that
although both offer important, independent paths to understanding populism, its
formation, and consequences, together they provide a better understanding than
either theory in isolation. Where one perspective forces the science to account
for and empirically study the specific social context in which a populist group
emerges, the other specifies the form of communication responsible for success-
ful persuasion. Populism is the result of a group that attempts to incite change,
and in combination, these models provide a better understanding of the complex
nature of populism.

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17
VALUE FRAMING AND SUPPORT
FOR POPULIST PROPAGANDA
Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery

The past few decades have borne witness to a rise in what scholars and pundits
refer to as populism. Political scientist Ivan Krastev has dubbed the modern era
the “Age of Populism” (Krastev, 2007), and few would disagree. Populism is not
a new phenomenon, although scholars disagree about its roots. There is also
little consensus about whether populism can be placed on a left–right political
spectrum, or whether it is a dimension that is orthogonal to left and right wings
in politics.
It is unfortunately not difficult to conjure the names of leaders in Europe and
the United States who represent populism on the far right. In Europe, Victor
Orban, Jaroslaw Kacyzynski, and Boris Johnson are frequently referred to as pop-
ulist, while in the United States that label affixes to Donald J. Trump. Although
it can be argued that far-right populism is ascendant in 2020, there are numerous
examples of leaders on the left of the political spectrum whom commentators see
as populist. Senator Bernie Sanders, probably the most progressive national figure
in American politics today, is often viewed as a populist. Similarly, Congress-
woman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is seen as a populist, and many also would affix
that label to Elizabeth Warren.
“Populist” is often cast as a pejorative adjective. To label a leader as a populist is
to conjure images of Huey Long and Adolf Hitler. However, there are examples
of populist movements that the perspective of time has cast into more positive
light. Indira Gandhi’s campaign to remove poverty in India was a populist move-
ment (Ranjan, 2018). We can also consider the circumstances of the famous Salt
March that took place in India in March and April of 1930. When the British
East India Company began to assert its rule over British provinces in India, it
imposed special taxes on Indian salt (Guha, 2019). The aim of these taxes was
to encourage salt importation, which would increase profits for the British East
320 Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery

India Company. The taxes continued for decades. In 1930, they were still in
place, and Mahatma Gandhi took aim at the salt tax in an act of nonviolent civil
disobedience. He led a 24-day march that culminated at the Arabian Sea, where
Gandhi scooped muddy water into his hands and began to dry it. He proceeded
to boil the water and produce salt in violation of the law. He instructed his fol-
lowers to do the same, and he instructed villages and common Indian people to
do so as well (Homer, 1994). The message was clear: salt, which is provided by
nature and freely available to the people, cannot be controlled by foreign elites.
In speaking about the Salt March, Gandhi emphasized the “inalienable right of
the Indian people” and the “exploitation of the masses” (Wolpert, 1999, p. 204).

Populism on the Left and Right

What unites various forms of populism? The clearest tenet of populism is not
what it supports but rather what it opposes. At its root, populism includes an
appeal to the “people” to combat the tyranny imposed by the elite (Mudde &
Kaltwasser, 2017). In the populist view, the masses have been oppressed by the
elite and the institutions built by the elite. On the progressive side of American
politics, the elite are the infamous 1% who control the wealth of the country and
the big banks that institutionalize their tyranny. On the right wing of Ameri-
can politics, big media companies are among the institutions that are alleged to
mislead and misinform the masses. The institutions of government itself are also
thought to be instruments of oppression, containing within them a “deep state”
that conspires against the common people.
Populist rhetoric often includes a moral component. As Muller (2016) views
it, populists combine anti-elitism with a conviction that they hold a morally
superior vision of what it means to be a true citizen of their nation. How to
conceptualize the moral component may differ as a function of left and right poli-
tics. For progressive populists, the moral component may be the achievement of
justice and equality for all people (Zabala, 2017), whereas the moral component
of far-right populism may be the economic and social elevation of the ingroup
(also see Crano and Gaffney; Kruglanski et al; and Marcus, this volume). Pop-
ulism of the far right adds an element to the rhetoric that is not typically found
in progressive populism. In order to arrive at the conclusion that the masses that
comprise the ingroup are being tyrannized, two additional elements are typically
offered. One is that the broad membership of the ingroup is being deprived rela-
tive to the elites. This does not need to be the case objectively, but right-wing
populism appeals to relative deprivation—either compared with other groups in
society (Marchlewska, Cichocka, Panayiotou, Castellanos, & Batayneh, 2017) or
with one’s own aspirations—i.e., compared with the wealth or status that they
had expected or deserved to achieve at this point in their lives (Pettigrew, 2017;
see also Gelfand; and Hogg & Gøetsche-Astrup; this volume). For far-right pop-
ulism, there is a threat of great magnitude that is depriving the masses of what
 Value Framing and Support for Propaganda 321

they deserve. And this, in turn, permits populist leaders on the right to blame not
only the institutions within their own group, but also to define what it means to
be a pure member of the ingroup (see also Forgas & Lantos; Krekó, this volume).
The insecurity aroused by the feelings of deprivation and injustice finds its solu-
tion in ingroup solidarity and outgroup degradation in line with social identity
theory (see also Bar-Tal & Magal, this volume). For right-wing populism, more
so than progressive populism, nativism becomes a frequent hallmark ( Jay, Batruch,
Jetten, McGarty, & Muldoon, 2019).

The Effect of Framing on Voters’ Support for Populism

We believe there is support and opposition to populism depending on whose
version of populism is at issue. In this chapter, we will focus our attention and
our data on voters in the United States and try to shed light on their support for
populism. We began with the hypothesis that liberals and conservatives are both
likely to support populism and to support populist positions. However, while
populism on the left and right share opposition to the elite and empowering the
masses, liberals (instantiated imperfectly as Democrats in the United States) and
conservatives (instantiated as Republicans) differ in the particular policies that
flow from that underlying belief. We suspect that general support for populism
will not be affected by people’s liberalism or conservatism, but will vary dramati-
cally by the way the populism is framed.
In our first study, we concentrated on two of the main issues that differ-
entiate progressive populists from right-wing populists: morality and nativism.
Morality is a component of populism for liberals and conservatives, although, as
we discussed previously, the specific form of the morality differs. Nativism, we
believe, is salient for conservative Republicans but not for progressive Democrats.
It follows that if the concept of nativism is made accessible through priming,
Republicans will be more likely to endorse populism than will Democrats or than
Republicans who have not been primed with nativism. If morality is primed,
conservatives and liberals will endorse populism because liberals and conservatives
both view moral superiority as a part of their populism. The content of the moral
arguments may be different, but morality is still central for both groups. Specifi-
cally, our hypothesis is that the frame (nativism vs. morality) will affect Republi-
cans and Democrats differently, resulting in an interaction between political party
and frame type.
Our first study included 112 United States citizens living in the United States
who were registered as Democrat or Republican. Participants were presented
with either a moral frame or a nativist frame. In the moral frame, participants
were told to think about

moral values. You might think of values related to fairness and equality, or
loyalty and authority. But really think about what it means, to you, to be
322 Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery

a moral person. Think about how notions of morality influence you and
guide your behavior.

Then they were instructed to write a few sentences exploring the thoughts posed
in the frame.
In the nativist condition, participants were told to think about

the value of putting America first. You might think of the threats posed by
non-Americans, by outsiders. You might think about how there is much
to be said for supporting the American people and making sure that they
receive the benefits and rewards of society. But really think about what it
means, to you, to put your country first. Think about how this notion of
putting America first influences you and guides your behavior.

Then they were instructed to write a few sentences exploring the thoughts posed.
After viewing one of the two frames, participants reviewed a description of
populism and were asked to rate how favorable they felt towards the concept.
They were told, “the concerns of ordinary people are disregarded by established
elite groups. It would be best if there were a way to kick out the political estab-
lishment, the entrenched elite groups who override the will of the people.”
Participants were presented with three populism items in random order. On
5-point Likert-type scales (1 = definitely not, 5 = definitely yes), participants
indicated how favorable they were to populism and populists and were also asked
if populism is good for the country. The three items were averaged into a single
measure, for which Cronbach’s alpha was .89.

Data: Republicans, Democrats, and Framing

The data showed that Republicans and Democrats were moderately favorable
towards populists and populism, with a mean of 2.83. Moreover, Republicans
and Democrats showed no difference in their support of populism. Mean ratings
by Republicans was 2.80 while Democrats were non-significantly higher at 2.85.
As predicted, framing made an important difference in feelings about pop-
ulism. Figure 17.1 shows the data for Republicans and Democrats who were
primed to think about morality or primed to think about nativism. The effect
was primarily due to Democrats. When Democrats were asked to think about
moral issues, their support for populism and populists was high (mean = 3.17),
but when they thought about nativism, their support for populism fell to a mean
of 2.27. This difference was highly significant. Republicans were not affected
by the framing of populism. Most likely because some version of morality and
nativism are already baked into their conception of populism, support for pop-
ulism remained steady. The interaction between party affiliation and framing was
significant.
 Value Framing and Support for Propaganda 323

FIGURE 17.1 
Attitudes towards populism by political affiliation and frame type.
A two-way between-subjects ANOVA for the interaction of frame type
(moral vs. nativist) by political affiliation (Democrat vs. Republican) was
significant at p = .007. For Democrats, there was a significant difference
in attitudes towards populism by frame type ( p < .001), but for Repub-
licans there was no observed difference ( p = .68).

The Effect of Framing on Democrats’ Support for

Populist Policies
Our second study sought to understand the way framing affects support for spe-
cific populist positions. Populist leaders such as those mentioned earlier—Boris
Johnson, Donald J. Trump, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—do not
merely present as populists for the sake of the populist label. Rather, the label is
valuable to the extent that it permits the passage of populist agenda items. Thus,
in the remaining studies discussed in this chapter, we expand the use of frames so
that they are applied not just to populism in general but to specific positions that
fall within populist platforms.
We proceeded in a stepwise fashion. First, considering only Democrats, we
explored whether we could replicate the effects found above with specific popu-
list positions. Within American populism, there is distrust of big media compa-
nies, which are alleged to mislead and misinform the masses. In addition, there is
distrust of immigration, as it is alleged to benefit wealthy elites at the expense of
the middle classes. To evaluate support for positions attendant to these beliefs, we
324 Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery

asked participants to what extent (0–100 scale) they agreed with the following:
“the elitist Press should be held accountable”; “restrictions on immigration into
the United States should be increased.” As before, the primary manipulation was
that, prior to viewing the two dependent variables, participants were presented
with either a moral frame or a nativist frame.
Our population included 100 United States citizens living in the United States
who were registered as Democrats.

Data: Democrats, Framing, and Specific Populist Positions

As predicted, the data showed that framing made a difference in Democrats’ feel-
ings about populist positions. When Democrats were asked to think about their
moral values, their support for the two populist positions was about 15 points
higher (on a 100-point scale) than when they were asked to think about nativism
(Figure 17.2). It was intriguing that this effect was found for both policy posi-
tions: whether it was restricting immigration or opposing the influence of the
media, Democrats’ primed to think about nativism showed diminished support
for the position.

The Effect of Framing on Democrats and Republicans’

Support for Populist Policies
We have just seen that framing populist positions as nativist diminishes liberals’
support for them, while emphasizing morality appears to increase their support.
This is only part of the picture: how about conservatives? Given the results of our
first study, we might assume that conservatives have already built their concep-
tions of morality and nativism into their endorsement of populist positions, and
thus, in contrast to liberals, would be immune from the effects of framing. In our
third study, we explore this assertion.
As before, the primary manipulation was that participants were presented with
either a moral frame or a nativist frame. After viewing the frame, they were pre-
sented with one of the populist policy positions—either an expression of opposi-
tion to immigration or to big media and the “elitist press”—and asked to what
extent they agreed with the position (1–5 scale, where greater indicated more
agreement). We hypothesized that framing populist positions as nativist would
diminish liberals’ support for them and that this effect would not be evident for
the conservatives.
Our population included a new population of Democrats and also a popu-
lation of Republicans. In total, the study included 248 participants who were
registered as Democrat or Republican and were United States citizens living in
the United States.
 Value Framing and Support for Propaganda 325

FIGURE 17.2 Democrats’ attitudes towards populist positions by frame type. For both
the anti-immigration ( p = .005) and anti-big media ( p = .03) items,
framing the populist positions as nativist diminished liberals’ (Demo-
crats’) enthusiasm for them but emphasizing morality increased it.
326 Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery

Data: Democrats and Republicans, Framing,

and Specific Populist Positions
As predicted, framing made a difference in feelings about populist policies—and
that difference was distinct across Democrats and Republicans. Figure 17.3 shows
the data for Republicans and Democrats who were primed to think about moral-
ity or primed to think about nativism prior to giving their opinion about one
of two populist policy positions. As in our first study, the effect was driven by
Democrats’ responses to the frames. When Democrats were asked to think about
moral issues, their support for the populist positions was not significantly different
from Republicans’ support for the positions, regardless of which frame (moral vs.
nativist) Republicans had seen. But, when Democrats were asked to think about
nativism, their support for the populist positions significantly eroded.

Implications for Past and Future

Populist Leaders and Supporters
Past research, especially in psychology, has primarily focused on populism as a
construct: what it is (Marchlewska et al., 2017; Sakki & Pettersson, 2015) and
what conditions lead to it ( Jay et al., 2019). In this chapter, we have taken a
slightly different approach. Rather than prod at the definition, we let it exist in
its ambiguity, and we explored how different frames impact attitudes towards it.
Our primary finding was that framing populism as nativist diminishes liberals’
enthusiasm for it. On the other hand, framing populism as a moral issue increases
liberals’ enthusiasm for it. For conservatives, frame type seemed not to matter:
whether thought of in moral or nativist terms, conservative enthusiasm for pop-
ulism remained relatively constant.
Moreover, we found that this effect extended to specific populist positions,
including opposition to immigration and opposition to the influence of big media.
For both positions, conservative support was about equal across the moral and
nativist frames. This support was also equal to liberals’ support for the positions—
but only when the liberals had viewed the moral frame. When the frame was
nativist, liberal support for the populist positions plummeted.
How can this be explained? The most likely explanation is that conservatives
must have already built morality and nativism into their endorsement of pop-
ulism. In other words, their conceptions of populism subsume both moral and
nativist dimensions, and thus the effects of such frames are attenuated. For liberals,
while their conception of populism clearly includes a moral dimension, the nativ-
ist dimension is lacking. Thus, introducing such a dimension erodes support both
for populism in general and populist policies in particular.
There are at least two important implications of this account. First, it suggests
a fundamental difference in the substance and tenor of different populist move-
ments. Those that originate on the right might be as morally motivated as those
FIGURE 17.3 Democrats’ attitudes towards populist positions by frame type. For both
the anti-immigration and anti-big media positions, framing the popu-
list positions as nativist diminished liberals’ (Democrats’) enthusiasm for
them. Frame type had no effect on conservatives’ (Republicans’) enthu-
siasm for the items. When Democrats were primed to think of nativism,
they showed significantly less support for the populist positions as com-
pared with Democrats primed to think of morality (for both the anti-
immigration and anti-big media items, p-values < .02) and as compared
with Republicans in either condition (nativism, both p-values < .007;
morality, both p-values < .002). There were no observed differences for
Republicans across the two frame types.
328 Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery

that originate on the left, but they also are much more nativist. Given the substan-
tial research linking nativism with harmful behaviors and beliefs, including racism
(Betz, 2019; Smith, 2016), this is a troubling aspect of the far-right iteration of
populism. We might ask if this aspect is evident in public actors associated with
the respective iterations of populisms.
Populists on the left of the U.S. political spectrum have emphasized moral
values in their rhetoric (Smarsh, 2018). Ocasio-Cortez, in particular, has argued
that morality may matter more than facts (Curtis, 2019). In contrast, consider the
far-right populist leaders whom we identified: Victor Orban, Jaroslaw Kacyzyn-
ski, Boris Johnson, Donald J. Trump. None of these leaders has asserted strong
claims to morality. Some have even prided themselves on how forgiving their
constituents would be of their moral failings: as Trump infamously said, “I could
stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any
voters” (Aratani, 2019).
The data tell us that populists’ crusades to upend institutions and political elites
are at their strongest when they emphasize the morality of their crusades (see also
Krekó, this volume). We found people on both sides of the spectrum that sup-
ported populism and populist positions. However, when populism was framed in
nativist terms, it caused liberals to disengage. The suggestion for populists on both
sides of the spectrum is to emphasize their moral rectitude rather than encourage
ingroup social identity. The latter, which finds its political instantiation in anti-
immigrant policies, turns off liberals without increasing support by conservatives.
What does this tell us about populist politicians who have risen to power? If we
were to consider political strategy on its own, it would make sense for both right
and left populists to emphasize their moral authority while downplaying their
nativist leanings. This would yield support from both sides of the political spec-
trum. However, populists like Trump and Orban do not shy away from nativist
rhetoric, and thus we must wonder at the conditions that allow them to reach
power. First, our results suggest that Trump and Orban’s brand of far-right pop-
ulism would lead to extreme polarization, as liberals would abandon their support
for such a populist. It is revealing that in the United States, deepening partisanship
has been a hallmark of the Trump presidency.
Second, our results suggest that, for a populist who espouses nativism to rise to
power, a majority of voters must be conservative, as it is clear that such a politi-
cian will not receive support from liberals (see also results in Forgas & Lantos, this
volume). Barring the existence of such a conservative majority, the only other
way such a politician could reach power is by weakening democratic processes, as
in the case of Orban (Gehrke, 2020), or by some electoral oddity that overrides
the popular vote, as in the case of Trump (Begley, 2016).
We said that there are at least two important implications of our account of
populism. The first is this fundamental difference in the substance and tenor of
different populist movements and what that means about the conditions enabling
the leaders who arise from the respective movements. The second implication is
an ironic one. Both of the populist policies that we presented to our participants
 Value Framing and Support for Propaganda 329

were arguably more reflective of far-right populist platforms: opposing immigra-

tion and opposing undue influence by big media. Yet, when framed in moral
terms, liberal support for these policies was as robust as conservative support. This
makes us wonder at the susceptibility of liberals to populist positions that they
may not support in principle but will support if primed with moral values. In
other words, unless there is a repulsive element, such as nativism, liberal populists
might align themselves with conservative populists.

Other Potentially Impactful Frames and Factors

This final point brings us to consider the frames that we did not evaluate. While
nativism often is deemed part of the content of far-right populism (Mudde & Kalt-
wasser, 2017), there are other correlates for far-left populism, most notably social-
ism. In future work, it would be interesting to determine whether a socialist frame
would erode conservative support for populism and populist policies. If so, we
would have a sense of the precise lines of which populist leaders must be aware in
making their arguments. Does the socialist label render Bernie Sanders unelectable
on a national scale? Perhaps, especially given that far-left populists are unlikely to
pursue the strategies that benefitted far-right populists like Orban and Trump.
In addition, future work might explore different approximations of where peo-
ple fall on the political spectrum. As discussed in the introduction to this chapter,
we used Democrats and Republicans, although we did so with the understanding
that such associations are merely approximations of liberalism and conservativism.
Relatedly, we know that there are many individuals who fall between the political
poles and are neither liberal nor conservative. For such individuals, what effect
would our frames have, if any? This is a question worthy of empirical exploration.

Populism Says No—Or Does It?

Populism, like nihilism, is often defined in terms of what it stands against. In
particular, the negation it entails is a negation of the elite (Mudde & Kaltwasser,
2017; Muller, 2016). Who the elites are is often in dispute (the wealthiest 1%,
Ivy League intellectuals, big media, the “deep state,” globalists), but what is not in
dispute is that populism seeks to overcome the undue influence exerted by them.
Our results suggest a nuance that distinguishes progressive from far-right pop-
ulism. When the “anti” stance is highlighted, populism may become distasteful
to those who would otherwise endorse it. That is, nativism, like populism, takes
an oppositional stance: it pits perceived natives against perceived non-natives and
argues that the former should be prioritized. Our other frame, which focused on
moral values, was not oppositional. Rather, it prompted participants to consider
the positive values and beliefs that matter to them. The fact that the nativist frame
resulted in erosion of populist support by liberals suggests something about the
nature of liberal populism. In particular, there may be limits on the extent to
which liberals are willing to endorse an “anti” stance.
330 Joel Cooper and Joseph Avery

Liberal populists may not want to make the oppositional nature of populism
explicit. The notions of liberalness and progressiveness are associated with an
expansion of thought, belief, and behavior. In particular, they are concerned with
inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness. From this vantage, it is more palatable to
think of populism in “pro” rather than “anti” terms. Populism is not against the
elites; it is for the people. Populism is not against foreigners; it is for the average
citizen. Thus, when presented with the nativist frame, it is likely that our liberal
participants felt an aversion to the oppositional nature of nativism, and this spread
to their attitudes towards populism. On the right, interestingly enough, there
appears not to be this aversion to oppositional stances.

Conclusion
We believe that populism, given its relatively nebulous content, is sensitive to the
context in which it is presented. This context does not necessarily affect all indi-
viduals in the same ways. We have identified key differences in the effect of frames
across the political spectrum. When framed as a moral issue, populism receives
considerable support from both liberal and conservative Americans. However,
when framed as a nativist issue, populism loses support from liberals, but con-
servatives appear immune to any such impact. Importantly, these effects are not
limited to attitudes regarding populism, but rather extend to attitudes regarding
specific policy positions that fall within populist platforms. Curbing immigration
and opposing big media are policies that have appeal when framed as moral issues.
However, Democrats’ support for such policies is eroded when the policies are
attached to a nativist doctrine. Some of this effect might be due to fundamental
differences between liberal and conservative worldviews. Liberals, in embracing
new ideas and emphasizing inclusiveness, may feel a natural aversion to nativism’s
oppositional stance and the extent to which it highlights a similar oppositional
stance within populism.
We conclude by wondering what comes next for populism and populist
supporters. Far-right populism has proven more successful in attaining power,
especially elected offices, and we wonder if this suggests potential limits to how
successful far-left populists can be. If so, then political success on the left might
entail finding a way to appease far left populists without becoming truly populist.
We are reminded of Barack Obama’s repeated quoting of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
who appealed to “the arc of the moral universe” and expressed a belief that, in the
end, morality would be the law by which outcomes were swayed.

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18
RAPID SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE
EMERGENCE OF POPULISM
Robin R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell

Rapid Social Change and the Emergence of Populism

Populist movements are said to arise when “ordinary” people feel that the elites in
a society derive the majority of economic benefits from the status quo, suppress
dissent, and hold values that violate conventional ways of thinking and behav-
ing. Accordingly, one would expect populism to arise on a frequent basis in
response to factors such as income inequality and restrictions on personal free-
dom. Populism, however, is neither frequent nor widespread (Kaltwasser, Taggart,
Espejo, & Ostiguy, 2017), and it has a tenuous relationship to wealth gaps, social
stratification, and political suppression (e.g., Wood, Daley, & Chivers, 2018).
To understand populism, it is necessary to go beyond ready-made principles of
self-interest and social comparison. We argue that populism is a manifestation of
basic dynamic processes that characterize the topical landscape of social psychol-
ogy, from intrapersonal phenomena to interpersonal and inter-group relations
(Boker & Wenger, 2007; Kenrick, Li, & Butner, 2003; Guastello, Koopmans, &
Pincus, 2009; Vallacher, Read, & Nowak, 2002). This perspective suggests when
populist movements are likely to arise and how their adverse consequences can
be minimized through effective political messaging and governmental policies.
We begin by noting the factors that are commonly seen as triggers of populist
sentiment. We point out the tenuous connection between these triggers and the
occurrence of populist movements. We then reframe the emergence of pop-
ulism in terms of basic principles of nonlinear dynamical systems (e.g., Holland,
1995; Strogatz, 1994; Waldrop, 1992), with emphasis on the dynamics responsible
for both stability and change in patterns of thought and behavior. Against this
backdrop, we discuss how and why populism is increasingly ascendant today in
several nations. With this reframing in hand, we depict two scenarios for societal
 Rapid Social Change and Populism 333

well-being as the 21st century unfolds. The first is pessimistic, suggesting that
adverse manifestations of populism will become increasingly frequent. But we
conclude with the second scenario, which is decidedly more optimistic about
social life in the years and decades to come.

The Obvious Suspects

From a simple hedonic perspective, populism would seem to be a natural and
inevitable consequence of people’s feeling that they have been unfairly treated,
disrespected, or exploited (see also Cooper and Avery; Hogg & Gøtzsche-Astrup,
this volume). However, if there were nothing more to it, populist uprisings would
be commonplace, traceable to several conditions that routinely characterize social
systems. Below we note the most obvious such conditions and consider their
relevance to the emergence of populism.

Income Inequality
People’s personal satisfaction is based in part on how they are faring in compari-
son with others (Festinger, 1954; Suls, Collins, &Wheeler, 2020). A person might
be financially secure, for example, but nonetheless feel discontent if he or she feels
that others are doing even better. There has never been a time when the resources
and outcomes in a society were equally distributed among its members. Yet,
revolt against the system responsible for inequality is a rare occurrence historically.
Indeed, cultures in which inequality is the most extreme (e.g., monarchies, caste
systems) tend to exist for long periods of time without manifest discontent among
those on the losing end of inequality.
But people can live with inequality—in fact, they can prefer it—as long as
the disparity in resources and outcomes conforms to a norm of equity (Adams,
1965; Lerner, 1980; Walster, Berscheid, & Walster, 1973). By this standard, peo-
ple accept inequality if they feel those at the top deserve their economic status.
This idea is at the heart of system justification theory ( Jost, Banaji, & Nosek,
2004). Research has shown that even the most disadvantaged members of society
tend to justify inequality, accepting their lot in life without rancor or jealousy
( Jost, Pelham, Brett, & Carvallo, 2002). Indeed, people of lower socio-economic
status have little hesitation in showing admiration for those who are astronomi-
cally wealthy, including movie stars, professional athletes, and members of royal
families.
It is hard to see how people can justify economic disparity in terms of the
usual inputs to the equity formulation, such as effort, skill, and contribution
to society. True, a professional football player who is paid $9 million is more
talented at this game, and perhaps far more athletic generally, than is a factory
worker who makes $60,000, but is the former really worth 150 times more than
the latter? And does playing football contribute to society 150 times more than
334 Robin R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell

manufacturing products that are essential to everyday life? Yet, far from disparag-
ing such seemingly undeserved inequality, people look up to others who are far
wealthier, and they do not mount movements to reduce the inequality. It’s note-
worthy that the proponents of populism, if not the inspirational leaders, are often
extremely wealthy and do not downplay this fact but rather emphasize it as a sign
of their personal strength and worthiness.

Unequal Influence and Voice

Subjective well-being is higher in countries with democratic institutions, where
citizens experience autonomy and personal freedom (Diener, Suh, Lucas, &
Smith, 1999; Fischer & Boer, 2011; Inglehart, Foa, Peterson, & Welzel, 2008).
Even when resources and outcomes are not distributed in an equitable manner,
individuals can accommodate to this disparity if they feel they had “voice” in
determining how the distribution was determined (Thibaut & Walker, 1975).
A lack of personal freedom and voice may undermine people’s subjective well-
being, but even if widespread in a society, these conditions do not inevitably
promote the rise of populist movements. Oligarchies, monarchies, and authori-
tarian regimes have been the rule throughout human history, with democratic
institutions such as voting and free speech the exception. And in today’s world,
the rise of populism is most pronounced in the United States and certain Euro-
pean countries—nations with traditions of voting rights, free press, free speech,
and freedom of choice in everyday life (but see Forgas & Lantos; and Krekó, this
volume, for some exceptions).

Immoral Values and Lifestyles

People who are deemed immoral by virtue of violating societal norms and sacred
values are judged harshly and are often subject to discriminatory action. In many if
not most cultures, for example, there is discrimination toward homosexuals, drug
users, and people who hold non-mainstream religious views. However, every
society throughout history has been characterized by some degree of diversity
with respect to sacred values and lifestyles (Shweder, 1991), but the prejudicial
attitudes and hostile actions associated with such diversity are typically confined
to the offending parties and do not propel people to revolt against government
leaders and other elites in society.

The Obvious Suspects in Perspective

Populism is clearly rooted in anger and discontent, and one should not dis-
miss the potential sources of anger noted above as triggers for populist senti-
ment and movements (see also Marcus, this volume). Once populism is manifest,
moreover, the rallying cries commonly revolve around inequality in wealth, lack
 Rapid Social Change and Populism 335

of democratic participation, and concerns about fundamental values and life-

styles. But by themselves, these factors do not light the spark. To understand
when and why anger and discontent bubble to the surface and generate populist
movements, we consider the issue in terms of basic dynamical processes that have
proven useful in capturing the essence of other domains of human experience.

Dynamics and the Emergence of Societal Structure

In the dynamical perspective, a domain of psychological functioning is viewed as
a complex system in which the system’s basic elements influence each other over
time to promote higher-order coherence in the system. Such influence is pos-
sible because of the interpretative elasticity of lower-level elements that allows them
to take on different meanings and values. Because a higher-order state results
from the iterative interaction of the system’s lower-level elements, the process is
referred to as self-organization. A system’s intrinsic dynamics also promote changes
in a system’s higher-order property. An external force can promote change as
well, but it does so through its interaction with the intrinsic dynamics of the
person or group.

Society as a Dynamical System

It is easy to conceptualize a social system in dynamical terms. The elements are
individuals who are connected to each other, whether through face-to-face con-
tact (the primary mode throughout human history) or electronic communication
(increasingly prevalent in the modern era). Through these connections, individu-
als adjust their mental state—which may be at odds initially—to converge on
common thoughts, feelings, and action tendencies. This promotes the emergence
of a shared reality in the form of social roles, norms, values, public opinion, con-
spiracy theories, fads, and entertainment preferences. This dynamic tendency is
manifest in such well-documented social processes as conformity, groupthink,
group polarization, emotional contagion, and deindividuation (Nowak, Val-
lacher, Rychwalska, Praszkier, & Zochowski, 2020a; see also Hogg & Gøtzsche-
Astrup; Krekó, this volume). Because these processes occur organically without
the top-down direction of an outside agent (e.g., a leader), they capture the
essence of self-organization dynamics.
In large social systems, however, convergence on a single shared reality is dif-
ficult to attain because complete connection among all members is unlikely. Even
with social media, which greatly expands the number of potential connections a
person can develop, people tend to share their opinions and preferences with a
relatively small proportion of possible contacts. So, despite the press for consensus
and conformity in social interaction, societies develop clusters of interconnected
people who converge on shared attitudes and norms, with the potential for con-
flicting shared realities in different clusters.
336 Robin R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell

Computer simulations of dynamic social impact theory (Nowak, Szamrej, &

Latané, 1990) have demonstrated the tendency for such clusters to form, even
when there is an event or new information that influences most people to
embrace a new way of thinking and behaving.
Being connected to others in a cluster enables people to defend against infor-
mation and social influence that threaten their attitudes and values. Although the
majority of society members adopt the new, the old will survive because of the
mutual influence among like-minded others in a cluster that provides local coher-
ence. So rather than abandoning the old and adopting the new when confronted
with threatening events and information, people with social support can actively
discount the threat (e.g., “fake news”), get support from like-minded others with
whom they are already connected, or seek out other sources of information and
opinions that support their existing beliefs, values, and actions (e.g., social media,
websites, news outlets).
The clustering of norms, attitudes, traditions, and the like creates a potential
for a reversal of the majority attitude (see also Crano & Gaffney, this volume).
The new that gained traction in society may prove disappointing, for example,
enabling the old to mount a counterattack and regain its prior majority status
(Nowak & Vallacher, 2019). Just such oscillation between majority and minority
attitudes and support for government policies characterized the social transition
in Eastern Europe with the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early
1990s (see also Forgas & Lantos; and Krekó, this volume).

Rapid Social Change

Throughout human history, there have been long stretches in which things
remained static. Even conditions that would seem to generate resentment and
hostility toward the elites do not generate grassroots political movements to
redress these grievances if these conditions are relatively stable over long periods
of time. Under the extreme inequality and autocratic rule that characterized the
Dark Ages in Europe between the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning
of the Italian Renaissance (approximately 500 to 1500 AD), for example, there is
little evidence that the masses rose up against the elites (e.g., lords) who exploited
them (Ker, 1904). When inequality represents a long-standing societal context, it
may not be pleasant for those on the losing end of these conditions, but it does
provide coherence and stability in their lives. Coherence in effect trumps self-
interest (see also Gelfand & Lorente, this volume).
This does not mean that the evolution of a society’s norms, values, and life-
styles is a one- way street, with the emergence of a shared reality rendering it
immune to further change. Even the most stable societies undergo change, in part
due to the dynamics of social relations that promote continual adjustments in alli-
ances and social networks, and in part due to external forces (e.g., world events,
the introduction of new technologies and lifestyles) that trigger adjustments in
 Rapid Social Change and Populism 337

societal norms and institutions. Many changes are accommodated without desta-
bilizing the society’s fundamental norms, values, and customs. The introduction
of a new cuisine from a different part of the world, for example, is easily incorpo-
rated into people’s lives without threatening the society’s assumptions about food
consumption or dietary habits. The introduction of automobiles and telephones
in the early 20th century represented substantial changes to everyone’s lifestyle,
but their incorporation into everyday life evolved over several decades without
undermining societal norms and values.
The coherence of a social system can be threatened, however, if the system is
overwhelmed by a rapid introduction of beliefs and lifestyles that conflict with
long-standing patterns that provide equilibrium for the system. The rapidity of
such influences does not allow the system sufficient time to counter the influx,
so that they enter the system unimpeded as an alternative social reality. The coro-
navirus (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020 clearly had this effect, with virtually
every segment of society worldwide experiencing an overnight disruption to
most aspects of their everyday life. Fear of becoming infected and of infecting
others closed down businesses, restricted much of shopping to online exercises,
transitioned education from physical classrooms to virtual online classrooms, and
brought sporting events and concerts to a halt. And social distancing kept people
from interacting with one another, disrupting what is arguably the most basic
feature of social life.
Support for the destabilizing effect of rapid changes to a system is provided
by computer simulations of self-structure dynamics (Nowak, Vallacher, Tesser, &
Borkowski, 2000). Using a cellular automata model of self-structure that paral-
leled an earlier model of societal structure (Nowak et al., 1990), Nowak et al.
(2000) investigated the fate of a cluster of evaluatively consistent self-relevant
information when confronted with inconsistent information introduced at differ-
ent rates. As long as the contradictory elements were spaced in time, even a high
volume of such information was unable to destabilize the existing cluster because
the information was effectively nullified by the combined influence of the ele-
ments in the cluster. When the same volume of information was introduced rap-
idly (e.g., all at once), however, the existing cluster was overwhelmed because it
did not have sufficient time to reintegrate between the arrivals of each element of
information. As a result, the domain of self-structure changed (e.g., from positive
to negative self-evaluation) to accommodate the new self-relevant information.
The accommodation of rapidly presented contradictory information was
weaker, however, when there were strong connections among all the elements
in the existing cluster. Extrapolating to societal structure, this suggests that clus-
ters of minority opinion can withstand the onslaught of the majority opinion if
individuals in the cluster provide consistent and strong support for one another
and look for outside support to aid in the defense of their stance. Research on
minority influence provides evidence that people who hold views that are out
of the mainstream can withstand the influence of the majority view if they are
338 Robin R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell

highly consistent in expressing their views and are effective in marshalling support
for them (Crano, 2012; Moscovici, Lage, & Naffrechoux, 1969; see also Crano &
Gaffney, this volume).

The Dynamic Foundations of Populism

All societies have conditions that are conducive to the emergence of populist
sentiments, but such sentiments often lay dormant, without overt expression
in uprisings or political movements. The foregoing account offers insight into
when and why latent populism becomes overtly expressed in uprisings or politi-
cal movements. Below we make explicit the ingredients for the emergence of
populism suggested by this account. To these ingredients we add the role of
demagogues, individuals who follow a standard script in channeling the anger and
discontent that fuels populism.

Resistance to Rapid Social Change

Examples of rapid social change are not hard to find in the modern world. Atti-
tudes towards homosexual relations that had persisted unchanged for decades,
for example, have shifted dramatically in recent years, with support for same-
sex marriage nearly doubling from 1997 (35%) to 2017 (64%) (Gallup poll,
3–7 May 2017). A similarly dramatic shift has occurred regarding acceptance of
inter-racial marriage, from only 4% in 1958 to 87% by 2013 (Gallup poll, 23–25
July 2013). Focusing on these shifts gives the impression that American society
has undergone a dramatic change, with intolerance on these fronts becoming
historical relics. In the midst of rapid change, however, a society is characterized
by dual realities corresponding to the new and the old, so that focusing on only
the central tendency (e.g., mean) of a the society’s attitude provides a misleading
account of how the society is responding to the new (Nowak & Vallacher, 2019).
Not surprisingly, those who resist the new are likely to feel that it is inconsist-
ent with their prevailing perspective. But many such people succumb nonetheless
to the new, following the example and influence of those who favor the change.
To resist change, two other factors have been shown to be critical (Nowak et al.,
1990). First, those who resist the change tend to be stronger in relevant respects
than those who cannot. Strength can reflect expertise and knowledge, for exam-
ple, that enable one to see the downsides of the new. When the change concerns
basic values and lifestyles, strength is more likely to represent the confidence and
commitment with which the old is held. Someone strongly wedded to traditional
marriage, for example, is likely to resist the legalization of same-sex marriage.
The second critical resistance factor is the tendency for clusters of like-minded
individuals to form. Clustering occurs over time because of the connections
among individuals that develop in social systems, whether in a small group, an
organization, or a society. People who are connected to one another have the
 Rapid Social Change and Populism 339

same perspective at the outset, or they may influence one another to adopt a
common perspective. In this process, the stronger individuals play an asymmetric
role, influencing weaker individuals to adopt their perspective. Once a cluster is
formed (anchored by strong individuals), it can resist the new, even if this means
becoming a minority, because of the social support that individuals provide for
one another.
Resistance to rapid social change is a commonality to populist movements. In
the United States, for example, the recent surge of populist sentiment reflects a
backlash against demographic and cultural changes that are felt to undermine tra-
ditional foundations of American life. When people rally around “make Ameri-
can great again,” for example, they are in effect reacting to the acceptance of
same-sex marriage, inter-racial relations, and immigration. These changes have
occurred within a narrow time frame, historically speaking, and thus represent a
threat to those who wish to maintain (and protect) what they perceive as basic to
American heritage and values.

Threats to Social Identity

But why are some people more resistant to rapid social change than others? What
characteristics define the clusters that actively resist the cultural and demographic
changes in contemporary society? Evidence suggests there are two primary fac-
tors at play, both of which reflect threats to people’s social identity (e.g., Hogg &
Abrams, 1988; see also Hogg & Gøtzsche-Astrup, this volume).
The first factor reflects geography and demography. Support for populist
thinking in the United States, for example, is most prevalent in rural regions,
especially those in Southern and Midwestern states. Such regions are charac-
terized by relative homogeneity with respect to several factors that are central
to social identity, including race, religion, traditional family structure, language,
political orientation—and cuisine preference, for that matter. The homogene-
ity regarding these criteria in rural America stands in contrast to the diversity of
lifestyle and values in urban regions, especially those along the east and west coast
that are exposed to people from countries overseas. In large metropolitan areas,
there is a high concentration of people of different races, ethnicities, and cultural
backgrounds living in close proximity and speaking several different languages.
And people in urban areas interact with one another in work and in informal
settings, and they rely on common resources—from grocery stores to police and
fire departments—in their daily lives.
Because people in rural regions are relatively homogeneous in their values,
customs, and lifestyles, their social identities are correspondingly narrow and spe-
cific. This specificity provides clear criteria for recognizing differences between
themselves and those who represent different backgrounds. So, when they are
exposed to a new idea or lifestyle, particularly if this potential change occurs
rapidly, they are acutely sensitive to the threat it poses. People in urban regions
340 Robin R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell

have more flexible and less specific social identities, so the same social change is
less likely to be seen as a challenge to how they define themselves. This is not to
suggest that urban residents are immune to in-group versus out-group biases (e.g.,
Brewer, 1979), but rather that the in-group of urban residents tends to be more
inclusive than that of rural residents.
Immigration provides a particularly salient example of this divide. Immigra-
tion is nothing new historically, but it has usually taken place over relatively long
periods of time (Manning, 2013). In recent years, however, the rate of immigra-
tion has accelerated due to famine and civil strife in certain regions of Africa,
the Middle East, and Latin America. Because people residing in urban areas
are accustomed to diversity in national origin, language, belief systems, and
customs, they can accommodate the rapid and voluminous influx of immigra-
tion without experiencing a threat to their lifestyle and other features of social
identity. But for people in rural regions, the perceived and actual characteristics
of immigrants—particularly those from Latin America, the Middle East, and
Africa—cannot be incorporated into their shared reality of beliefs, customs, and
lifestyles.
The second factor is a bit more speculative, though consistent with recent
theory and research in political psychology. A primary aim in this field is to
identify the basic characteristics that distinguish political liberals from political
conservatives. Although the issue is approached empirically, there is controversy
in the conclusions regarding the liberal–conservative fault lines. One prominent
perspective emphasizes the differential reliance on fundamental values or moral
mandates by those with different political orientations (e.g., Graham, Haidt, &
Nosek, 2009; see also Cooper & Avery, this volume). Research has shown that
conservatives’ adherence to most values is stronger than that of liberals. Thus,
conservatives are more likely to judge actions—and the people performing
them—more extremely and consistently than are liberals.
The reliance on values in making social judgment, however, could be reframed
as a tendency to judge people with little sensitivity to the situational constraints
on their behavior. Consider, for example, a teenage boy who slaps his father in
the face out of rage and another teenage boy who slaps his father in the face
as part of a school play that includes this action. If a conservative uses respect for
authority as a blanket basis for judgment, both actions would be considerable
unacceptable and condemned. A liberal, on the other hand, might judge the first
boy harshly but not view the second boy’s behavior as worthy of condemnation.
In this light, it’s interesting that the only value liberals emphasize more strongly
than conservatives is preventing harm to others and caring for those who are at risk.
This concern with harmful events is consistent with a sensitivity to the impact of
external forces and circumstances on people’s lives. Presumably, liberals recognize
situational constraints and affordances more, so they take these contextual factors
into account rather than judging action in accordance with abstract values. This
reframing of the value perspective is speculative, but it is consistent with research
 Rapid Social Change and Populism 341

suggesting that conservatives tend to be more dogmatic and judgmental than lib-
erals (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003).
Both factors are associated with contemporary populism, which tends to be
cultural rather than economic in nature. Thus, people in rural regions tend to res-
onate with populist movements, as do political conservatives regardless of where
they reside. In both cases, there are clear and firm standards for judgment, with
negative judgments lacking in empathy reserved for those who deviate in their
beliefs and lifestyles.
Viewed from a dynamical perspective, both the regional and political bases
for populist sentiment can be understood in terms of basins of attraction (Vallacher,
Coleman, Nowak, & Bui-Wrzosinska, 2010). A basin of attraction is the range
in the values of elements (e.g., ideas, information) that define a system’s higher-
order state (e.g., ideology). Information outside this range is difficult to accom-
modate and thus poses a threat to the coherence and stability of the system. Basin
of attraction is reminiscent of latitude of acceptance and rejection in attitude formation
and change (Sherif & Hovland, 1961). People who hold a literal interpretation of
the Bible, for example, have a very narrow basin of attraction and cannot accept
information regarding the age of the Earth (4 billion years) or the evolution of
humans. Others may believe in Biblical doctrine but have a wider basin of attrac-
tion that can accept scientific evidence without undermining their belief. In the
present context, those who resonate with populist sentiment, whether because of
their narrowly defined social identity or their conservative political orientation,
cannot assimilate new perspectives that are outside their basins of attraction for
important beliefs and lifestyles.
We should note that threats to social identity apply primarily to cultural iden-
tity as opposed to economic status. There have been rapid increases in income
inequality in recent decades, and this has fueled populist sentiment as well, but
this has not generated sustained political movements to the same extent as has the
cultural populism that is increasingly salient in the United States and elsewhere
(Wood et al., 2018). Economic justice is certainly important to people, but it
appears to be trumped by threats to cultural values. Indeed, a noteworthy fea-
ture of those averse to rapid cultural change is the tendency to vote against their
own economic self-interest (Frank, 2004). Above a rather low level of economic
security (i.e., a lower middle-class income), subjective well-being and happiness
are independent of people’s economic status (e.g., Diener et al., 1999; Myers &
Diener, 1995). From a hierarchy of needs perspective (Maslow, 1954), once peo-
ple have transcended basic safety and security concerns, their focus shifts to issues
of social belongingness and identity.

The Demagogue’s Script

Anger and resentment toward the elites can simmer for extended periods of time.
The current surge in populism in the United States, for example, is in part a
342 Robin R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell

resurgence of the so-called silent majority that expressed anger and resentment
over the counterculture of the late 1960s and 1970s that expressed disdain for tra-
ditional lifestyles, showed little respect for the police, military, and other authori-
ties, and advocated “free love” and the legalization of drugs. This resistance to
new cultural values eventually dissipated for want of an effective leader. Richard
Nixon attempted to assume that role, but he was discredited by the Watergate
scandal and eventually resigned in 1974.
For populist sentiments to transition to a sustained political movement, leaders
must emerge who know how to play to these sentiments. Those who become
successful at doing so have a set of characteristics and strategies that set them
apart from traditional leaders. Such leaders, known as demagogues, gain popularity
by exploiting emotions, prejudice, and ignorance to arouse the common people
against elites, whipping up the passions of the crowd, and shutting down reasoned
deliberation (Larson, 1964; Luthin, 1954; Roberts-Miller, 2005; Signer, 2009).
In so doing, demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct.
Demagogues are highly attuned to social changes that undermine traditional
values, customs, and lifestyles. The societal clusters of people who view rapid
change in this fashion can support one another, but without a leader their feelings
may be confined to their own personal echo chambers. A demagogue in essence
enables the echo chamber to become a megaphone that broadcasts populist dis-
content to a wider audience and to those in the political establishment.
To be effective, a demagogue must sow distrust of other sources of informa-
tion. They accuse news media of bias and spreading “fake news.” Even societal
institutions that are fundamental to democracy and societal stability are called
into question. The legalization of gay marriage and the protection of immigrants’
rights, for example, might be portrayed as evidence that the judicial and criminal
justice systems are corrupt and in league with the elites. The government itself
is portrayed as controlled by a “deep state” that makes decisions and enacts poli-
cies under the cover of anonymity and without accountability. Politicians who
advance opposing views are not simply seen as opponents but as nasty, deceitful,
and even criminal in their actions. Science is not exempt from the attacks of
a demagogue (see also Fiedler, this volume). In the United States, for exam-
ple, politicians who want to add fuel to the fire of populism discredit scientific
evidence that would require change in people’s lifestyle (e.g., climate change,
response to a novel coronavirus) or values (e.g., recognizing the genetic basis for
homosexuality).
With the abundance of information available to everyone in today’s world, one
might think that people would fact-check the things that a demagogue claims to
be true. However, it is precisely the overabundance of information that makes
people strive for ready-made answers (Nowak et al., 2020b). Everyone has a
strong need for closure (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), but this need is especially
strong when people feel threatened and there is too much relevant information
for them to process on their own (see also Kruglanski et al., this volume). The
 Rapid Social Change and Populism 343

threat associated with rapid social change enhances reliance on a strong leader
who can speak unequivocally and in simple terms to satisfy the need for higher-
order coherence.
There is a positive feedback loop between trust in a source of information and
belief in the information he or she provides (Nowak et al., 2020b). The greater the
trust in a demagogue, the more readily people believe what he or she says. And the
more they believe the information the demagogue provides, the more they trust
him or her. This feedback loop can give rise to ideas that would otherwise be easy
to debunk by attending to other sources of information or by fact-checking on
one’s own. But the reliance on a trusted demagogue saves followers the trouble of
looking for the truth elsewhere. Even wild conspiracy theories (e.g., secret crimi-
nal activities by a political opponent) can thrive in such a social environment. Facts
are not the focus; loyalty to the leader and fidelity to his or her views are.

What the Future Holds

Populist movements have arisen at various points in human history, but each time
they have eventually dissipated. Is the populism we are witnessing today des-
tined to follow this trajectory as well? Or are defining features of contemporary
society—the increasing tempo and constant introduction of new technologies,
advances in science, and changes in cultural norms and lifestyles—rewriting the
script, so that we can expect sustained expressions of resistance to these continual
changes? Two scenarios regarding populist discontent can be envisioned at this
point—one pessimistic in its outlook, but the other considerably more optimistic
about how the future may unfold.

The Pessimistic Scenario

Populism is based on dynamics, not on content. People can live with any state
of affairs, and even justify its existence, if it is stable and provides coherence for
one’s life. It is when a stable context is disrupted by rapid changes threatening to
undermine societal stability that people who are most affected by these changes
become disaffected and resist them.
From this perspective, we are in for a long haul. The modern world is experi-
encing change at an accelerating rate. Until the Industrial Revolution, the intro-
duction of new technologies and advances in science took place over decades,
even centuries, but by today’s standards, the Industrial Revolution was down-
right static. In a little over a century, we have gone from horses to automobiles,
from ships and trains to jet airplanes and rockets, from candles to electric light-
ing, from fans to central air conditioning, from radios to television and movies,
and from newspapers and magazines to the internet. Since the turn of the 21st
century, we have witnessed the widespread popular introduction of GPS, smart
phones, social media, and artificial intelligence.
344 Robin R. Vallacher and Eli Fennell

Culture is changing at a rapid clip as well. For centuries, families centered

on a man and woman who pledged a lifetime of fidelity, with the man working
and the woman taking on household duties and primary responsibility for child-
rearing. Homosexuality was considered immoral or a sign of personal dysfunc-
tion. Sex before marriage was grounds for shame, mostly for women. The use
of drugs for recreational purposes was forbidden and subject to severe criminal
penalties. Religious teachings were accepted at face value, with little evidence to
cast doubt on their credibility and little reason to suspect their cultural relativity.
All these institutions and expectations have undergone dramatic change, if not
abandonment, in just a matter of years.
The only constant, it seems, is constant change. The future is becoming the
present at an accelerating rate. As we proceed through the 21st century, sustained
bursts of populist sentiment seem inevitable, as segments of society resist the
changes that threaten stability generally and their shared social identities in par-
ticular. Untethered to a stable frame of reference, humankind seems destined to
an existential walk in a constantly changing environment. The quality of life may
improve, but that is not the point. All the wealth, vaccines, and robots imaginable
will not quench the desire for stability and clarity about ourselves and the world
in which we live.

The Optimistic Scenario

Rapid change, whether in science, technology, culture, or modes of social inter-
action, may be inevitable, but we may be able to adapt to these changes without
feeling constantly destabilized. The critical factor is the width of people’s basins of
attraction. People who have relatively wide basins can accommodate new infor-
mation and ways of thinking without losing their centers of gravity. There is
reason to believe that people’s basins are in fact getting wider, enabling them to
tolerate or even embrace new ideas and different lifestyles without fear of losing
their social identities or having their values threatened.
Today, as in the past, narrow basins of attraction—and hence intolerance born
of threat—are more pronounced among certain segments of the population.
But the geographical isolation and demographic homogeneity partly responsi-
ble for narrow basins are themselves undergoing fairly rapid change. Because of
the internet, cable news, movies, social mobility, and social media—changes to
which we have already become adjusted and that therefore have ceased to pose a
threat—geography no longer insulates people from exposure to different values,
customs, languages, religions, and lifestyles. Someone living in Mississippi may
have a narrowly social identity at this point, but the internet, movies, and the like
provide him or her with safe access to different cultures from around the world.
The person can view these different value systems at a distance without worrying
about these values intruding into everyday life.
 Rapid Social Change and Populism 345

Even when there is direct contact with different value systems and social
norms, there is less threat potential today than in the past. This is because the
nature of contact with different cultures has undergone an important change in
recent decades. For much of human history, such contact was largely conten-
tious. Inter-group contact was largely a matter of warfare, crusades, and attempts
at subjugation. In the modern era, contact is increasingly an opportunity to learn
what another culture has to offer and perhaps experience a different way of living.
In taking advantage of these opportunities, people are looking to build bridges
rather than walls. People’s basins of attraction may still be anchored with a set of
values and a preferred lifestyle, but they will able to accommodate a wide range
of different perspectives without experiencing the disdain and challenge that has
historically promoted populist sentiments and movements.
Note that this scenario does not depend on inequities being reduced or elimi-
nated. In the dynamical account, coherence and stability trump personal gain
and social comparison. In the future, society may become less prone to populist
arisings, while adjusting to levels of inequality that are higher than those observed
today. Such adaptation may not be in the best interests of some segments of
society—just as adaptation to inequality and autocracy in the Dark Ages was the
antithesis of enlightenment and justice—but it may restore stability and meaning
for people who would otherwise express discontent upon experiencing sudden
changes.
Nonetheless, the interconnectedness of nations and cultures in the modern
era is likely to increase tolerance among people who heretofore have reacted
negatively to cultural differences. With geography placing weaker constraints on
how people view one another, people’s social identities are destined to become
decoupled from the tribalism and nationalism that has characterized inter-group
relations for most of human history (see also Krekó, this volume). Perhaps we are
in the midst of a transition between the last vestiges of narrow-minded populism
and the emergence of true interdependence and respect among cultures. Time
will tell.

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19
AUTHORITARIANISM, EDUCATION,
AND SUPPORT FOR RIGHT-WING
POPULISM
Stanley Feldman

Introduction: Right-Wing Populism and

Authoritarianism
Populism, according a prominent account (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017), is a “thin
ideology.” At its core is the belief that the will of the people is being undermined
by manipulative, self-serving elites. Populist leaders promise to reduce the influ-
ence of the elites and return governing power to the people. This makes pop-
ulism useful as a tool to mobilize angry voters that is extremely flexible in its
implementation (see also Krekó, this volume). Who are these corrupt elites that
are privileging their interests over those of the majority of the public? In some
accounts, they are corporate CEOs, big banks, and their lobbyists, who enrich
themselves at the expense of workers, create inequality, and undermine demo-
cratic governance. Or, they are entertainment and media elites along with intel-
lectuals and universities who advance their left-wing, cosmopolitan values and
force fundamental changes in society to reduce the power of traditional majority
groups. Populism can thus take on both left-wing and right-wing forms. As well
put by Norris and Inglehart (2019, p. 4), it has a “chameleon-like quality.” Bernie
Sanders, for example, has been cited as an example of left-wing populist appeal in
the US. Venezuela under Hugo Chavez might be a clearer example.
At present, however, there are far more examples of right-wing populism with
significant political influence. Donald Trump’s rhetoric evokes themes of a liberal,
untrustworthy media, allied with Democrats who encourage illegal immigra-
tion, advance a pro-LGTBQ agenda, and seek to eliminate religion from public
life. The Brexit movement in the UK challenged decades of open borders and
membership in the European Union that allowed the free movement of people
into Britain and relinquished some political and economic decision-making to
 Authoritarianism, Education, and Populism 349

a group of European elites that it claimed were beyond the control of ordinary
people. Right-wing populist parties and leaders control governments in Europe
(Hungary, Poland), South American (Brazil), South Asia (India), and the Pacific
Rim (the Philippines). They have gained significant public support in recent elec-
tions around the world, even in established liberal democracies (France, Germany,
Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands). Given the preponderance and
political significance of right-wing populism at this point in time, my focus in this
chapter will be on understanding their source of support. I do not claim that the
same dynamics will explain support for left-wing populism.
What are the primary characteristics of right-wing populist leaders and par-
ties? Opposition to immigration is clearly a universal, or near universal, policy
stance. But they are not just concerned with halting new immigration; there are
also elements of hostility toward racial/ethnic/religious minorities already in the
country (for example, Muslims in Europe and African Americans in the US).
At a minimum, those minorities are expected to conform to the norms of the
majority group and relinquish their home customs, dress, and perhaps even their
religion. Helping to reinforce the status of the majority group is an emphasis on
nationalism—the glorification of the nation and its symbols. And it is necessary
to have a strong leader who can enforce the “will of the majority” to control the
nation’s borders and to require conformity to traditional norms and values.
While it may not receive the same attention as stances on immigration and
nationalism, a common focus of many right-wing populist leaders is the defense of
traditional morality. This is most commonly seen in hostility toward the LGTBQ
community (see also Golec de Zavala, Lantos & Keenan, this volume). In Poland,
for example, the governing Law and Justice Party has taken increasingly hostile
positions toward the LGBTQ community, portraying them as a threat to Polish
society. The ruling Fidesz in Hungary has begun to use more anti-gay rhetoric
and has incorporated heterosexual marriage into its constitution. In the US, the
Trump administration has challenged legal protections for LGBTQ people and,
in particular, has attempted to curb the rights of transgender individuals.
At a more basic level, right-wing populism is frequently associated with a
defense of patriarchy. Observers have noted elements of sexism in the rhetoric
of right-wing populist parties in Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands
(Spierings, 2020). One clear example of this is prohibitions on the teaching of
gender studies in universities, for example, in Hungary. As Apperly (2019) notes,
“for the far right, propping up male authority and promoting a nuclear family
sticks that sticks to the gender binary are central tenets of the broader nationalist
project.”
What unites these central characteristics of right-wing populism? It is not a
coincidence that these positions have all been shown, in decades of research, to
be correlates of authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1988, 1996; Stenner, 2005). Dis-
comfort with diversity (leading to prejudice and intolerance), nationalism, and
traditional moral values (conventionalism) are central aspects of authoritarianism.
350 Stanley Feldman

Norris and Inglehart (2019) even use “authoritarian populism” as a label for
many of the right-wing parties and leaders in Europe and the US. The close
fit between major characteristics of contemporary right-wing populism and
well-documented correlates of authoritarianism suggest support for right-wing
populist parties may be most prominent among members of the public high in
authoritarianism. To fully understand the dynamics of right-wing populism, it
is critical to distinguish between the motivation of right-wing populist leaders
and their supporters. While authoritarianism should increase popular support for
right-wing populist leaders, those leaders may be motivated primarily to attain
political power and could tailor their messaging to appeal to authoritarians to win
elections.

The Conceptualization of Authoritarianism

The theory and conceptualization of authoritarianism has undergone a number
of changes in a history that spans the work of Erich Fromm (1941), Adorno,
Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950), and Altemeyer (1988, 1996).
In recent years, research on authoritarianism has been strongly influenced by
Altemeyer’s conceptualization and, especially, by his RWA (Right-Wing Author-
itarianism) scale. However, Altemeyer’s social learning account of authoritarian-
ism is not completely satisfying for two major reasons. First, it does not easily
accommodate some of the major correlates of authoritarianism. There is con-
siderable evidence that relatively stable factors like openness to experience are
associated with authoritarianism (Sibley & Duckitt, 2008). Even more funda-
mentally, studies of twins yield estimates that up to 50 percent of the variance in
authoritarianism is heritable (McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & Keyes,
1999). All of this suggests that social learning cannot be a complete account of the
development of authoritarianism.
Second, most conceptualizations of authoritarianism—Altemeyer’s included—
see it as a relatively stable predisposition, either a personality trait or a social atti-
tude. But that does not provide an answer to a critical question in the explanation
of support for right-wing populism: if authoritarianism is temporally stable, why
are we seeing an increase in support for right-wing parties and politicians now
compared to 20, or even 10, years ago? It cannot be due to a rapid increase in
levels of authoritarianism in a population, not unless authoritarianism is a rela-
tively fluid trait. Explaining the apparently variable link between authoritarianism
and political attitudes and behavior thus needs to be a critical component of any
useful conceptualization.
Recent work in psychology and political science that has attempted to develop
a new theoretical foundation for authoritarianism has identified the basic char-
acteristics of this dimension in very similar ways (Duckitt, 1989; Feldman, 2003;
Stenner, 2005; Stellmacher & Petzel, 2005). An early, clear statement of the core
 Authoritarianism, Education, and Populism 351

of authoritarianism by Duckitt (1989, p. 71) defines the end points of the con-
tinuum as follows:

At one extreme would be the belief that the purely personal needs, incli-
nations, and values of group members should be subordinated as com-
pletely as possible to the cohesion of the group and its requirements. At the
other extreme would be the belief that the requirements of group cohesion
should be subordinated as completely as possible to the autonomy and self-
regulation of the individual member.

Central to this conceptualization is that authoritarianism is a group-level phe-

nomenon. People that we describe as high in authoritarianism are motivated by
a desire to maintain group cohesion. As Duckitt suggests, the desire for group
cohesion is at odds with a preference for personal autonomy and individual free-
dom. In this conceptualization, variation in authoritarianism reflects the tension
between prioritizing group cohesion and individual freedom.
There are two important implications of this approach to authoritarianism.
First, since authoritarians want to defend group cohesion, they should be most
concerned when they see ingroup cohesion threatened. Group cohesion can be
threatened by increases in racial/ethnic/religious diversity; immigration, which
may bring people with different customs, dress, or religion; or changes in social/
moral values. For example, rapid social change in the US is occurring in several
ways. There has been a large growth in Latino immigration over the last sev-
eral decades that has spread, geographically, across much of the country. Along-
side this immigration, the relative size of the total minority population has been
increasing, leading to a slow but steady decline in the proportion of the White,
protestant majority group. There have also been significant changes in gender
norms. Same-sex marriage, which was relatively unpopular just 20 years ago,
now is legal and has substantial public support. Gender norms are also in flux.
Demands for greater gender equality have been magnified by the #MeToo move-
ment. Transgender rights are being public discussed. And religiosity, long a major
feature of American society, is being challenged by growing secularization among
young people.
The role of threats to social cohesion is critical for understanding the rela-
tionship between authoritarianism and political attitudes and behavior (see also
Bar-Tal & Magal; Marcus; Kruglanski, Molinario & Sensales; and Vallacher &
Fennell, this volume). Authoritarianism becomes more politically relevant when
those high in authoritarianism perceive a threat to social cohesion. Increases in
immigration or rapid changes in moral or gender values will increase the likeli-
hood that authoritarians will support policies and leaders that promise to put a
stop to the forces threatening ingroup cohesion, restore conformity to ingroup
norms, and punish norm violators.
352 Stanley Feldman

Second, since group cohesion is maintained, in part, by common ingroup

norms and values, those norms and values will determine the form in which
the authoritarian response to threat is expressed. This means that authoritarians
may not always hold right-wing attitudes. For example, McFarland, Ageyev,
and Abalakina-Paap (1992) found that Russians who were high in authoritari-
anism shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union were more supportive of left-
wing values, such as social justice, than were low authoritarians. Growing up in
a society with communist values should lead those who value social cohesion
to want to defend egalitarian norms. In addition to potential differences in the
expression of authoritarianism cross-nationally, there should also be variation
across groups in a society. In particular, authoritarianism should have different
effects among members of the national majority group than among minority
group members.

Education as a Moderating Force?

While most research on the political effects of authoritarianism focuses on its
overall effects, it is important to consider factors that have the potential to dimin-
ish its contribution to anti-democratic social and political attitudes. For example,
Oyamot, Borgida, and Fisher (2006) suggest that holding egalitarian values can
somewhat ameliorate the effects of authoritarianism on negative attitudes toward
immigrants and minorities. There is reason to believe that education may be one
potential moderator of the effects of authoritarianism. On the one hand, there is
considerable cross-national evidence that increasing education is associated with
lower levels of authoritarianism. Lipset (1959) provided an early discussion of
this relationship in his exploration of “working class authoritarianism.” Simpson
(1972) summarized cross-national evidence of the relationship between educa-
tion and authoritarianism (see also Federico & Tagar, 2014). However, most of
the studies that document this relationship are based on cross-sectional samples.
That leaves open the question of causality. It is certainly possible that more edu-
cation reduces authoritarianism. Education beyond the high school level exposes
students to diverse ideas and cultures that should reduce the extent to which peo-
ple worry about the threat of diversity. In addition, moving from high school to
college potentially leads to social interactions with a broader range of people across
racial, ethnic, religious, and gender lines. Since authoritarianism is correlated
with having more homogeneous networks (Altemeyer, 1988), this could also help
to reduce levels of authoritarianism. However, it is also possible that the observed
relationship between education and authoritarianism is not the result of a causal
effect of education. Instead, people high in authoritarianism may be less likely to
pursue higher education than those who are low. They may not find the chal-
lenges of education—for example, confronting new ideas—to be as motivating as
those low in authoritarianism. Or, they may not be as well suited to the demands
 Authoritarianism, Education, and Populism 353

of higher education. These selection effects could also account for a relationship
between education and authoritarianism.
While we know that greater levels of education are associated with lower
authoritarianism, the relationship is far from perfect. There are people who don’t
have university degrees who have low levels of authoritarianism, just as there are
people with BA degrees and above who score high on authoritarianism. Since
studies also show that increasing education is related to lower levels of ethno-
centrism, prejudice, and intolerance (for example, Bobo & Licari, 1989; but
see Jackman & Muha, 1984), it is tempting to hypothesize that more educated
authoritarians will be less likely than less educated authoritarians to be attracted
to right-wing populism. This logic predicts an interaction between right-wing
authoritarianism and education, with the effect of authoritarianism on prejudice,
intolerance, etc. diminished as education increases.
There are, however, reasons to doubt that education can offset much of the
effect of authoritarianism. While education may reduce levels of authoritarian-
ism, well-educated authoritarians may be better able to link their values to party
positions and, ultimately, their vote choices. This is exactly what Federico and
Tagar (2014) found in a study of authoritarianism and partisanship in the US.
Their analyses of American National Election Study survey showed that authori-
tarianism is more strongly related to Republican Party identification among those
with a college degree than those without. It is therefore possible that education
may be associated with lower levels of authoritarianism but at the same time has
little effect on the political expression of authoritarianism.

The Measurement of Authoritarian Predispositions

Research on authoritarianism has relied on self-report measures that have been
widely used in empirical research studies. The first of these was the F-scale
developed by Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950). More
recently, research has turned to the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) meas-
ure developed by Altemeyer (1988). Both ask respondents to agree or disagree
with a set of statements intended to reflect high or low levels of authoritarianism.
While RWA scales exhibit high reliability, there are some serious problems using
them to study support for right-wing populist politicians and parties. One con-
cern is that the measure is not unidimensional. Recent studies have found that,
with carefully worded questions, it is possible to distinguish between three related
aspects of authoritarianism: adherence to traditional norms and values, punitive-
ness and intolerance, and obedience to authorities (Duckitt & Bizumic, 2013).
Thus, it is conceptually unclear which of these components of the RWA scale is
driving anti-democratic attitudes.
More importantly, the significant overlap in content between the RWA scale
and contemporary political rhetoric undermines researchers’ use of RWA scores
354 Stanley Feldman

to explain citizens’ illiberal tendencies. Consider the following four items from a
recent version of the scale (Altemeyer, 1996). Someone high in authoritarianism
should agree with the first two statements and disagree with the second two.

Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be
done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.
There are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying
to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put
out of action.
Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy
“traditional family values.”
Our country needs free thinkers who will have the courage to defy traditional
ways, even if this upsets many people.

It is not hard to imagine politicians and political commentators using language

very similar to this when making arguments in support of or in opposition to
illiberal policies. Research using measures like this make it difficult to draw con-
clusions about causal direction. Suppose we observe a correlation between scores
on a measure using statements like this and support for anti-democratic practices.
Is this because authoritarianism leads to anti-democratic attitudes or because peo-
ple who support illiberal parties are responding to the rhetoric they hear from
party leaders (Lenz, 2013)?
Recent work in political science (and increasingly in psychology) has used
measures of authoritarian predispositions that are more reflective of the basic
values that anchor opposing ends of the authoritarianism continuum and less
contaminated by political rhetoric. A version of this follows the work of Kohn
(1989; Kohn & Schooler, 1983) and uses pairs of childrearing values to distinguish
people who most value social conformity or personal autonomy:

Although there are a number of qualities that people think children should
have, every person thinks that some are more important than others. I am
going to read you several pairs of desirable qualities for children. Although
you may feel that both qualities are important, please tell me which one of
each pair you think is more important for a child to have.

Independence or Respect for elders?

Curiosity or Good manners?
Obedience or Self-reliance?
Being considerate or Well-behaved?

People who value social conformity over personal autonomy should choose respect
for elders, good manners, obedience, and well-behaved in these four paired value
 Authoritarianism, Education, and Populism 355

questions. This measure has now been included on American National Election
Studies presidential year surveys since 1992, on several waves of the most recent
British Election Study, the AmericasBarometer surveys of Latin America, and
recent national election surveys in Germany, France, and Switzerland. A major
advantage of this measure over RWA-type scales is that framing the value choices
in terms of childrearing practices reduces the chances that respondents will be
influenced by their political views when answering these questions (or even think
that these values are political).

Data and Analysis

Authoritarianism and Education

I draw on data from the 2016 American National Election Study for this paper.
This national survey had two components—a sample of Americans interviewed
face-to-face and a second sample randomly recruited and interviewed online.
Since I am focusing on the appeal of right-wing populism, I only use the subset
of data from non-Asian, non-Latino Whites. I pool the White respondents from
the face-to-face and internet samples in order to have a large enough sample size
to precisely estimate the effects of authoritarianism on the dependent variables
conditional on education. The total sample size is 3038. Authoritarianism is the
count of the number of conformity values chosen in each of the four value pairs.
It thus ranges from 0 to 4. Small numbers of people refused to choose one of
the two values in each pair. They are coded as .5. There is a good distribution
across the childrearing measure. The highest and lowest categories each contain
approximately 15 percent of the respondents. While the modal category is 3, the
mean for the White subsample is 2.04.
The relationship between authoritarianism and education is shown in
Figure 19.1, a box plot for the distribution of authoritarianism across educa-
tion. Authoritarianism is recoded to range from 0 (lowest) to 1 (highest) and
education varies from less than a high school degree to post-BA degrees. The
plotted medians (the thick middle line in each box) decline sharply as educa-
tion increases. However, there is still substantial variance in authoritarianism at
each level of education. Each grey box represents the 25th to 75th percentile
of authoritarianism. The line extensions reach the upper and lower values of
authoritarianism. Consider the variation for those with a high school degree and
those with a BA. While the median of authoritarianism is much lower for those
with a college degree, there is substantial variance in authoritarianism for both
groups. There are people with scores of 0 and 1 in both groups. For those with
only high school degrees as well as those with a BA, the 5th and 95th percentiles
of authoritarianism are 0 and 1—there are at least 5 percent of each group with
the highest and lowest levels of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism does decline
as education increases. At the same time, there are some less well-educated people
356 Stanley Feldman

FIGURE 19.1 Box plot distribution of authoritarianism at levels of education.

with very low levels of authoritarianism just as people who score high are found
among the best educated.

Measures of Right-Wing Populist Attitudes

I now turn to the joint relationship between authoritarianism, education, and
social and political attitudes associated with support for right-wing populism. To
keep the presentation as clear as possible, I coded education in these analyses as
less than a BA degree and BA degree or higher. I created eight measures to cover
a range of right-wing populist attitudes.
As noted in the introduction, opposition to immigration is one of the fac-
tors most consistently related to right-wing populism. The 2016 ANES survey
included nine questions on this topic. A factor analysis revealed two correlated
but distinct factors. The first includes beliefs that immigrants are detrimental
to the US—they take away jobs, are bad for the economy, increase crime, and
are a threat to American culture. The second factor taps preferences for actively
excluding immigrants: making all unauthorized immigrants return to their home
country (including those brought to the US as children), ending birthright citi-
zenship, building a wall on the Mexican border, and opposition to allowing Syr-
ian refugees into the country.
Directly related to concerns about levels of immigration is the question of
how recent immigrants should assimilate. I created a scale based on four ques-
tions that asked respondents what is important for “being truly American”:
 Authoritarianism, Education, and Populism 357

being born in the US; having American ancestry; being able to speak English;
and following America’s customs and traditions. A close correlate of enforced
national assimilation is nationalism—an unconditional attachment to the nation
and a sense of national superiority. A measure tapping this was constructed from
two questions: how good does the American flag make you feel, and the world
would be a better place if people from other countries were more like Americans
(agree/disagree).
Right-wing populism draws not only on opposition to immigration but also
on concerns about national minority groups. I therefore created a measure of
racial hostility—negative attitudes toward African Americans and opposition to
policies to improve their status. The scale includes 0 to 100 feeling thermometer
questions measuring attitudes toward Blacks and Black Lives Matter; questions
tapping opposition to affirmative action in universities and preferential hiring;
and beliefs that the government and police do not discriminate against African
Americans and that there is little or no discrimination against African Americans.
A factor analysis shows that all of these questions load on a single factor.
As I noted in the introduction to this paper, somewhat unexpected but impor-
tant factors that have become associated with many right-wing populist parties
and leaders are hostility toward the LGTBQ community and sexism. A measure
of anti-gay/transgender attitudes was constructed from questions asking about
support for gay marriage; allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children;
support for laws to protect gays and lesbians from job discrimination; and requir-
ing transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they were born as.
Sexism is measured by four items from the Glick and Fiske (1997) Hostile Sexism
measure.
Finally, two questions from the ANES survey were combined to create a meas-
ure of support for a strong leader. The first asks whether the country needs a
“strong, determined leader who will crush evil and take us back to our true path.”
And the second asks whether a strong leader is good for the country “even if the
leader bends the rules to get things done.”

Authoritarianism, Education, and Right-Wing

Populism Attitudes
For each of these seven measures, I estimated a regression model that includes
authoritarianism, education (less than BA/more than BA), the interaction of
authoritarianism and education, age, gender, income, and religious affiliation.
Since my focus is on the joint effects of authoritarianism and education, I present
the estimates of the effects of those two variables in a series of graphs. Each one
shows the effects of authoritarianism, as it varies from its lowest to highest values,
on the predicted value of the dependent variable for those with less than a BA
degree and those with a BA or higher. Vertical bars show 95 percent confidence
intervals for the predicted values at each level of authoritarianism (those choosing
358 Stanley Feldman

0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 of the authoritarian values on the childrearing measure). For ease

of presentation, all the dependent variables were coded to range from 0 to 1.
Panels A and B in Figure 19.2 show the estimates of this model for the two
immigration measures. In both cases, there is a strong, significant effect of authori-
tarianism. Compared to those who score low, high authoritarians are substantially
more likely to believe that immigrants harm the US economy, take jobs away
from Americans, increase crime, and undermine American culture (Panel A).
Education has a more modest effect. At all levels of authoritarianism, those with a
college degree see somewhat less harm from immigration. There is also no signifi-
cant interaction between authoritarianism and education. A college education has
virtually the same effect on these immigration attitudes for those low and high on
authoritarianism. The estimates for the second immigration measure (Panel B)—a
willingness to support measures to keep out immigrants—are somewhat different.
There is still a substantial effect of authoritarianism. In this case, however, there is
a significant interaction of authoritarianism and education. Importantly, having a
college degree reduces the desire to exclude immigrants only among those low in
authoritarianism. At the highest level of authoritarianism, there is no difference in
opposition to immigration among those with and without a college degree.
Estimates for the cultural assimilation measure (Panel C of Figure 19.2) show
that there is a significant and substantial effect of authoritarianism. The effect
of education is also significant but much weaker. Those with a college degree
are a little less likely to demand strict cultural assimilation for immigrants than
those without a degree, and this effect is relatively constant across the range of
authoritarianism; there is no significant interaction between the two variables.
Regardless of education, as authoritarianism increases, White Americans have
increasingly stringent standards for being a “true American.”
Panel D of Figure 19.2 shows the estimates for the nationalism scale. Over-
all, White Americans score relatively highly on this measure; even at low levels
of authoritarianism, the predicted value of nationalism is above the midpoint
of the scale. However, nationalism still increases significantly as authoritarianism
increases. By comparison, the effect of education is quite small (though margin-
ally significant). Although the effect of a college degree is a bit larger at low levels
of authoritarianism, the interaction is not significant.
Panel A of Figure 19.3 shows the joint effects of authoritarianism and educa-
tion on the racial hostility measure. There is a significant relationship between
authoritarianism and negative attitudes toward African Americans and govern-
ment policies to improve their status. The interaction of education and authori-
tarianism yields a result similar to what was found for the exclusion of immigrants
measure—a college education reduces negative attitudes toward African Ameri-
cans only among those low in authoritarianism. The predicted value of racial hos-
tility at the maximum level of authoritarianism is actually a little higher for those
with a college degree, though the difference is not quite significant.
The estimates of the regression for anti-gay/transgender rights are shown in
Panel B. Most strikingly, education has almost no effect on attitudes toward the
 Authoritarianism, Education, and Populism 359

FIGURE 19.2 
Predicted values for scales tapping A. beliefs that immigrants create
problems for the US; B. wanting to exclude immigrants from the US;
C. A desire for cultural assimilation; D. nationalism by authoritarianism
and education.
360 Stanley Feldman

FIGURE 19.3 Predicted values for A. racial hostility; B. opposition to gay/transgender

rights; C. hostile sexism; D. support for a strong leader by authoritari-
anism and education.
 Authoritarianism, Education, and Populism 361

LGBTQ community once authoritarianism is taken into account. In general,

White Americans have become relatively supportive of gay/lesbian/transgen-
der rights. Even so, the effect of authoritarianism is quite large. Those low in
authoritarianism are extremely supportive of LGBTQ rights. As authoritarian-
ism increases, that support wanes considerably. Effects of authoritarianism on the
transgender bathroom issue are particularly pronounced. When I extract that
question from the scale and estimate the probability of requiring transgender
people to use the bathroom of their birth gender, support for that policy varies
from .24 to .7 as authoritarianism varies from low to high with a negligible effect
of education.
As shown in Panel C, expressions of hostile sexism increase with authoritari-
anism, more strongly for those with a BA degree than those without. The differ-
ent slopes for authoritarianism are again a function of education reducing hostile
sexism much more for those low in authoritarianism than for those high. At the
highest levels of authoritarianism, there is no significant difference in hostile sex-
ism by education. As authoritarianism decreases, greater education becomes more
associated with less sexism.
There is a strong relationship between authoritarianism and support for a
strong leader who is willing to ignore democratic norms (Panel D). And edu-
cation reduces support for a strong leader only among those low in authori-
tarianism. Consistent with previous analyses, there is no significant difference in
support for a strong leader among the more and less well educated who are high
in authoritarianism.

Conclusions
In the first half of this chapter, I offered a conceptual analysis of the psychologi-
cal roots of populist ideology and argued that authoritarianism represents a core
feature of right-wing populism. Using a representative national survey from the
2016 US presidential election, I have shown that there are substantial relationships
between authoritarianism, measured via an unobtrusive set of four pairs of chil-
drearing values, and political attitudes that are core characteristics of right-wing
populist support. Those high in authoritarians believe that immigration is a threat
to the US and support a range of policies to halt, or even reverse, recent immi-
gration. As well, they set a high bar for being a “true American”: people should
speak English and adopt the customs of native Americans, and in the extreme,
they should have American ancestry or even be born in the US. Authoritarians
are not only opposed to immigration; they have negative attitudes toward minor-
ity groups in the US. In the case examined in this paper, authoritarianism is
associated with negative attitudes toward African Americans and the Black Lives
Matter movement and with opposition to government programs to reduce the
effects of racial discrimination and to improve the status of African Americans.
All of this is bound up with a heightened nationalism—highly positive feelings
362 Stanley Feldman

for the symbols of the US (the flag) and a belief that the US is a better place to
live than any other country.
Just as right-wing populists tend to fall back on socially conservative (reli-
gious) moral values, people high in authoritarianism hold more negative attitudes
toward members of the LGBTQ community (especially transgender people; see
also Golec de Zavala et al., this volume). And authoritarianism is also related to
the belief in hostile sexism. If authoritarianism is a significant factor in public sup-
port for right-wing populist parties, the association of authoritarianism and tradi-
tional, morally conservative values may help to explain why right-wing populist
leaders appeal to these values to garner votes.
Perhaps the hallmark of right-wing populism is the image of strong leadership—
leaders who are willing to sidestep democratic norms in order to advance their agenda
(see also Cooper & Avery; and Krekó, this volume). The two questions used in this
study to tap support for a strong, anti-democratic leader make the link to right-wing
populist support clear: “Having a strong leader in government is good for the United
States even if the leader bends the rules to get things done”; and “What our country
really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil and take us back to
our true path.” There is a pronounced relationship between authoritarianism and
agreement with these two statements. The contrasting views of democratic leader-
ship between those high in authoritarianism and those with college degrees who are
low are striking. As I noted in the beginning of this chapter, authoritarianism is a
significant factor in public support for right-wing populist leaders. It is also possible
that those leaders advance authoritarian policies simply for political purposes.
As previous studies have found, education is associated with lower levels of
authoritarianism. Higher levels of authoritarianism, and thus support for the ten-
ets of right-wing populism, are therefore more likely to be found among the less
educated. While there is a significant decline in authoritarianism as education
increases, there are still a substantial number of college-educated people with high
scores on authoritarianism. The analyses in this chapter provide little hope that
education will moderate the effects of authoritarianism. For a few of the dependent
variables, those with a college education are a little less likely to hold ethnocentric,
anti-democratic attitudes among people high in authoritarianism. Even in these
few cases, the moderating effect of education is small. In most cases, we see no
effect of education at high levels of authoritarianism. In those analyses where there
is a significant interaction between education and authoritarianism, the liberaliz-
ing effect of a college education is only evident for those low in authoritarianism.
One possible explanation for this result is that increasing education—exposure to
new ideas and diversity—leads to less prejudice, intolerance, and anti-democratic
attitudes only when people are able or willing to respond positively to these
experiences. And that is more likely among people low in authoritarianism. The
important conclusion from this examination of the joint effects of education and
authoritarianism is that education, by itself, has a limited ability to lessen the link
between authoritarianism and support for right-wing populism.
 Authoritarianism, Education, and Populism 363

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INDEX

Anger 3, 4, 14, 15, 24, 26, 27, 34 – 36, Communism 11, 202, 276, 299, 301, 336;
81 – 100, 190, 200, 298 – 303, 305 see also marxism
Anti-elitism 7, 244, 299 – 300; see also Conservatism 6, 17, 92, 127 – 130,
elites 227 – 235, 321
Anti-individualism, 3; see also collectivism Conspiracy theories 10, 12, 13 – 14, 62,
Authoritarianism 3, 5, 6, 16, 17, 37, 66, 144, 147, 149, 154, 176, 200, 205,
42 – 4, 46, 47, 54, 55, 74, 81, 82, 106, 212, 222, 236, 250 – 255, 335, 343
197, 199, 200, 208, 211, 232, 231, Credulity 151, 153
246, 252 – 3, 263, 281, 348 – 362; and Culture 278 – 290; see also social identity
education, 357 – 361; and populism,
357 – 361; conceptualization of, Demagogues 2, 137, 302, 338, 341,
350 – 352; measurement of, 353 – 355 342 – 343
Autocracy 219 – 237 Democracy 42 – 56
Democracy to autocracy 219 – 237
Basic human needs 160 – 161 Depolarized societies 77; see also
Beliefs 127 – 130, 145 – 146, 149 – 150 polarization
Bolsheviks 8 Deprivation 4, 11, 14, 16, 34, 44, 46, 48,
Brexit 5, 108, 185, 197, 219, 222, 225, 50, 109 – 110, 159, 160, 162, 228, 235,
258, 285, 348 – 362 298, 300, 320
Dignity and populism 158 – 170
Cancel culture 8; see also left-wing Dogmatism 5
populism Dominance and prestige 69
Civilization 1, 9, 106 Dominance-based strategies 64 – 66
Climate change 176, 182, 203, 342 Dynamic social systems 332 – 345
Cognition 188 – 190
Cognitive certainty 2; see also partisan Economic crisis 49 – 50
certitude, epistemic certainty Education 348 – 362; see also populism and
Collective narcissism 15, 16, 105 – 117, education
199, 200, 205, 220, 225 – 230, 234 – 237; Election dynamics 283 – 290
and conservatism, 227 – 235; and Elites 2, 7, 16, 33, 43, 54, 69, 76,
populist propaganda, 225 – 227 105 – 106, 109, 133, 143, 144, 159, 162,
Collectivism 3, 219, 230 – 237, 305 – 308 164, 169, 199, 230, 232, 240 – 241, 247,
366 Index

237, 240, 248 – 254, 299 – 304, 336, Hitler 5, 8, 13, 134, 137, 138, 221, 226,
341 – 342, 348 – 349 302, 303, 306, 311, 319
Ellsberg’s perversity 127 Homophobia 111 – 112
Emotional factors in populism 14, 15, 24, Human nature 1, 46, 81, 89, 98 – 99,
25, 27, 34, 35, 54, 81, 87, 90, 94, 97, 138, 168,
174, 175, 223, 304 Humanism 3, 9, 254
Enlightenment 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 89, 98, 130, Hungary 5, 8, 9, 13, 16, 35, 42, 43, 47,
136, 229, 237, 254, 255, 345 48, 55, 62, 105, 106, 108, 143, 158,
Envy 4, 230 197, 219 – 239, 240 – 255, 258, 277, 349
Epistemic certainty 10, 15, 126, 146 – 149;
see also partisan certitude Identity 187 – 212; see also social identity
Erdogan 5, 6, 8, 184, 219, 220, 285 Identity groups 3, 4, 6, 12, 306
Essentialism 134 – 136 Identity politics 2, 5, 6, 7, 220
Europe 7, 11, 13, 47, 49, 50, 51, 55, Ideologies 204 – 205
62, 65, 107, 110, 147, 151, 152, 204, Illiberal democracy, 5, 220, 236
220 – 222, 226 – 227, 235 – 236, 242 – 245, Immigration 4, 17, 42, 50 – 51, 54, 83,
252, 261, 273, 285, 289, 298, 336, 149, 159, 164, 168, 209, 243, 258 – 259,
348 – 349 264 – 266, 272 – 273, 283, 289, 301,
Evolutionary theory 9, 63, 75, 88 – 90, 323 – 327, 329, 330, 339 – 340, 348 – 351,
276 – 290 356 – 362
Executive power 2, 221, 240, 241 Income inequality 333 – 335
Extremist groups 206 – 208 Induction 130 – 132
Inter-group conflict 11; see also social
Fake news 10, 13, 52, 62, 182, 254, 336, 342 identity
False consciousness 3; see also marxism Intolerance 5, 7, 8, 25, 138, 149, 207,
Fascism 5, 9, 131, 162, 201, 221, 299 231, 251, 254, 297, 338, 344, 349, 353,
Fear 4, 11, 13 – 15, 35, 42, 53 – 54, 63, 65, 362,
81 – 100, 207, 226, 285 – 286 Italy 2, 42, 49, 143, 144, 158, 162 – 164,
Feelings of deprivation 228 – 229; see also 166 – 170
deprivation
France 2, 7, 42, 49, 62, 83 – 85, 135, 143, Justice 81 – 100
259, 283, 286, 298, 306, 349
Frustration 3, 4, 14, 34, 44, 53, 75, 77, Kaczynski 2, 6, 55, 219, 220, 222, 240,
115, 117, 159, 160, 223 242, 243, 244

Gender 5, 6, 64, 68, 71, 106, 110 – 114, Language and political identity 223 – 224
165, 166, 220, 280, 349, 351, 357, Leadership 3, 10 – 14, 54-, 197, 198,
360, 361 199 – 200, 204, 207, 208 – 211, 219,
Germany 2, 5, 7, 13, 42, 49, 83 – 86, 281 – 281, 297 – 312, 362
105, 114, 134, 135, 158, 197, 259, Left-wing populism 4 – 6, 8, 9, 52, 147,
289, 349, 356 148, 162, 164, 212, 299, 320 – 321, 348,
Globalization 108 – 110 349; see also marxism
Grievance 4, 6, 11, 14, 23 – 37, 64, Left-wing radicalism 5, 7, 212, 349
81 – 100; and conflict 32 – 33; and LGBT 3, 106, 110, 112, 349, 361, 362
populism 23 – 37; costs of 29 – 32; Liberal democracy 1, 2, 42, 221,
defined, 25 – 27 Liberalism 5, 8, 92, 99, 127 – 130, 170,
Group conflict 6, 11; see also social identity 198, 329,
Group identification 201 – 212; see also Linguistic analyses 223 – 224
social identity
Gullibility 12, 132, 153 Manichean world view 7, 11, 16, 162,
167, 240 – 255
Hate 62, 94, 104, 207, 306 Marginal groups 205 – 206
Hate speech 106 Market capitalism 1, 276
 Index 367

Marxism 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 34, 135, Political science 1, 13, 33, 34, 76, 87, 198,
Message framing 321 – 322 240 – 242, 297, 350, 354,
Migration 7, 17, 46, 62; see also Populism – left-wing vs right-wing,
immigration 320 – 321
Minimal group experiments 222, 226; Populism 1 – 17; and authoritarianism
see also social identity 348 – 362; and collective narcissism
Minority influence 17, 297 – 312 105 – 117; and education 17, 68, 71,
Moral absolutism 3, 6, 7 – 8 77, 106, 110, 111, 112, 165, 166,
Moral dilemmas 187 – 188 170, 221, 263 – 265, 289, 348 – 362;
Moral judgments 27 – 32 and evolutionary theory 276 – 290;
Moral superiority 2, 222, 225, 235, 321 and grievance 23 – 37; and identity
Moral values 334 – 335 187 – 212; and leadership 208 – 211,
Morality 24, 130 – 132, 136 – 137 297 – 312; and motivation 14, 23, 46,
Motivation 14 – 15, 66 – 75; and collective 62, 65 – 75, 77, 105 – 117, 131, 137, 162,
narcissism, 114 – 116; and populism 23, 166 – 170, 202, 222, 350; and science
46, 62, 65 – 75, 77, 105, 107 – 108, 131, 15, 113, 126 – 127, 154, 174 – 191, 297,
137, 162, 166 – 170, 202, 222, 350 342 – 344; and self-uncertainty 187 – 212;
Mussolini 5, 8, 9, 221, 226, 302, 311 and tribalism 6, 8, 9, 16, 134, 232,
240 – 255; and truth 6, 7, 10, 11, 12,
Narrative analyses 54 – 55, 223 – 224 13, 24, 47, 52, 126, 138, 161, 181; and
National identity 16, 222 – 223; see also values 17, 255, 260, 321, 324, 327 – 329,
social identity 332, 334 – 345; and voting intentions
Nationalism 6, 8, 16, 17, 33, 52, 67, 146, 234 – 235; antecedents of 3 – 4; definition
219 – 237, 258 – 273, 349, 358 – 360; of 2, 158 – 159; features of 6 – 7; in
and partisanship 261 – 273; and race, power 240 – 255; in the European
263 – 273 Union, 219 – 235, 240 – 255; in the US
Nativism 4, 5, 6, 17, 258, 321 – 330, 158 – 170, 258 – 273; on the left and on
Need for certainty 4, 15, 168, the right 4 – 6,, 8, 9, 13, 17, 31, 35, 52,
Need for closure 4, 15, 168 – 170, 110, 113, 114, 117, 134, 147 – 148, 162,
Needs 4, 14, 45 164, 208, 212, 232, 246, 249, 258 – 259,
Norms 276 – 290 299, 348 – 362; roots of 159 – 160; vs
Nudging 186 – 187 democracy 8
Populist attitudes, 224 – 225, 240 – 255
Orban 2, 8, 13, 184, 185, 197, 219, Populist establishments, 219 – 235,
220 – 223, 226 – 227, 229, 232, 236, 240 – 255
237, 240, 242 – 244 Populist ideas 1, 14, 137, 235, 237
Overconfidence 143 – 155 Populist identities, 204 – 205
Populist leaders, 10 – 14, 199 – 200,
Partisan certitude 92, 94 – 96, 208 – 211, 297 – 312, 326 – 328
Partisanship, 31, 76, 90, 92, 94 – 96, 107, Populist narratives, 4, 11 – 12, 16, 17,
154, 250, 258 – 262, 265 – 273, 297, 54 – 55; see also propaganda
328, 353 Populist propaganda, 16, 319 – 330
Party politics in the USA 253 – 273 Populists in governments, 219 – 235,
Patriotism 261 – 273 240 – 255
Personality 75, 115, 210, 230 – 231, Postmodernism, 6
280, 350, Precognition, 188 – 190
Plato 1, 82, 98 Predictors of populism, 232 – 235
Poland 5, 240 – 255, 258, 277, 285, 349, Prejudice 15, 42, 49, 53, 106, 111, 112, 148,
Polarization 48, 63, 72, 76 – 77, 203, 247, 189, 283, 284, 287, 334, 342, 349, 353,
253, 304 – 307, 328, 335, Projection, 132 – 134
Political consciousness 92 – 99 Propaganda, 10 – 14, 16, 52, 53, 132, 159,
Political discontent 62 – 77 220 – 228, 235 – 237, 319 – 330; and
Political identity 223 – 224, 304 – 305 collective narcissism 225 – 227
368 Index

Psychological components of populism, Social status 14, 63, 69, 70, 77, 110, 160
227 – 235 Social structure, 335 – 336
Putin, 2, 5, 8, 158, 219, 220, 226, 276, Stalin 8, 11
Status seeking 62 – 77
Race, 3, 5, 6, 31, 34, 339, 64, 76, Stereotypes 15, 132 – 134, 136, 148 – 149,
253 – 272, 283, 339, 289, 290,
Radical politics and overconfidence, System justification 3; see also marxism
143 – 155
Rationalism, 77, 130 – 131 Terror management theory 82
Regression trap, 181 – 183 Terrorism 31, 49 – 50, 75, 81, 83, 92, 97,
Relative deprivation, 4, 10, 11, 16, 109, 111, 270, 282, 283
159, 160 – 161, 228 – 229, 235, 237, The ‘big lie’ 12 – 13
298 – 299, Theory of Affective Intelligence 90 – 99
Religion, 8, 12, 48, 54, 75, 76, 111 – 113, Threat 87 – 88, 276 – 290
134, 148, 159, 200, 207, 251, 263,-264, Tightness-looseness of norms 276 – 290
277 – 279, 298 – 301, 334, 339, 344, Tribalism 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 16, 232,
348 – 349, 351 – 352, 362 240 – 255, 287, 345,
Replication in science, 180 – 181 Trump 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 34, 42, 55,
Republicans vs Democrats, 322 – 326; 62, 105, 107, 108, 129, 132, 143, 158,
see also populism in the US 163 – 168, 185, 197, 208, 220, 226, 240,
Resentment, 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 34, 53, 107, 258, 277, 283 – 286, 301 – 307, 319, 323,
111, 115, 159, 160, 328 – 329, 348, 350
Revolution 6, 8, 9, 111, 127, 200, 219, Trust in science 183 – 184;
244, 300, 304 see also science
Right-wing populism, 4 – 6, 8, 11, 13, 17, Truth 6, 10, 11, 12 – 13, 24, 47, 51 – 52,
31, 35, 62, 67, 77, 106, 110, 113, 114, 126, 130, 147, 161,
117, 134, 143, 146 – 149, 158, 162, 208, Turkey 5, 9, 42, 138, 219, 221,
232, 246, 249, 258 – 259, 299, 320 – 321, 236, 285
348 – 362
Roman Empire, 9, 336, Uncertainty 125 – 127, 132; see also need
Russia, 3, 5, 8, 9, 352, 158, 219, 221, for certainty
226, 276, US 2, 7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 17, 42, 49, 50, 64,
67, 76, 107, 143, 146, 149, 165 – 169,
Science, 88, 98, 113, 126 – 127, 154, 161, 206, 226, 258 – 273, 253, 299 – 303, 348,
342 – 344; and populism, 171 – 191 349, 350, 356 – 362
Self-stereotyping, 132 – 134; see also Utopian ideologies 9 – 10, 11, 136,
stereotypes
Self-uncertainty, 187 – 212; see also need Values 2 – 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, 25, 35, 42 – 56,
for certainty 77, 106, 109, 130, 136, 150, 160, 246,
Sexism, 112 – 114 260, 319 – 330, 334 – 337, 339 – 340, 344,
Significance testing, 175 – 179 348, 349, 351 – 355, 357 – 361
Social change, 332 – 345 Violence 31, 32, 33, 50, 62, 64 – 66, 69,
Social class, 6 70, 73, 74, 81, 111, 113, 145, 199, 206,
Social identity, 9, 14, 16, 47, 48, 53, 108, 207, 246, 249, 251,
112, 116 – 117, 131, 133, 197 – 212,
297 – 299, 304, 308, 310 – 312, 339 – 341, Western civilization 1, 47 – 49
Social justice, 3, 5, 6, 8, 15, 116, 131, 302, White supremacy 9
Social media, 30, 51 – 52, 62, 64, 66, Wokeness 8; see also left-wing populism
69 – 71, 75 – 77, 154, 191, 206, 209, 299, World Wars 1, 13, 138, 222, 223, 277,
335, 336, 280, 301
Social norms, 16, 65, 282, 287, 345,
Social psychology, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, Xenophobia 6, 42, 98, 134, 149, 164,
23 – 37, 88, 136, 297 – 312, 332, 200, 210, 226, 260