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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POPULISM
The Tribal Challenge to Liberal
Democracy
EDITED BY JOSEPH P. FORGAS, WILLIAM D. CRANO
AND KLAUS FIEDLER
SYDNEY SYMPOSIUM OF SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
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 emo-
tions, the thinking, and the collectivist energy that fuel populism. Amuch-
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 e ects 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 practi-
tioners 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 a ecting everyone’s lives.
—Richard E. Petty, Distinguished University Professor,
Department of Psychology, The Ohio
State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
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 fi elds 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 o er collectivist,
autocratic formulations reminiscent of the evolutionary history and tr ibal instincts of
our species. The book o ers 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
e ects of globalization.
The book is divided into four parts. Part Ideals 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 defi ning features of populism: its o er of a powerful tribal identity and collectivist
ideology that provide meaning and personal signifi cance to its followers. Finally, in Part IV,
the propaganda tactics used by populist movements are analyzed, including the roles
of charismatic leadership, author itarianism, 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 a ective infl uences on social cognition and behavior. For his work, he received
the Order of Australia and the Distinguished Scientifi c 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 O ce 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 PSYCHOLOGY OF
POPULISM
The Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology series
This book is Volume 22 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 fi eld 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 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, Je ry A. Simpson, Elena Stephan,
Yaacov Trope, William Von Hippel, Tom Wildschut
SSSP 20. The Social Psychology of Gullibility* ISBN 978-0-3671-
8793-4 (Edited by Joseph P. Forgas and Roy F. Baumeister). Contributors: Steph-
anie M. Anglin, Joseph J. Avery, Roy F. Baumeister, Aleksandra Chicoka, Joel
Cooper, Karen Douglas, David Dunning, Anthony M. Evans, Johanna K. Fal-
bén, 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
Oyserman, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Norbert Schwarz, Sean T. Stevens, Fritz
Strack, Robbie M. Sutton, Geo rey P. Thomas, Christian Unkelbach, Kathleen
D. Vohs, Claudia Vogrincic-Haselbacher
SSSP 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
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
POPULISM
The Tribal Challenge to Liberal
Democracy
1
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 identifi ed as the authors of the editor ial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections77 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
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Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 9780367523909 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780367523817 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003057680 (ebk)
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List of Contributors x
Preface xii
1 Introduction 1
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
5 The Rise of Populism: The Politics of Justice, Anger,
and Grievance 81
George E. Marcus
CONTENTS
viii Contents
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 Overconfi dence 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
14 The Rise of Populism in the USA: Nationalism, Race,
and American Party Politics 258
Leonie Huddy and Alessandro Del Ponte
Contents ix
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 Infl uence and Leadership Processes
in the Rise and Fall of Populist Movements 297
William D. Crano and Amber M. Ga ney
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
Index 365
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
Ga ney, Amber M. , Humboldt State University, USA
Gelfand, Michele J. , University of Maryland, USA
Contributors xi
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 fi elds 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 o ers 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
infl uence on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The collection
of chapters in this book o ers 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 xiii
The book is divided into four parts. Part Ideals 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 defi ning features of populism: its
o er of a powerful tribal identity and collectivist ideology that provide meaning
and personal signifi cance 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 fi eld to a three-
day residential Symposium.
Unfortunately, this is the fi rst 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 e ort to integrate the various chapters and to
establish links between them where appropriate by inserting cross-references. The
volume is intended as a collaborative e ort 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 fi nancial 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 fl attering 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,
xiv Preface
an impr int 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 fi nd it an engaging overview of the fi eld.
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 fi rst thanks
must go to them. Because of their help and professionalism, we were able to fi n-
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 as 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 that we
could list here. We also wish to acknowledge fi nancial 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, October2020.
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 Figure5.1. Acorollary
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 etal., 2011). The long
lineage of this story has encased it in invisible certitude.
The belief that fear drives the threat response is very ancient. Afamous line in
Psalm 23 extolls the faithful to “fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy
sta they comfort me.” Hobbes in The Leviathan (1968, p.186) states that “where
5
THE RISE OF POPULISM
The Politics of Justice, Anger, and Grievance
George E. Marcus
82 George E. Marcus
FIGURE5.1 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 armation (Robin, 2004). The
scientific literature on threat includes alternative accounts, among them: Terror
Management Theory (Burke, Koslo,& 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 oering 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 eorts to “keep the public safe” is likely to prove ineective 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 etal.,
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 Iuse two matched
studies of the 2017 national elections in France and Germany to examine the
roles of fear and anger on voting preferences (Marcus etal., 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, Ishow 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 (Figure5.2). All plots derived from: French Election Study, N=6152;
Germany IPSOS Pre-election Study, N=633. Next, Ishow what happens when
the influence of anger is taken into account in the usual way, by multivariate
analyses (Figure5.3).
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. Figure5.3 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 Figure5.2 to those in Figure5.3). But anger does more than
reduce the influence of fear. It has its own eect on voting for the far right (Figure5.4).
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).
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 eects 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 Aective
Intelligence has been expressly premised on the recognition that multiple precon-
scious aective 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. Aective
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 aective 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 aect 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 aec-
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 aective 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 etal., 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 etal., 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 suciently similar to the past, the predicted outcomes are
far less likely. Abetter outcome might result from putting aside our habitual ways
of evaluating a course of action. Abetter 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 eective 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 oered diering
accounts of this dual capacity (Sherman, Gawronski,& Trope, 2014; Van Bavel,
Xiao,& Cunningham, 2012).
Recent work on Aective 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 Jerey 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 Ishall 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 oer 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 Aective Intelligence and Threat
The theory of Aective 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
Table5.1.
There is an important distinction between Aective 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
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 Goman (1959, 1971, 1981). Changing levels of anger reflect chang-
ing levels of norm violation. For a minor breach, people might display disdain
towards oending persons. For more serious breaches, people may shun those
believed responsible or demand serious punishments (Skitka etal., 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 etal., 1982; Lerner& Keltner, 2001; Lerner, Gonza-
lez, Small,& Fischho, 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
TABLE5.1 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 aective appraisal
aective appraisals of enthusiasm and of fear.
anger.
To: achieve ecacious 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.
92 George E. Marcus
FIGURE5.5 Research design—the shifting states of conscious awareness.
we might obviate that threat (Marcus& MacKuen, 1993; Groenendyk, 2016;
Brader, 2006). Thus, the preconscious aective appraisals of anger and fear serve
cognitive tuning functions (Forgas, 2013).
In the next section, Ipresent three experiments to test whether fear and
anger focus attention on dierent features of threats. Ialso 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
Figure5.5 displays a path model derived from Aective 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 dierent stance
towards threat then do liberals ( Jost& Krochika, 2014; Schreiber etal., 2013).
However, as Ishall 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, Iand 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 dierent stimulus stories: one presenting the threat
as benign; one emphasizing unknown and unpredictable elements; and a story
The Rise of Populism 93
emphasizing key actors violating core norms. Figure5.6 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 Table5.2.
The two scales are very weakly correlated (r=.04; n=4122). These orienta-
tions are not mutually exclusive (MacKuen etal., 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 etal., 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
FIGURE5.6 Three segments from the nine treatment stories.
94 George E. Marcus
TABLE5.2 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. Ireport the standardized path coecients in the following figures.
Iam 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. Figure5.7 presents
the mediation model with Partisan Certitude as the dependent variable (Y1).
Figure5.8 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? Figure5.7
shows these results. Panel Ashows 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? Figure5.8 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
FIGURE5.7 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 Figure5.7.
96 George E. Marcus
FIGURE5.8 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 dierent from liberals in their aective appraisals
to each of the three experimental treatments.
In sum, though the nine stories are very dierent, 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? Figure5.8 tells that
tale.
Threat-elicited fear does initiate a shift to deliberative reasoning, as all nine
path coecients 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 aective 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. Ibelieve,
however, that they are sucient 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 insucient to understand the emotional predicates of populist thinking
(Lambert etal., 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 aective 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.
Apernicious 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).
Aective Intelligence theory oers 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 Aective 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 oers 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 eec-
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 eort 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 dierent 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 oce 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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SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF POPULISM
The Tribal Challenge to Liberal Democracy
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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POPULISM EDITED BY JOSEPH P. FORGAS,
WILLIAM D. CRANO, AND KLAUS FIEDLER
THE SYDNEY SYMPOSIUM OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Cover image: Detail from ‘Ecce Homo’ by Hieronymus Bosch
“What more timely task for psychological science than to expose the roots and fruits of today’s growing tribalism
(of both left and right). 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 students of psychology, sociology, and political
science—and for political pundits and leaders.”
David G. Myers, Professor of Psychology, Hope College
“This outstanding book explores the psychology of radical populist movements. Leading 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. This is must reading for everyone who cares about the world today, and especially for students,
researchers and practitioners in the social and behavioral sciences.”
Roy Baumeister, Co-author of Power of Bad , Professor of Psychology, University of Queensland
“Forgas, Crano and Fiedler have pulled together an amazing set of chapters on a topic that could not be more
timely to the survival of liberal democracies world-wide. The chapters yield thought-provoking analyses of
what populists want, and how it produces tribalism both on the political right and left. Readers will achieve a
comprehensive understanding of a global movement that is affecting everyone’s lives.”
Richard Petty, Distinguished University Professor, Ohio State University
The rise of populist politics is a major challenge for liberal democracies. This important book explores the
psychological factors that drive populist appeals, produced by a stellar group of international researchers.
Unlike liberal democracy based on the Enlightenment ideals of individual freedom, autonomy and rationality, both
right-wing and left-wing populism offer collectivist, autocratic and tribal solutions rooted in the evolutionary history
of our species. Part I of the book analyzes the motivational and emotional appeal of populist causes, and the human
needs and values they exploit. Part II explores the cognitive aspects of populist thinking, especially their emphasis
on simplicity, certainty and moral absolutism. Part III focuses on the role of tribalism and collectivism in providing
meaning and personal signicance to followers. Finally, Part IV examines the propaganda and persuasion strategies of
populists, including the role of charismatic leadership, authoritarianism, nationalism and conspiracy theories.
This is fascinating reading on a highly topical issue. The book will be welcomed by students, researchers, and
professionals in psychology and the social sciences as a textbook or reference book, and by anyone interested in
public affairs and the global rise of populism.
Joseph P. Forgas is Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales. He studies affective inuences
on social cognition and behavior. For his work, he received the Order of Australia and the Distinguished Scientic
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 Ofce 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 received several awards, including the
Leibniz Award, and he is on the editorial boards of leading journals.
9780367 523817
ISBN 978-0-367-52381-7
EDITED BY JOSEPH P. FORGAS,
WILLIAM D. CRANO, AND KLAUS FIEDLER
THE SYDNEY SYMPOSIUM OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
