Political Psychology Perspectives on Populism

Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
	References
Part I Transcultural Comparative Analyses
2 Political and Psychological Processes Contributing to European Populisms of the Left and Right
	Populisms of the Left and Right
	“Elective Affinities”: Where Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processes Come Together
	Top-Down Processes of Elite Influence and Strategic Mobilization
	Bottom-Up Processes of Psychological Attraction and Mass Support
	“Big Five” Personality Traits and Basic Human Values
	Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation
	General System Justification
	Collective Narcissism and Uncertainty Avoidance
	Concluding Remarks
	References
3 The Inner Logic: An Intergroup Approach to the Populist Mentality in Europe
	The Intergroup Approach to the Populist Mentality: Power and Morality
	Vertical and Horizontal Intergroup Antagonisms in the Populist Mentality
	Measuring the Populist Mentality: Perceived Illegitimacy and Stereotyping
	Pro-majority and Anti-minority Focus
	Exclusionary and Inclusionary Populisms
	Foundations of the Populist Mentality: Resentment and Relative Deprivation
	Empirical Approach
	The Populist Representations Project
		Measures
	Exploring and Testing the Dimensionality of Populist Beliefs
	Anti-minority and Pro-majority Associations of Populist Dimensions
		Social position
		Anti-minority Focus
		Pro-majority Focus
		Inequality Focus
	Inclusionary and Exclusionary Populisms
	Conclusion
	References
Part II Psychosocial Constructs in Action
4 COVID-19 Threat and Populism: The Mediation Effect of Epistemic and Significance Motivations
	Populism as a Response to Threats
		Cultural Threat
		Economic Threat
		Safety Threat
	The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Effects on Political Extremism and Populism
	The Role of Epistemic and Significance-Affirming Motivations
		Need for Cognitive Closure
		Need for Personal and Collective Significance
	The Current Research
	Method
		Study 1
			Participants and Procedure
			Measures
			Results
			Discussion
		Study 2
			Participants, Procedure, and Measures
			Results
			Discussion
	Conclusions
	References
5 Conspiracy Ideation and Populism
	Political Manifestations and Core Beliefs of Populism
	Conspiracy Theories, Beliefs, and Ideation
	Populism and Conspiracy Ideation: Psychological Similarities
	Ideological Motives Underlying Political Populism and Conspiracy Ideation
	Empirical Contribution
		Participants
		Measures
		Analysis of Variance and Correlations
		Network Analysis
	Discussion and Conclusion
	References
6 Populist Thin Ideology: From a Theoretical Conceptualisation to the Development of a New Scale
	A Logical Analysis of the Definition of Populism
		Thin-Centred Ideology: The Supra-Ordinated Nature of the Populism Phenomenon
		People vs. the Elite Bias: Attribute A of Populism
		People’s General Will: Attribute B of Populism
	Limitations of Existing Scales of Populism
		Lack of Content Validity
		Lack of Construct Validity
		Item Design and Use: Methodological Limitations
	Purpose of the Present Studies
	Study 1
		Method
			Participants
			Instruments and Procedure
			Analytical Steps
		Results
			Principal Component Analysis of the Political Attitudes and Shorter Version of the Populist Thin Ideology Scale
			Discriminant and Convergent Validity
		Study 2
		Method
			Participants
			Instrument and Procedures
			Statistical Analyses
		Results
			Construct Validity: Confirmatory Factor Analyses
			Method Effect Corrections
	Study 3
		Method
			Participants
			Procedure and Material
		Analytical Plan and Results
	General Discussion
		Convergent Validity of POP-ThIS: Anti-Journalists, Anti-Globalist and Justicialist Attitudes
		Discriminant Validity of POP-ThIS: Right-Left Positions, Social Dominance, and Personality
		Questions of Construct Validity
		Predictive Validity of POP-ThIS: Voting for Populist Parties
		Limitations and Future Research
		Recommendations for Future Use of the Scale
	Conclusion
	Appendix
	References
Part III The Italian Case
7 This Is Not the End: How the Appeal of Populism Changed Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic
	Introduction
	COVID-19, Threat, and Compensatory Control
	Exogenous Crises and Rally Effects
	COVID-19 and Support for Anti-democratic Political Systems
	COVID-19, Populist Orientation, and Populist Votes
	Conclusion
	References
8 Representations of Populism, Pandemic, and War Among Italian Citizens of Different Political Orientations: A Psycho-Linguistic Analysis of Their Associative Productions (2019–2022)
	The Psycho-Social Perspective
	Italian Populism
	Free Associations: Theoretical and Methodological Aspects
	Stimulus Words (S-Ws): General Framework and Past Research
	The Present Study
		Objectives and Research Questions
	Method
		Participants
		Questionnaire
		Data Analysis
	Results
		Synchronic Analysis
		Diachronic Analysis
	Discussion
		On the Synchronic Results
		On the Diachronic Results
	Limitations and Future Directions
	Appendix 1
	Appendix 2
	References
Part IV Populist Communication in the Blogsphere
9 Italian Populist Leaders and Their Followers on Facebook (2019–2022): Representational Fields and Empirical Evidence from a Psycho-Social Linguistic Perspective
	Populism and Leadership: A Theoretical Perspective
	The Italian Case
	The Current Research
		Objectives
	Methodology
	Results
		Post Corpus
	Discussion
		Comment Corpus
	Discussion
	Conclusion
	Appendix 1
	Appendix 2
	Giuseppe Conte
	Giorgia Meloni
	Matteo Salvini
	References
10 Double Bind or Political Advantage? The Negotiation of Womanhood in the Online Discourse of Female Right-Wing Populist Politicians
	Faces of Female Populism
	Managing the Double Bind
	Defending Gender Equality (Against Islam)
	Methods
	Analysis
		The Strong Leader for Both Men and Women
		Protector of ‘Our’ Vulnerable Women
		The Protector of ‘Our’ Men
	Concluding Discussion
	Appendix: Transcripts of the French and Finnish Original Quotes from the Material
	References
11 Concluding Remarks
	References
Index