Political Psychology - 2022 - Manunta - Economic Distress and Populism Examining the Role of Identity Threat and Feelings.pdf (1.39 MB)
Economic distress and populism: examining the role of identity threat and feelings of social exclusion
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-10, 02:51 authored by Efisio Manunta, Maja Becker, Matthew EasterbrookMatthew Easterbrook, Vivian VignolesVivian VignolesPopulism has been a major political phenomenon in liberal democracies throughout the last decade. Focusing on economic distress as one of the basic triggers of populism, we proposed a model integrating individual-level indices of economic distress and status-based identity threat (i.e., frustration of identity motives) as predictors of populism. We conducted two survey studies operationalising populism as an individual-level thin ideology among members of the general French population (Study 1: N = 458; Study 2: N = 1050). Structural equation models supported status-based identity threat as a partial mediator in the links between indices of relative deprivation and populism (Study 1). Additional analyses revealed frustrated belonging (i.e., feelings of social exclusion) as the central identity motive in this pattern. Reproducing the same model with belonging frustration instead of global identity motive frustration gave similar results (Studies 1 and 2). These findings provide the first evidence implicating identity threat – and belonging threat in particular – in the development of populist thin ideology, and showed how identity motives are related to the economic-distress pattern that predicts populism.
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- Published
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- Published version
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Political PsychologyISSN
0162-895XPublisher
WileyExternal DOI
Department affiliated with
- Psychology Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2022-03-10First Open Access (FOA) Date
2022-08-11First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2022-03-09Usage metrics
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