Popcorn politics: Entertainment appraisals predict support for populist leaders.

IF 3.2 2区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

British journal of psychology Pub Date : 2025-04-23 DOI:10.1111/bjop.12791

Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Julia Kipperman, Yuxuan Li, Yifan Mo, Paul Nachtwey

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Populism refers to a political style that describes society as a struggle between corrupt elites versus noble people and occurs across the political spectrum. What explains the appeal of populist leaders? In the present contribution, we tested the hypothesis that entertainment appraisals predict support more strongly for populist than non-populist leaders. Four preregistered studies conducted among US participants supported this hypothesis, comparing appraisals of existing politicians between parties (Trump vs. Biden; Study 1) and within parties (Trump vs. Romney, Study 2a; Sanders vs. Biden, Study 2b). Furthermore, we experimentally exposed participants to a populist versus non-populist speech of an unknown politician in a fictitious society (Study 3). Of importance, all studies also showed that the link between general populist attitudes and support was mediated by entertainment appraisals, but only for the relatively populist politicians. We conclude that to some extent, populism is a form of 'popcorn politics': Support for populist leaders depends on how entertaining people find them, more so than support for non-populist leaders.

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爆米花政治：娱乐评价预测民粹主义领导人的支持率。

民粹主义是指将社会描述为腐败精英与贵族之间的斗争的政治风格，在政治领域广泛存在。如何解释民粹主义领导人的吸引力？在目前的贡献中，我们测试了一个假设，即娱乐评价预测民粹主义领导人比非民粹主义领导人的支持率更高。在美国参与者中进行的四项预先注册的研究支持了这一假设，比较了两党对现有政治家的评价(特朗普vs拜登；研究1)和政党内部(特朗普vs罗姆尼，研究2a；桑德斯对拜登，研究2b)。此外，我们通过实验向参与者展示了一个虚构社会中一位不知名政治家的民粹主义和非民粹主义演讲（研究3）。重要的是，所有研究还表明，一般民粹主义态度和支持之间的联系是由娱乐评价中介的，但仅适用于相对民粹主义的政治家。我们得出的结论是，在某种程度上，民粹主义是一种“爆米花政治”：对民粹主义领导人的支持取决于人们觉得他们有多有趣，而不是对非民粹主义领导人的支持。

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来源期刊

British journal of psychology PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

7.60

自引率

2.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： The British Journal of Psychology publishes original research on all aspects of general psychology including cognition; health and clinical psychology; developmental, social and occupational psychology. For information on specific requirements, please view Notes for Contributors. We attract a large number of international submissions each year which make major contributions across the range of psychology.