Political Psychology of Vaccination: COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories, Evaluation of Government Responses, and Vaccination Intention

Hannah Kim; Han Il Chang; Seung-Jin Jang

doi:10.30992/kpsr.2021.09.20.3.99

Political Psychology of Vaccination: COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories, Evaluation of Government Responses, and Vaccination Intention

Korean Party Studies Review ◽

10.30992/kpsr.2021.09.20.3.99 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 99-130

Author(s):

Hannah Kim ◽

Han Il Chang ◽

Seung-Jin Jang

Keyword(s):

Political Psychology ◽

Conspiracy Theories

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Using political psychology to understand populism, intellectual virtues, and democratic backsliding

10.31234/osf.io/8j69g ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ingrid Johnsen Haas

Keyword(s):

Political Psychology ◽

Affective States ◽

Intellectual Virtues ◽

Political Candidates ◽

Conspiracy Theories ◽

The People ◽

Left And Right ◽

Democratic Norms

Political scientists have argued that populism is an ideology that can occur on both the left and right, whereby people begin to see politics as a battle between the people and a powerful elite that fails to represent the people’s interest and are attracted to political candidates who vow to fight corruption. In this chapter, I examine how research in political psychology may help to explain the motivations underlying citizens’ attraction to populist ideologies and political candidates. I argue that the same cognitive processes driving people toward populism are those that undermine the intellectual virtues, which in turn, decreases support for democratic norms and can lead to democratic backsliding. In particular, I examine the role of affective states like threat, uncertainty, and anger in driving both increased support for populism and decreased support for open-minded discussion and debate. I also consider whether and how misinformation and attraction to conspiracy theories mediate the link between populism and antidemocratic tendencies.

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Bringing political psychology into the study of populism

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2020.0148 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 376 (1822) ◽

pp. 20200148

Author(s):

Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser

Keyword(s):

Political Psychology ◽

Political Science ◽

Comparative Politics ◽

The Political ◽

Science Literature ◽

Conspiracy Theories ◽

The Social ◽

Psychology Literature ◽

Definition Of ◽

Mass Level

Although it is true that populism is a contested concept in the social sciences, there is increasing consensus around the use of an ideational definition of populism within the political science literature. This definition has the advantage of providing a clear concept that can be employed to empirically study not only the supply side but also the demand side of the populist phenomenon. Not by chance, an increasing number of scholars are working with a set of survey items to measure the presence and relevance of populist ideas at the mass level, something that is usually conceived of as populist attitudes. Despite the incremental study of populist attitudes in political science, only very limited links with the political psychology literature have been established so far. In this short piece, I address this shortcoming by discussing two avenues for further research on populism that seek to promote much-needed dialogue between comparative politics and political psychology: political identities and conspiracy theories. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms’.

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