The social axioms of populism: Investigating the relationship between culture and populist attitudes

Populism is on the rise with various movements having electoral breakthroughs. Most social-science research on populism has focused primarily on party tactics and rhetoric, and a definition for the term itself; only recently has populism emerged as a psychological construct. We contribute to this growing literature with two studies (n = 456 and n = 5,837) that investigated the cultural worldviews underpinned in populist attitudes. Using the social axioms model, an etic framework for assessing people’s generalized social expectations, we linked populist attitudes to universal dimensions of culture. We found that higher levels of social cynicism and social flexibility, and to a lesser extent, lower levels of fate control and reward for application predicted populist attitudes. These findings indicate that people who endorse populist attitudes, across a range of contexts, are cynical regarding the social world, believe in alternative solutions to social dilemmas, but may also perceive a world that is difficult to control and potentially unfair. The discussion focuses on the cultural forces that may drive or facilitate populist attitudes across context and time.

Empirical investigation of the relationship between bilingualism and social flexibility

Recently, a relationship between bilingualism and enhanced social flexibility has been suggested. However, research on the subject is scarce and what little exists is limited by several conceptual and methodological concerns. In the current study, we attempted to (a) replicate the findings from a study by Ikizer and Ramírez-Esparza (Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21:957–969, 2018) by using the scales that the authors developed, and (b) test the concept of social flexibility experimentally with a switch-task using socially relevant stimuli. In the first part, participants (n = 194) filled out the scales developed by Ikizer and Ramírez-Esparza. We could not find that bilingualism leads to enhanced social flexibility. We did, however, find that higher level of education led to higher scores on the social flexibility scale. In the second part, a subsample (n = 74) from Part 1 completed a task where they were asked to identify the congruency between a face and a voice based on either gender or emotion, and to switch between these two tasks. The experimental task did not show an advantage for the bilingual participants. On the contrary, higher proficiency in a second language led to lower accuracy in the congruent emotion condition, while level of education led to higher accuracy in that same condition. We suggest that factors other than bilingualism, such as level of education and biculturalism, most likely drove the effect found both in the current study and originally by Ikizer and Ramírez-Esparza.

The Impact of the Corona Pandemic on the Psychological and Social Resilience of Kindergarten Children from the Point of View of Parents

The study aimed to identify the impact of the Corona pandemic on the psychological and social resilience of kindergarten children from the point of view of parents, and the study was based on the descriptive method, and the sample of the study consisted of (200) parents of kindergarten children in the city of Amman, and to achieve the objectives of the study was prepared a measure of flexibility in both fields: psychological flexibility and social flexibility after ascertaining the sincerity and stability. The results of the study indicated the following: The impact of the Corona pandemic on the psychological and social resilience of kindergarten children came from the point of view of the parents to a medium degree, the existence of statistically significant differences in the overall degree and social flexibility in light of the impact of the Corona pandemic in the view of kindergarten children from the point of view of parents attributable to the sex variable.

ANALYSIS OF LABOR AND LEISURE PRACTICES OF SHADOW SELF-EMPLOYED IN THE PHYSICAL LABOR MARKET IN RUSSIA

Blue-collar self-employment occupies about 23 – 25 % in the structure of the Russian economy and is the most difficult for sociological analysis due to its isolation from the outside world. The most acceptable methods of sociological analysis of the self-employed in the field of physical labor are observation, observation is included, an unstructured interview in a relaxed atmosphere, since they are very closed and careful, understanding the secrecy and illegality of their employment. The blue-collar self-employed demonstrate a specific “kulak” mentality that combines hard work, social flexibility, a low horizon for strategic planning of personal and work life, adventurism, mobility, self-exploitation, greed, mercantilism, and socio-cultural limitations. By their stratification nature, the blue-collar self-employed are reviving the archaic Russian urban class with its specific mentality, habits, and way of life. The blue-collar self-employed exhibit a hedonistic, prestigious form of consumption. Thanks to their income, they have made physical labor in the form of free self-employment very prestigious in the modern Russia.

Friendly Credit and its Dangers

This chapter reads Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness alongside early modern letter-writing manuals. In the early seventeenth century, popular epistolary manuals began to include examples of letters begging for money and letters denying or extending loans. These fictional epistles offer a repository of stock phrases and rhetorical moves useful for eager borrowers and unwilling lenders alike, two positions most of the books’ users would occupy at one point or another over the course of their lives. Letter-writing guides teach their users the necessity of self-contradiction over time: of now adhering to one set of values and practices, now to another. Shakespeare’s and Heywood’s plays analyze their protagonists’ inability to do precisely this. In Merchant and A Woman Killed, tragedy or near-tragedy results from the failure to exercise the social flexibility necessary for balancing the demands of love with those of thrift.

Domestic dogs: the behavioural implications of social living. Part 2

This article forms the second of a two-part series that considers how well the term ‘domestic dog’ can act as a predictor that the dog should experience no problems in co-existing with humans in domestic, family homes. The previous article took a brief look at the likely domestication process for the dog and suggested that free-roaming dogs (village, street or dump dogs) are better models for ‘natural’ canine behaviour, than that of the wolf. This article considers how well the dog's innate capacity for social flexibility with other dogs equips it for coping with social encounters with both dogs and humans in a complex human environment, and limitations in coping.

Domestic dogs: the behavioural implications of social living. Part 1

For many, the term ‘domestic dog’ implies that the dog should experience no problems in coexisting with humans in domestic, family homes. This article is the first of a two-part series that takes a brief look at the likely domestication process for the dog and the development of the dog's innate capacity for social flexibility with other dogs and humans. A second article will consider how well the dog's social capacity fits it for coping with social encounters with both dogs and humans in a complex human environment.