"This study provides an interdisciplinary examination of media portrayals of ethnic and religious minorities in Germany. Using years of combined quantitative and qualitative research, the author compares parliamentary discourse with that of the mainstream media and analyzes the politicized uses of collective identities."--Provided by publisher
The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic elicits a vast amount of anxiety. In the current study, we investigated how anxiety related to COVID-19 is associated with support for and compliance with governmental hygiene measures, and how these are influenced by populist attitudes, anger at the government, and conspiracy mentalities. We conducted an online survey in April 2020 in four different countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK; N = 2,031) using a cross-sectional design. Results showed that (1) anxiety related to COVID-19 is associated with conspiracy beliefs, anger at the government, and populist attitudes, and (2) support for and compliance with hygiene measures are both positively predicted by anxiety related to COVID-19; however, (3) support for hygiene measures is also predicted by populist attitudes and negatively by conspiracy mentalities, whereas compliance with hygiene measures is more strongly predicted by anger at transgressors (anger at people transgressing the hygiene measures). Consequently, although anxiety related to COVID-19 concerns the health of individual people, it also has political and social implications: anxiety is associated with an increase in anger, either at transgressors or the government.
Previous research on predictors of populism and nativism has predominantly focused on socio-economic (e.g., education, employment, social status), and socio-cultural explanations (e.g., social identity and social status). In recent years, however, the role of negative emotions has become increasingly important in the study of populism and related concepts. In the current study, we examined two distinct negative emotions: anxiety and anger. We collected survey data from participants in 15 European countries ( N = 7,726) and tested three sets of measures reflecting different explanations, economic (e.g., education), socio-cultural (e.g., social identity), and emotional in predicting populist attitudes (compromising items on anti-elitism and people-centrism) and nativism. We tested these different predictors using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of our basic SEM models show that negative emotions (anxiety and anger) predict both populist attitudes (people-centrism and anti-elitism) and nativism. In particular, anxiety predicts anger, which in turn predicts both populist attitudes and nativism. In our advanced SEM models, people-centrism was predicted by anger and social identity, whereas nativism was predicted by anger, anxiety, social identity, and education. Our study shows that negative emotions (anger, anxiety) are much better predictors of populist attitudes and nativism than mere socio-economic and socio-cultural factors.
