A Comparative Analysis of Nativist Populist Rhetoric and the Development of a Novel Psychological Intervention Using a Social Identity Approach

群体认同是我们看待社交世界的重要组成部分。成为一个团体的一部分是件好事，无论是当地社区还是国家。它们可能是我们如何在生活中获得意义的重要组成部分。然而，我们重视我们的群体身份，这意味着它们也可以被有技能的演讲者和作家用来影响，以适应分裂的政治目标。通过语言分析和心理学实验，该研究项目调查了民粹主义者用来影响公众对群体身份的理解的叙事，以及这些叙事是否会受到挑战。我博士最初的研究重点是政客和新闻媒体，这是三个自由民主国家(英国、美国和澳大利亚)民粹主义政治叙事的两个最突出的来源。选举结果表明，“精英阶层”和“移民”这两个关键身份如何被用来推进民粹主义议程。“精英”的概念可能被用来将社会上的一系列声音描绘成不可靠的信息来源。他们可能包括主流新闻来源、大学、学校，甚至包括抗议的公众成员。民粹主义者还可以将移民描述为来自其他地方的人具有天生的“敌对”或“陌生”的价值观，这意味着他们将选择“拒绝”国家认同。这造成了对国家内部其他人的敌视，这种看法可能会延续到几代人。这项研究随后调查了教授人们如何在政治修辞中使用他们的社会身份是否可以挑战负面的社会态度。拟议的研究金将通过五个目标建立在这项研究的基础上：(1)开展影响活动，以改进对政治主张的批判性评估，(2)与公共研究机构接触，挑战现有政策，(3)发展先进实验方法的技能，(4)撰写学术论文，(5)通过演讲和探索未来研究合作的潜力，扩大研究结果的学术影响。该奖学金将通过针对中学生的教育活动、播客和撰写新闻文章，向人们展示民粹主义者使用的一些常见技巧，最大限度地将我的发现对非学术受众的影响最大化。我将在英国和加拿大的一个大型政治心理学会议上向学术观众展示我的发现，并利用这些发现挑战公共研究机构反思他们用来描述与移民相关的身份认同的术语。最后，我将对最初对民粹主义叙事的干预进行后续研究。这将使设计得以开发，并允许对其有效性进行更有力的测试。在我的研究中确定的叙事非常重要，因为在自由民主国家，就任何给定问题发表言论的多个声音是强有力的辩论和问责的重要组成部分；民粹主义叙事可能会诋毁社会中各种声音作为精英，从而削弱对民主进程的信任。此外，健康的群体间关系对于社会的福祉及其经济和文化的成功非常重要。描述来自不同国家的人具有“敌对”价值观的叙述制造了群体之间的不和谐，并鼓励对那些被认为是危险的“他们”的人采取偏见态度和/或暴力行为。因此，该奖学金将把研究成果带到学术之外，以提高人们批判性地阅读那些试图影响他们的人的论点的能力。它的目的是促进更健康的民主辩论形式和对社会不同群体之间关系的更积极的看法。

Group identities are an important part of how we view our social world. It can be good to be part of a group, whether a local community or a nation. They can be an important part of how we gain meaning in our lives. However, the value we attach to our group identities means they can also be used for influence by skilled speakers and writers to suit divisive political goals. Through a mixture of language analyses and psychological experiments, this research programme investigated the narratives that populists use to influence public understandings of group identities, and whether these could be challenged. Initial research from my PhD focused on politicians and news media, as two of the most prominent sources of populist political narratives, across three liberal democracies (UK, US, and Australia). The results demonstrated how two key identities of 'the elite' and 'immigrants' could be used to further populist agendas. Notions of 'the elite' could be used to depict a range of voices in society as being untrustworthy sources of information. They could include mainstream news sources, universities, schools and even protesting members of the public. Populists could also depict immigration in ways which presented people from elsewhere as having inherently 'antagonistic' or 'alien' values that meant they would choose to 'reject' the national identity. This served to create hostile perceptions towards others within the nation which could be extended across generations. The research then investigated whether teaching people how their social identities could be used in political rhetoric could challenge negative social attitudes. It emerged that this was effective for challenging populist, but not anti-immigration, attitudes.The proposed fellowship will build on this research through five objectives: (1) Deliver impact activities to improve the critical evaluation of political claims, (2) Engage with public research institutions to challenge existing policy, (3) Develop skills in advanced experimental methods, (4) Produce academic papers, (5) Increase the academic reach of the findings through presentations and exploring the potential for future research collaboration. The fellowship will maximise the impact of my findings for non-academic audiences through educational events for secondary school students, podcasts, and writing a news article, to show people some of the common techniques used by populists. I will present my findings to academic audiences in the UK, Canada, at a major political psychology conference, and use the findings to challenge public research agencies to reflect on the terms they use to describe identities connected to immigration. Finally, I will conduct a follow-up study to the original intervention to populist narratives. This will allow for the design to be developed and allow for a more robust test of its effectiveness.The narratives identified in my research are important to understand because multiple voices speaking on any given issue is a vital part of robust debate and accountability in liberal democracies; populist narratives can discredit various voices in society as 'elites' and therefore weaken trust in democratic processes. Additionally, healthy intergroup relationships are important for the wellbeing of society and its economic and cultural success. Narratives which depict people from different nations having 'antagonistic' values create disharmony between groups and encourage prejudicial attitudes and/or violent behaviours against those deemed to be a dangerous 'them'. The fellowship will therefore take the research findings outside of academia to improve people's ability to critically read the arguments of those who would seek to influence them. It aims to contribute towards more healthy forms of democratic debate and more positive perceptions of the relationships between different groups in society.