The State of American Protest: Shared Anger and Populism

Abstract

Social psychological models of group identity and collective action should be particularly adept at providing psychological explanations for growing rates of populism in the Western World. Because populism tends to arise in times of societal shifts that reflect both economic and cultural changes, populist attitudes are likely grounded in perceptions of intergroup relations and collective attitudes. We surveyed 95 demonstrators at the 2016 Republican National Convention and 108 demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention. Results support the idea that relative anger prototypicality, in this case, the extent to which people believe that their own anger toward politicians is representative of most Americans' anger, predicts feelings of group-based relative deprivation. Importantly, these feelings of deprivation mediate the relationship between prototypical anger and populist attitudes. These findings provide a unique picture of current political

Empowered and enraged: Political efficacy, anger and support for populism in Europe

“…Likewise, further work is required to establish how populist attitudes are influenced by feelings of group‐based anger and perceptions that one's emotions are shared by the people as a whole (Gaffney et al. ).…”

“…Similarly, Gaffney et al. () found, in a study of demonstrators at the major party national conventions in the United States, that participants who viewed their own anger toward politicians as prototypical of most Americans reported higher levels of populist attitudes. There is also some evidence of anger playing a relevant role in recent electoral episodes with more or less populist overtones.…”

Collective Emotions and Protest Vote

“…It is subject to strategic complementarity since individuals feel more aggrieved if they identify more strongly with a group where people experience on average higher resentment. 5 Such a complementarity has already been observed in the political economy literature on protest (Passarelli and Tabellini, 2017), while there is evidence of feelings of deprivation affecting the relationship between group-based anger and populist attitudes (Gaffney et al, 2018).…”

“…Runciman, 1966;D'Ambrosio and Frick, 2007). Moreover, relative deprivation has been found to mediate the relationship between group-based anger and populist attitudes (Gaffney et al, 2018), while feelings like envy of the richer (Pastor and Veronesi, 2018) have also been recently associated to populist vote. resentment per se.…”

One Step Forward, Two Tweets Back: Exploring Cultural Backlash and Hockey Masculinity on Twitter

“…One of the defining characteristics of cultural backlash is negative attitudes towards others with differing backgrounds and lifestyles (Carreras et al, 2019;Gaffney et al, 2018). In this case, the backlash in question is directed not at a group of migrants or ethnic minorities, but at someone who holds a different view on the role of fighting in hockey.…”