Under such circumstances which involve high levels of uncertainty and change, a large segment of the population tends to get more uneasy with events around them and adopt anti-establishment attitudes. Factors such as the economy, political systems and ideas or even global vagaries such as climate change are examples of threats that are able to affect our views and our behaviour, not least, our attitudes towards certain issues. These new findings published in the journal Cognition and Emotion show that perceived threats have malign effects in that people become increasingly discontented and hostile towards the current order of things. This trend is important for the understanding of social dynamics as societal anti-establishment sentiment is on the rise globally.
Understanding Anti-Establishment Attitudes
Anti-establishment attitudes refer to sentiments that seek to overthrow or displace existing political, social and or economic order. This could be as mild as pursuing some form of justice or exorcising the current structures completely. The study by David Abadi and his peers had a particular interest in two subtypes of these types of attitudes: conspiracy theories, and populisms.
- Conspiracy Beliefs: The idea that the events and the course of history are dictated by powerful and secretive people or organizations for their own benefit.
- Populist Attitudes: People are against “the elites,” and believe that “the elites” are politically corrupt and/or out of touch with the average person, but can be challenged by the average citizen.
The investigative goal was to find out the types of threats that provoke and are likely to develop such anti-system attitudes.
The Types of Threats That Matter
The authors considered the realistic threats such as that posed by economic instability and symbolic threats, for example, threats to cultural identity, and ascertained which targets would better predict anti-establishment attitudes. In this case, the researchers used elements of four different studies, and they focused on gathering data from several European countries, analyzing responses given by thousands of people.
- Study 1 implemented was the one related to the COVID-19 pandemic, looking at the anxiety associated with health and the consequences on society.
- Study 2 took a much wider view and involved variable concerns including the loss of national culture or security related to employment, in thirteen countries of the EU.
- Study 3 provided confirmation of these findings with a general public sample.
- Study 4 contrasted the former and accounted for other variables such as climate change and economic threats.
Thus, all the findings, that both realistic and symbolic threats are able to predict anti-establishment attitudes, such as conspiracy beliefs, and populist attitudes, have been confirmed. More interesting is the fact that societal threats like the economic effects of COVID-19 likely affected such attitudes more than self-health threats.
The Wider Consequences
In this regard, it was observed that a general sense of anxiety—is there an origin to it at all?—entices people to criticize and even denounce the environment they are in. It is a small indication of just how much people’s faiths and subsequently their actions are driven by emotions, especially during tough situations.
The demographic variables as education and gender did affect the attitudes of the participants on these issues as observed in some studies, but not in all of them.
Last Words
Feeling threatened often leads to an anti-establishment stance, and thus, it is essential to address the public’s fears with the compassion and understanding. As economic depression and global epidemics are not going away soon, there is a need to appreciate how those factors can affect the public, media, and social programs and even politics.
Such an understanding can assist governments and political figures in dealing with the sources of fear and anxiety which pose a threat to unifying the society and oppression of political instability.
In her article entitled, “Anti-establishment sentiments: realistic and symbolic threat appraisals predict populist attitudes and conspiracy mentality,” the author suggests how to approach a peculiarity of emotions which is called social change-oriented emotion.
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