When authoritarian-minded governments capture public media, can reforms rebuild public trust after they fall from power? In Poland, the Law and Justice party spent years turning public television into a partisan mouthpiece — a textbook case of democratic backsliding. A … Continued
The recovery of large carnivore populations in Europe often leads to conflicts with the primary sector. Compensation for livestock and agricultural losses is a common mitigation tool, but its impact on tolerance and support for conservation remains unclear. The authors … Continued
Dr Gabriela Czarnek’s, a researcher at the Institute of Psychology and a member of our Centre, article has just been published in Nature – one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world! In the paper “Persuading Voters using … Continued
Drawing on goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002), this preregistered study explored the relationships between political and non-political goals among individuals with varying levels of political engagement. The authors conducted 40 semi-structured qualitative interviews with activists, non-activists, and former … Continued
The authors tested motivations and conditions of helping intention towards refugees from Ukraine in three Central European countries. The aim was twofold: to test how personal, moral and politicized motivation predicted sustainability of helping, and how these motivations were connected … Continued
People sometimes avoid information on purpose, a behavior known as willful ignorance. Most explanations focus on specific motives, but this research suggests a broader perspective: avoiding information can be understood as part of how people form beliefs. Two main needs … Continued
Drawing on the Significance Quest Theory (Kruglanski et al., 2022), the authors used the Honor Dictionary (Gelfand et al., 2015) in a word frequency textual analysis (Pennebaker et al., 2007) to investigate extreme rhetoric. They thus conducted two studies. The … Continued
Five cross-sectional pre-registered studies (N = 2925) were conducted in different European countries to examine personal economic relative deprivation and perceived ingroup injustice as predictors of alienation from society (i.e., societal alienation), alongside the role of humiliation. Additionally, the authors … Continued
Check out the new special issue in Social Inclusion edited by Miranda Lubbers, Marcin Bukowski, Oliver Christ, Eva Jaspers and Maarten van Zalk! In recent years, political and social polarization has increased across many societies, evolving from mere issue‐based disagreements into … Continued
A new paper in Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology by our lab members! Antiabortionists are becoming a prominent conservative force, as illustrated by the recent rulings of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the USA Supreme Court. However, global resistance … Continued