News & events

While we usually focus on the content of our political beliefs – like arguing over tax cuts or environmental policy – a new study across the U.S., Poland, and India reveals that the secret to political conviction lies in how … Continued

The aim of this research was to examine the interrelationships between regional, national, and European identities in the Basque Country (Study 1) and Catalonia (Study 2) using the Social Identity Complexity model. Across two studies (total N = 1200), the … Continued

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