The Control Motivation Function of Populist Attitudes: Causal Evidence that Populist Reasoning Raises Perceptions of Control

The present studies investigate how populist attitudes influence perceptions of personal control. Populist reasoning is proposed to enhance personal control by promoting a sense of belonging to an agentic group (“the people”) that opposes a perceived antagonistic “corrupt elite.” Across three experiments (N = 733), participants were asked to adopt either a populist or a pluralistic reasoning style. In Study 3, the salience of high versus low personal control was additionally manipulated. Results showed that populist reasoning increased participants’ sense of control, particularly in relation to specific goals, such as performing well in an upcoming debate. However, making low control salient tended to diminish this effect. These findings suggest that populist narratives may be appealing during crises due to their control-enhancing function. The novel experimental method for manipulating populist attitudes opens new pathways for testing causal effects and understanding the motivational drivers of populism, potentially contributing to future interventions in this field.