Lead supervisor:
Prof Ian Walker 
Other supervisor(s):
- Dr Becki Hafner
Start date: October 2025 (Full time)
Award: General
Subject Pathway:
Psychology
Thematic Cluster:
Language, Learning and Behaviour Cluster
What influence does populist rhetoric have on people's policy preferences and political behaviour?
I'm researching how populist rhetoric around sustainable behaviour and policies that support such behaviour influences people's attitudes towards these. People who are low in analytic thinking style are more easily persuaded by fallacious political arguments than people who evaluate information more carefully. Therefore, this group of people may be more easily influenced by populist arguments despite many formal and informal fallacies they often contain. Even when populist arguments fail to change people's attitudes, they could still influence their perceptions of social reality. For example, after being exposed to populist arguments critiquing a policy, people could become more miscalibrated than before in their judgements about how others view this policy. These potential effects of populist rhetoric could impede public support for sustainable behaviour and policy. My PhD is examining these effects using psychological experiments.