MORES project

This study will examine whether psychological inoculation can serve as an intervention to reduce the persuasive and mobilizing effects of populist social media messaging using emotional manipulation. We will test an intervention designed to inoculate individuals against the emotional appeal of populist rhetoric. It is a mentalization-based intervention, which employs mentalizing as an emotion regulation strategy to counter the emotional appeal of populist messaging. To test the efficacy of the intervention, we will conduct an online survey experiment in Hungary. Our target population consists of both conservative and liberal-leaning individuals. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: control and inoculation intervention. Our primary hypothesis is that compared to the control condition, participants in the intervention conditions will show greater resistance to populist messages, reflected in reduced willingness to like and share a populist post on social media. We will also measure related attitudinal and behavioral outcomes as secondary and exploratory analyses, as detailed below. Additionally, we will conduct exploratory analyses examining potential moderating variables and mechanisms underlying intervention effects to understand for whom the interventions are most effective and through what processes they operate.