Aggressive Political Rhetoric Raises Value Threat, Lowers Tolerance

Marcos Dono and colleagues at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela conducted three lab experiments to test whether demagogic discourse—speech that blames groups, uses personal insults, and attacks democratic institutions—produces psychological reactions. Participants read fictional news articles about housing regulations, presented in either a moderate, dialogue-focused style or a demagogic style. The studies measured perceived value threat and willingness to grant free speech to disliked groups.

Psypost

Recent political communication worldwide increasingly employs confrontational language that attributes blame, levels moral insults, and denigrates the free press. Researchers label this pattern “demagogic discourse.” The style is linked to electoral success for leaders who adopt it, prompting scholarly interest in its social and psychological effects.

Psypost

The team—Marcos Dono, Chantal D’Amore, Mónica Alzate, Marco Brambilla, Martijn van Zomeren, and José Manuel Sabucedo—published in *Current Psychology*. Experiments involved participants from Spain and the United States, enabling cross-national comparison of reactions.

Psypost

The first experiment with 310 Spanish residents showed that demagogic speech increased perceived threat to core moral values and reduced willingness to protect speech rights of disliked groups. A second study with American participants replicated the threat increase but did not find a significant overall tolerance decline; however, participants satisfied with democracy showed reduced tolerance, while dissatisfied participants showed a slight increase. The third experiment, involving 380 Americans, confirmed that demagogic speech heightened personal, societal, and democratic value threat and reproduced the interaction with democratic satisfaction.

Psypost

The findings suggest that hostile political communication can shift public perception of personal and collective values, narrowing space for compromise. When citizens feel core values are threatened, they may become less inclined to protect opponents' expressive rights, undermining a key pillar of liberal democracy.

Psypost

Researchers note the studies used a single, brief exposure to a fabricated text, which may not capture cumulative real-world effects. Samples were limited to two Western democracies, raising questions about generalizability to societies with different cultural norms of politeness and civic obedience.

Psypost

The second experiment’s lack of a significant tolerance drop contrasts with reductions observed in the first and third experiments, highlighting the need for further investigation into how contextual factors, such as baseline democratic satisfaction, shape reactions to demagogic discourse.

Psypost

The authors propose extending research to non-Western contexts, examining long-term exposure effects, and refining political tolerance measures to differentiate mainstream rivals from extremist groups. Such work could clarify whether identified psychological patterns persist across diverse political environments.

Psypost