It’s us against them: a comparative experiment on the effects of populist messages communicated via social media

Figures & data

Table 1. OLS-regression model predicting anti-establishment populist attitudes.

Variable	Model I (n = 646)			Model II (n = 646)
	B	SE	β	B	SE	β
Politician immigrant	−.05	.14	−.02	−.09	.14	−.03
Politician government	.13	.14	.04	.09	.14	.03
Citizen immigrant	.05	.14	.01	.00	.14	.00
Citizen government	.22	.14	.07	.18	.14	.05
Source support	.33	.03	.40***	.06	.08	.07
Country (Netherlands)	−.15	.10	−.06	−.18	.09	−.07^+
Prior support for Wilders/Strache	.06	.02	.13**	.04	.02	.10*
Prior identification with ordinary citizens	.11	.04	.11**	.12	.04	.12**
Politician immigrant × source support				.35	.09	.21***
Politician government × source support				.24	.09	.14*
Citizen immigrant × source support				.40	.10	.22***
Citizen government × source support				.34	.10	.17**
Adjusted R^2	.30			.32
F for change in R^2	35.10***			5.28***

Notes: Two-tailed tests. Unstandardized and standardized regression weights.

⁺p < .10.

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

Table 2. OLS-regression model predicting exclusionist populist attitudes.

Variable	Model I (n = 646)			Model II (n = 646)
	B	SE	β	B	SE	β
Politician immigrant	−.18	.16	−.04	−.23	.16	−.05
Politician government	−.13	.16	−.03	−.18	.16	−.04
Citizen immigrant	−.03	.17	−.01	−.09	.16	−.02
Citizen government	.00	.17	.00	−.07	.16	−.02
Source support	.34	.04	.32***	.02	.09	.02
Country (Netherlands)	.13	.11	.04	.11	.11	.03
Support for Wilders/Strache	.22	.02	.39***	.19	.02	.34***
Prior identification with ordinary citizens	.12	.04	.10**	.14	.04	.12**
Politician immigrant × source support				.54	.11	.25***
Politician government × source support				.31	.11	.15**
Citizen immigrant × source support				.45	.11	.19***
Citizen government × source support				.22	.11	.09^+
Adjusted R^2	.43			45
F for change in R^2	6.92***			7.65***

Notes: Two-tailed tests. Unstandardized and standardized regression weights.

⁺p < .10.

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

Figure 1. Interaction effect of blame attribution to the government and source support on anti-establishment populist attitudes.

Figure 2. Interaction effect of blame attribution to immigrants and source support on exclusionist populist attitudes.

Table A1. Distribution scores manipulation checks across conditions.

Condition check	Control	Immigrants blame + populist source	Government blame + populist source	Immigrants blame + citizen source	Government blame + citizen source
Government blame	.17	.11	.53	.10	.66
Immigrants blame	.14	.64	.18	.64	.05
Populist source	.00	.89	.83	.02	.02
Citizen source	.03	.04	.01	.83	.89