ABSTRACT
Conditions that create feelings of self-uncertainty can motivate people to identify with groups, particularly distinctive groups with unambiguously defined identities. This idea, proposed by uncertainty-identity theory, has been empirically supported and significantly developed to help explain societal extremism. Self-uncertainty can cause people to become vulnerable to radicalization and zealotry, and to develop a social identity and group-membership preference for radical, xenophobic groups that are intolerant of internal dissent and have toxic and autocratic leaders. In this chapter, we develop this analysis to explicitly relate it to populism, which we characterize as involving a belief that the collective will and sovereignty of the people is supreme but is actively subverted by the deliberate actions of outsiders who represent an antagonistic system or elite that is determined to destroy “us”. In addition, there is endorsement of conspiracy theories, a sense of collective narcissism, a narrative of collective victimhood, support for hierarchy, social dominance, and authoritarianism, and a preference for leaders who fuel zealotry and embody and promote populist attributes in an autocratic and authoritarian manner that projects strength and conviction and a simple and unambiguous identity message. We explain how self-uncertainty attracts people to groups and identities, and their leaders, who have these populist properties. We invoke and overview a substantial body of empirical evidence that, directly or more indirectly, supports this analysis.
