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Studies carried out in different countries identify young people as the least politically engaged age cohort. Since political interest and participation are largely shaped by socialization agents, such as parents, peers and school, the objective of our research is to explore the role of each agent within the Polish context. Results of two studies, quantitative (n = 570) and qualitative (44 individual in-depth interviews), show that young Poles’ political interest and participation are indeed influenced by parents, peers and school, though the impact of each agent is related to different areas of activity. We separate those practices that have a constructive effect on political engagement from those that impact it in a destructive way. Finally, we provide a model of political socialization including the specific role of each agent and consider their potential for increasing young people’s political engagement.

There has been an increasing interest in the relationship between religion and psychosocial functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, emerging recent findings suggest that religiousness may have a Janus-face impact on how people cope with the pandemic, leading to both positive and negative social outcomes. In this project, we examine whether two types of religiousness (i.e., centrality of religiosity and religious fundamentalism) are associated with COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and socially undesirable behavior during the pandemic. We suggest that only the most dogmatic and fundamentalistic type of religiousness could lead to conspiracy beliefs, while centrality of religiosity could be unrelated or even negatively related to this type of thinking. In a series of two studies (N = 361 and N = 394) conducted among Polish Roman Catholics, we demonstrate that religious fundamentalism, unlike centrality of religiosity, is positively related to coronavirus conspiracy beliefs, which, in turn, promote socially maladaptive behavior such as freeriding or non-adherence to safety guidelines.

Well-functioning democracies depend on citizens’ ability to make accurate political judgments and express them in the public sphere. Thus, in this research, we aim to better understand the role of political knowledge and political trust in shaping young Poles’ willingness to engage in unconventional participation such as signing a petition, boycotting specific products, taking part in a peaceful demonstration, or engaging in social media activities. We distinguish between two types of political knowledge: knowledge about the rules of the game and current political knowledge, which provide a more insightful look into the complex nature of relationships between political knowledge, political trust, and unconventional participation. In two studies (Study 1,N = 570 and Study 2;N = 1048) we found that unconventional participation was positively predicted by political trust, and political knowledge about the rules of the game. We also found a significant interaction effect between political trust and current political knowledge, suggesting that those high in current political knowledge may be more willing to participate only when being distrustful towards the current political system. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

We investigate the relationship between vaccination hesitancy and the way people feel about their national groups. Antivaccination attitudes are associated with conspiracy beliefs, which have been linked to group-based defensiveness. Thus, we hypothesized that defensiveness about one’s national identity, operationalized as collective narcissism measured in relation to one’s national group, might be related to antivaccination attitudes. We found that national narcissism, but not national identification, predicted support for a voluntary vaccination policy both in a general population sample ( N = 361) and among visitors of antivaccination discussion forums ( N = 178). In two further studies involving national quota samples, national narcissism was also related to vaccination conspiracy beliefs ( N = 1,048), and these beliefs mediated its association with support for a voluntary vaccination policy ( N = 811). By highlighting the link between antiscience attitudes and collective narcissism, we demonstrate that group defensiveness can be linked to support for decisions that may undermine the health and well-being of present and future ingroup members.

Literature provides mixed results concerning how the Dark Triad traits are related to political activities. Within the current paper, we aim to address some of the existing limitations and attempt to solve these ambiguities. We examined the relations of the Dark Triad traits to political participation as well as to normative (e.g., voting) and non-normative (e.g., blocking streets) behaviors. In total, 558 young Polish adults aged between 18 and 25 years old took part in the study twice across a period of eight months. Moreover, in a follow-up study we examined 476 British adults aged between 18 and 75 attempting to replicate obtained results on the one hand, and to presume about motivations underlying political participation on the other. Results revealed that narcissism and psychopathy (but not Machiavellianism) are consistently related to political participation. The current study contributes to the literature through revealing trait-specific motivations explaining the relation between the Dark Triad traits to political participation and political behavior.