How you view uncertainty may shape how you vote
- A new study from ETH Zurich found that people who view uncertainty as an opportunity are less likely to vote for right-wing populist parties.
- The researchers conducted an experiment where participants watched a presentation highlighting the positive effects of uncertainty, and found that it increased positivity about social diversity and support for social change.
- The study showed that this mindset can be influenced through targeted messaging, with participants in the experimental group being more positive about diversity and less likely to vote for right-wing populist parties compared to those in the control group.
- Interestingly, the researchers found that the resulting mindset remained stable over a period of one month, suggesting that this approach could have long-term effects on people’s attitudes towards uncertainty.
- The study’s findings suggest that promoting a mindset that sees uncertainty as an opportunity could be an important resource for strengthening democracy and weakening support for right-wing populist parties in times of political instability.
A new study shows that if people see uncertainty as an opportunity, their willingness to vote for right-wing populist parties decreases.
A pandemic, a war, an energy crisis, the climate catastrophe—for many people, present-day life feels like an endless stress test. What seemed certain yesterday has now become fragile—including jobs, plans for the future, and trust in politics and the media.
In this uncertain atmosphere, people increasingly seek orientation and look for simple answers. Right-wing populist movements have turned this into a recipe for success—and convert uncertainty into fear, fear into anger, and, ultimately, anger into votes.
Researchers from ETH Zurich have now investigated whether uncertainty can also be a starting point for positive change.
In a new study, they show that people who see uncertainty as an opportunity are more positive about social diversity, more supportive of social change, and less likely to vote for right-wing populist parties. In other words, it is possible to influence the assessment of uncertainty in a targeted manner.
To test these hypotheses, the researchers conducted an experiment with a test group and a control group. Both groups had to answer the same questionnaires, but the test group watched a presentation beforehand. Over the course of 11 slides, they were shown text, graphics and photos setting out scientifically proven examples of the positive effects of uncertainty. The presentation also included excerpts from a commencement address at Stanford University by IT entrepreneur Steve Jobs, in which he explained how important it was for him to have chosen an uncertain path in life. The exercise lasted an average of 7.5 minutes and was performed only once, at the beginning of the experiment.
The study was carried out in Germany between December 2024 and March 2025. The researchers deliberately opted for the period of the German parliamentary elections, which were held in February 2025. These elections were dominated by issues such as immigration, refugee policy, and the integration of minorities—a climate of political uncertainty that offered a real-world context for the experiment. A total of 391 people took part in the experimental group and 354 in the control group. The participants were between 18 and 80 years old and were representative of the entire Federal Republic of Germany in terms of education, gender, income, and social and geographical origin.
The completed questionnaires from the test group differed significantly from those of the control group. Indeed, all of the hypotheses were confirmed: the experimental group was more positive about diversity, more willing to support social change, and less likely to vote for right-wing populist party AfD.
The most surprising thing for study leader Ruri Takizawa was that although this was a short, one-off exercise, the resulting mindset remained stable over a period of one month. Takizawa, a postdoc in the group of ETH Professor Gudela Grote, says: “With an adapted design, the study could also be applied to other areas. We could equally examine whether attitudes towards the climate crisis or new technologies such as AI would change.”
For Grote, promoting a mindset that sees uncertainty as an opportunity is undoubtedly an important resource when it comes to strengthening democracy. The study lays the foundation for this by showing that the feeling of uncertainty is malleable and can also be interpreted positively. With this concept, uncertainty in times of political and social instability could strengthen cohesion and weaken support for right-wing populist parties such as AfD.
As a leading researcher in the field of uncertainty, however, Grote takes a realistic view: “We can’t change the world completely, but we have some control over how we think about it and how we deal with it.”
The research appears in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Source: ETH Zurich
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