The paper discusses populist appeals to emotions in political communication, considering their role in the proliferation of political polarisation and radicalisation. Revisiting the Emotional Rescue Model of anger, enthusiasm, and fear, we considered pride and compassion low-arousal alternatives to populist storytelling. In the experiments, we tested how participants (n=364) respond to appeals to pride and compassion in their brain activity, emotional expressions, prosocial behaviour, attitude change, and memorisation. In the paper, we primarily discussed the results of the fMRI (neuroimaging) study and compared them with the previous studies on authentic pride, compassion, empathy, and reappraisal. Considering similarities in the activation of the superior and middle temporal gyri, temporal pole, inferior frontal gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, we argue that compassionate political narratives should be the most effective low-arousal alternative to populist storytelling. Moreover, stimulation of the reappraisal-related network in that group suggests that participants reframed emotional negativity into prosocial acts of caring and helping, also re-evaluating their attitudes.

The study presents results of research conducted by means of the BPAQ and Cyber-Bullying Tolerance questionnaires on a sample of 788 elementary school pupils of the 8th and 9th grades. It shows an increase in verbal aggression, hostility and anger in the pupils. In terms of gender, the increase was confirmed in verbal aggression in boys and physical aggression in girls. Tolerance to cyber-bullying as a form of aggressive behaviour increases with the development of science and technology and the increase in pupils´ aggressive behaviour. Knowledge of manifestations and causes of pupils´ aggressive behaviour is the basis for the educational work of teachers and other professionals.

Nonverbal first impressions and president Volodymyr Zelensky’s war-time communication

Nonverbal communication influences credibility, character and personality, and motivation assessments, and it inspires trust and attitudes toward the speaker. Considering automatic processing and its dominance over the contents, nonverbal communication becomes more relevant in the initial communication phase, informing judgments based on first impressions. The paper presents a study on nonverbal signaling in two addresses delivered by President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 24, 2022. It applies FaceReader 9, the automated coding system based on the Facial Action Coding System, and discusses results for emotional variables in the complete speeches and their initial 15 seconds (relevant to the first impressions effect). Moreover, the paper analyzes other nonverbal signals, including appearance, surroundings, gestures, and body movements, which might influence the reception of Zelensky’s emotional performance. The comparison of morning and evening addresses identified critical differences between speeches, and it delivers insights into the effectiveness of Zelensky’s branding as the empathetic citizen-soldier and the spokesperson for the nation’s interest.