In 2015, so-called double (i.e., presidential and parliamentary) elections were held in Poland. The unquestionable winner of these elections was Law and Justice [Prawo i Sprawiedliwość], using slogans such as “good change” or “we’ll make it” in the campaign. The leitmotif of this campaign was discrediting any activities, including achievements, of the Civic Platform [Platforma Obywatelska] / Polish Peasant Party [Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe] coalition, addressing a “simple man” or the nation, and pointing out the need to involve the state institutions to implement the “good change” in favor of the “simple man”. Thus, Law and Justice adopted the anti-elitist position, pointing to the “pathologies of democracy in Poland”, mainly caused by the rule of the Liberals. Initiating the populist style of thinking was one of the reasons for the party’s success. This was an interesting research problem for us, especially that Law and Justice gained the trust of many young voters, aged 18–24.
The success of Kukiz’15 Election Committee, based on the third place achieved by musician Paweł Kukiz in the presidential election, was also very significant for our research questions. It was fascinating because Kukiz’15 Electoral Committee, apart from the popular slogan about the need to establish single-member electoral districts (JOW) and anti-elitist approach, did not offer the voters any vision of socio-political order in terms of ideology or programme. Still, it managed to persuade citizens to vote for Kukiz’15 in the parliamentary election.
These premises led to a research problem concerning the analysis of anxiety determinants that contributed to the positive reaction of voters, especially young ones, to the populist elements of the electoral campaign. Obviously, the fact that so-called soft populism is an inherent characteristic of all electoral campaigns was taken into account. Furthermore, we took into consideration the widespread occurrence of populist slogans in virtually all political programmes. Still, some questions remained unanswered, and the aim of the present study was to answer them. The primary question to answer is about the degree to which individual anxiety dispositions influence the development of populist attitudes among young people. Another important question is whether these are strong populist attitudes or just populist tendencies. The research results presented below are exploratory in character: this is only an introduction to further search for the answers to the above-mentioned questions.

The trauma of COVID-19 in Polish metropolises – a case study of Kraków

The article presents the results of research on the socio-cultural trauma induced by the coronavirus pandemic. The research was conducted on a sample of 650 inhabitants of Kraków. The CAWI survey (Computer-Assisted Web Interview) was used in the research. The pandemic and concurrent phenomena resulted in a decrease in living standard. It is related to all the aspects of daily functioning. The rise of coronavirus and its rapid spreading made people lose their existential security. Their current world became uncertain, which resulted in fear and anxiety among individuals. Anxiety, sadness, exhaustion, boredom and loneliness are present among dominant emotions. The presence of negative emotions indicates that the pandemic strongly influenced the emotional and mental lives of the respondents. As a response to the rising trauma, the inhabitants of Kraków mainly applied active strategies of coping with it. It is worth adding that the traumatic process has just been triggered and along with subsequent negative effects, which reveal themselves in the post-pandemic reality, it will accumulate and have a destructive impact on society.

Psychological determinants of homeschooling

The aim of the study was to analyze the psychological determinants of starting homeschooling by parents towards their school-age children. We analyzed the dependence of this decision on personality traits according to the Big Five, anxiety as a trait, hope trait and factors such as political and religious views or parents’ own school experiences. A comparative analysis has been made with parents whose children attend public primary schools. We used Hope for Success Questionnaire (Łaguna, Trzebiński & Zięba, 2005), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Wrześniewski, Sosnowski, Jaworowska & Fecenec, 2011), IPIP-BFM-20 Questionnaire (Topolewska, Skimina, Strus, Cieciuch & Rowiński, 2014), questions about homeschooling and demographics. Stronger hope for success, ability to find solutions, willpower, emotional stability and intellect, lower anxiety and conscientiousness were observed in parents undertaking homeschooling compared to parents of school children. A qualitative analysis was also conducted on the declaration of reasons for undertaking homeschooling. The article ends with recommendations for further empirical research.

Polish Adaptation of the Online Test Anxiety Inventory (OTAI-PL)

Test anxiety is an obstacle that may influence education and professional life. Currently, the remote form of learning is widespread. Thus, a need for measuring test anxiety in an online setting appeared. The paper describes a validation process of a Polish adaptation of the Online Test Anxiety Inventory (OTAI). Three hundred thirty-nine students participated in the study. The confirmatory factor analysis showed a similar structure to the original study (Alibak et al., 2019). The inventory consists of three scales: psychological, physiological, and online. Results of a study indicated the validity of the Polish version of OTAI: we found gender differences and statistically significant correlations with self-esteem as well as with math anxiety. Moreover, we observed high internal consistency of scales and their high test-retest reliability. Based on these results, we argue that OTAI-PL can be considered a valid and reliable inventory, which allows online test anxiety measurement and can be particularly useful in times of pandemic and the pressure on the online form of education.

Therapeutic uses of music and anxiety level in teachers in times of pandemic – pilot study

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in anxiety and distress in many populations. They particularly affected selected professional groups, e.g. teachers. Among the strategies for coping with anxiety and stress, interventions using music as a tool to reduce tension are showing promising results. For the purpose of this study, a therapeutic intervention protocol using various music-based activities was constructed. A pilot study was carried out to initially assess the effectiveness of the intervention, and – on the other hand – to check the feasibility of the proposed experiment in terms of methodology and practice. The study involved 13 participants (n = 13); a mixed study design with a triple-repeated measures was used (the GAD-7 Generalized Anxiety Questionnaire). The results were interpreted both in an individualized and experimental perspective, with a statistical analysis (ANOVA, Student’s t-test). They suggest that the original musical intervention contributed to the reduction of the level of anxiety in the time course. Due to the size of the sample and the pilot design of the study, the results should be treated with caution.