The SciPop Scale for measuring science-related populist attitudes in surveys: Development, test, and validation

Abstract

Populism typically pits political elites against “the virtuous people.” A distinct variant of populism (“science-related populism”) extends beyond politics, targeting academic elites and suggesting they ignore people’s common sense and will. Individual endorsement of such a worldview (“science-related populist attitudes”) has been conceptualized but not yet measured. Hence, we developed the SciPop Scale, a survey instrument to measure science-related populist attitudes. We tested 17 survey items in a first representative survey and developed an 8-item scale. We then tested German, French, and Italian versions of this scale in a second representative survey, employing confirmatory factor analysis, Item Response Theory, and external validity tests. Findings show that the SciPop Scale is a robust and reliable measure of populist demands toward science.

Publication
In International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 33(2), 273–293.
Items of the final SciPop Scale.
Items measured with 5-point Likert scales ranging from 1 (“fully disagree”) to 5 (“fully agree”).

Items of the final SciPop Scale.
Items measured with 5-point Likert scales ranging from 1 (“fully disagree”) to 5 (“fully agree”).

Niels G. Mede
Niels G. Mede
Science Communication Researcher

I am a Senior Research and Teaching Associate at the Department of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ) of the University of Zurich, where I also completed a PhD in communication studies. My work focuses on science communication, public opinion, populism, digital media, climate change communication, and survey methodology. In 2022 and 2023, I was a visiting researcher at the Department of Life Sciences Communication of the University of Wisconsin—Madison and the Oxford Internet Institute. In June 2024, I will join the Digital Media Research Centre of the Queensland University of Technology as a visiting scholar.