Experimental protocols and hypotheses

The research project investigates the conceptual representation of the Rule of Law and of Populist Authoritarianism. Its goal is to understand how both experts and non-experts, represent these concepts and which terms they associate with them. The ultimate aim is to assess whether the concept of the Rule of Law is cognitively complex and, if so, how it might be made more accessible to non-expert citizens.

First experiment: free listing task

The first experiment was an exploratory study based on the free listing technique. Participants, both experts and non-experts across different languages, were asked to list the first words that came to mind when thinking about the Rule of Law and when thinking about something conceived to be its opposite. This task helped identify patterns and key terms associated with the concept, allowing for the selection of stimuli for subsequent experiments. The study was implemented via an online questionnaire using Qualtrics.

Second experiment: rating of cognitive dimensions

In the second experiment, also conducted through Qualtrics, participants (again both experts and non-experts) were asked to evaluate the terms and expressions associated to the Rule of Law and its alternative, also on the basis of the first study according to various cognitive and psycholinguistic dimensions. These included social metacognition (the extent to which understanding the concept requires input from others), valence (whether the concept is perceived as positive or negative), concreteness, abstractness, and familiarity.

Third experiment: measure reaction times

The third experiment aims to directly assess cognitive load by measuring participants’ reaction times. In cognitive psychology, reaction time is considered a direct indicator of mental processing effort: longer times suggest higher complexity. Participants were asked to decide whether specific words were related to the political governance of a country. The experiment included ten stimuli associated with the Rule of Law, ten with Populist Authoritarianism, and twenty control words. It was programmed using Gorilla, a platform that allows for precise timing and response measurement.

An additional component was added in which common terms (such as “democracy,” “identity,” “freedom,” and “power”) were embedded within sentences describing either the Rule of Law model or Populist Authoritarianism. This was done to assess how contextual framing influences cognitive load during concept processing. As in the previous experiments, results from expert and non-expert participants will be compared.

Results

The results are currently under review and cannot be made public yet.

Data visualization

Once the results will be published, this section will contain an interactive data visualisation