Pride wins engagement in Hungary. Fails in Germany.
Stalls in Poland.
In a new analysis, MORES researcher Gabriella Szabó compares the three countries across two EP campaigns—and explains the risk of a “hubristic shift” when pride fuses with grievance and anger.
📊 bit.ly/4bXZ3Cb
#MORESresearch 🧪
Excerpt of Kristof Trombitas's show on YouTube. He is seated indoors at a table with colourful lighting and framed photographs in the background. Overlaid text announces a colloquium titled ‘Cringe Hostility in Hungary,’ scheduled for 27 March, held online from 12–1pm CET, with a note directing viewers to the website for the event link.
Save the date: 27 March.
Join us as we explore the role of cringe-based hostility in Hungarian political communication. 🧪
This open online event requires no registration and is co-organised by us with projects PLEDGE, PROTEMO, and CIDAPE.
Meeting link and more information🔗 bit.ly/3PwKrlV
Istvan Benedek, seated against a plain background wearing a blazer and shirt. Below, a highlighted from him explains how TISZA's rise prompted the revival of familiar narratives portraying opponents as dangerous. The attribution identifies a MORES researcher and author of the study in question. Credit: MORES project.
As the political temperature goes up ahead of the election in April, the question is whether TISZA can hold a politics of hope without being drawn into Fidesz's preferred language of panic, suspicion, and existential threats.
🔗 Read MORES's analysis: bit.ly/4bDQ0aZ
#Polarisation #Hungary
Two people standing back‑to‑back against a bright split background of purple and orange, illustrating political division. Overlaid text discusses affective polarisation and how emotionally driven politics turns opponents into perceived threats. Credit: MORES project.
Hungarian politics run on what scholars call affective polarisation.
Péter Magyar and his TISZA party are shifting the country's emotional logic by betting on new contrasts in their campaign:
-corrupt power versus civic renewal.
- exhaustion versus agency.
- fear versus hope.
🧵🧪
Viktor Orban and Peter Magyar, wearing suits, stand at an auditorium of the European Parliament in 2024. Overlaid text introduces an analysis titled ‘When Fear Meets Hope’, by the EU-funded Horizon Europe MORES project. Image credit: Philippe Buissin/ EP/ EU
In Hungary, politics has long been structured by fear, resentment, and division. But a new challenger—Péter Magyar—is shifting the emotional logic of the game ahead of general elections in April.
Can he rewrite the emotional logic of Hungarian politics? 🧪
🧵
#MORESresearch #HorizonEurope #emotions
A woman holding a megaphone against a purple background, with the text ‘From Narrative to Norm’ and a MORES Horizon Project Glossary label. Image credit: Adobe Stock. Composition: MORES Project.
Some actors decide what is 'wrong'.
Moral entrepreneurs shape what societies see as acceptable by framing behaviours as moral problems, often through highly emotional narratives.
Our new analysis explores what Donald Trump and others have in common.🧪
🔗 bit.ly/4bvoMC4
#MORESresearch #AcademicSky
Four colourful portraits arranged in a grid, each showing a person expressing an emotion such as joy, pride, embarrassment, and disgust. The centre text reads ‘A Year of Political Emotions’ alongside the MORES report icon. Image: Adobe Stock / Composition: MORES.
Politics rarely moves on policy alone. It moves on feelings.
MORES's 2025 Annual Report covers a year of peer-reviewed and ongoing research on moral emotions in politics in Europe—plus the launch of MORES Pulse, the project's free AI emotion detection tool.
Read more: bit.ly/4dfj3CC
#EUfunded 🧪
A young woman with long hair covers part of her face with her hand while smiling shyly, suggesting embarrassment. The image includes the text: ‘Embarrassment: When Political Identity Slips’ and a MORES glossary icon. Image credit: Tabitha Turner via Unsplash. Composition by MORES.
Embarrassment emerges when the identity we meant to project slips in plain sight.
In everyday life, it helps repair social norms. In politics, the emotion can be amplified to question credibility or authenticity. 🧪
Read more: bit.ly/40rdZDI
#MORESresearch #PoliticalCommunication
Why do some policy arguments resonate while others are ignored?
Stories with heroes, villains, and victims shape what we believe about migration, climate, and more.
Watch MORES researcher Claudio Radaelli explain why emotions matter in political storytelling 🧪
bit.ly/MORES-Radaelli
U.S. President Donald Trump, a white man with blonde hair, wears a dark blue suit and a red tie at a rally in Arizona, 2024. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.
Donald Trump is not the only politician seemingly immune to scandal. The ‘Teflon’ label—or politicians' resilience to reputational damage—has long been global.
New research explains why Teflon leaders are so successful—and the risks to democracy.
Read more: mores-horizon.eu/blog/nothing...
A new policy brief co-developed with our fellow researchers at @mores-project.bsky.social and @pledge-project.bsky.social is out!
Check it out 👉 protemo.eu/user/pages/0...
#PolicyBrief #Democracy #EUResearch
A side-profile silhouette of a woman wearing glasses, softly backlit by daylight through a window. The image has a warm, reflective tone and includes the text: ‘Can We Really Control Our Feelings?’ with a MORES glossary icon. Photo credit: Caleb George/Unsplash. Composition: MORES.
Emotion regulation helps people shift how they feel, and how they respond to others.
Direct strategies manage emotions consciously while indirect ones may reshape beliefs that drive emotional reactions.
Both can reduce political hostility.
Learn more: mores-horizon.eu/glossary/emo...
A square graphic featuring professor Claudio Radaelli with light-colored hair against a neutral background. Below, a black section contains a quote in white text: “Hungary’s narrative against the Farm to Fork Strategy—food policy key to the European Green Deal—was not about evidence. It was about anger, fear, and pride.” Beneath the quote, attribution reads: Claudio Radaelli, MORES co-investigator at European University Institute. Blue quotation marks, icon of the MORES project, appear near the center of the image. Credit: MORES.
When emotions frame the story, evidence struggles to compete.
Hungary’s official narrative against the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy reveals how moral emotions can overturn even the most technical strategies, MORES researchers Jonathan Kamkhaji and Claudio Radaelli write: bit.ly/4pqtEho
#Research🧪
A hand presses a large red button mounted on a wall, with a dotted arrow indicating motion toward a political poster by Hungarian government below. The poster shows George Soros, target of political campaigns, smiling with the text in Hungarian saying “Don’t let George Soros have the last laugh!” The image is overlaid with a yellow tint and the title: ‘The 14 Pressings of Hungary’s “Moral Panic Button.”’ Image: Social media reproduction. Composition: MORES.
An informational autocracy, Hungary governs via narrative control and emotional mobilisation, a MORES study claims.
The paper shows how its key tool—the Moral Panic Button—cycles enemies like migrants, Brussels, & the “Soros network” to keep society in constant alarm. 🧪
Learn more: bit.ly/3MAlSTs
Hungarian and EU flags as puzzle pieces with the text ‘When Policy Turns Emotional’. Image: Multimedia center/European Parliament. Composition: MORES project.
How emotional can institutional policy narratives get?
A new MORES study shows that Hungary’s narrative on the EU's Farm to Fork was highly structured—with heroes, villains, victims, and a clear emotional script.
Read MORES’s new Working Paper to understand why🧪: mores-horizon.eu/publications
A woman stands against a white wall, wearing a long-sleeve mustard-yellow shirt and dark trousers, holding a smartphone in both hands and smiling. Bold text on the image reads: “Newsletter: Teaching AI to Read Human Emotion,” with a white speech bubble icon, small in size, positioned above the text within a yellow circle. The background features abstract gray shapes symbolising MORES's quotation mark icon. Photo: Adobe Stock; composition: MORES project.
The latest MORES newsletter is now live on our website.
Featuring our new AI tool, MORES Pulse, which detects emotions in text—plus an exclusive interview with the researchers behind it and open-access publications from our teams.
🔗Read + subscribe🧪: mores-horizon.eu/newsletter
#MORESresearch #AI
When far-right groups say “freedom,” what do they mean?
New article by MORES researcher Péter Krekó in the "Brown Journal of World Affairs" shows how authoritarian populists weaponise liberty to undermine democracy—and how freedom can be reclaimed.
Read: bit.ly/47NpiJE
#MORESresearch #Populism🧪
Portrait of Zsolt Boda, research professor at ELTE Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest and principal investigator of the MORES project. The image is overlaid with text reading: “Podcast: How Emotions Shape our Political Identities." Credit: MORES project.
Can moral emotions help bridge political divides?
In a podcast with @revdem2020.bsky.social, Zsolt Boda explores the dangers of emotional extremes in politics and their impact on democracy. Boda (pictured) also introduces MORES project tools and findings 🧪
Follow the podcast: bit.ly/4nyHBIo
Unhappy—but politically engaged?
A new study by Gabriella Szabó & Eszter Farkas (@pledge-project.bsky.social & MORES projects) finds:
😐 Less happiness = more political interaction.
Unhappy citizens are surprisingly active influencers in political discussions.🧪
🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Why is cringe—or making someone look ridiculous—so effective in politics?
For Telex, MORES experts Gabriella Szabó and István Benedek explain political cringe shifts attention from policy to personal awkwardness. That humiliates opponents—and raises rejection rates.
Article in Hungarian👇🧪
Thanks so much for reading and sharing. We really appreciate your feedback—and glad you also found MORES Pulse useful 🙏
A portrait-style image featuring Bendegúz Plesz, a man in a brown blazer and striped shirt against a neutral background. Below the portrait, a quote is displayed in white text on a black background with blue quotation marks: "Polarisation is not only personal—it is structural. It reshapes institutions, media, and participation in ways that systematically weaken democratic accountability." The quote is attributed to Bendegúz Plesz, MORES researcher at ELTE Centre for Social Sciences. Credit: MORES.
A square graphic with a blue background featuring a Veronika Patkos, a woman dressed in a white shirt. A quote in white text and abstract white quotes are placed below. The quote itself reads: "Whether comparing countries or looking within them, the pattern is the same: higher polarisation goes hand in hand with weaker democratic accountability." The quote is attributed to Veronika Pathós, MORES researcher at ELTE Centre for Social Sciences. Credit: MORES.
A square graphic featuring a quote in white text on a blue background with abstract white quotation marks. The quote itself reads: "Our study shows that polarisation itself—through institutions, media, and participation—weakens democratic accountability even when partisanship is considered." The quote is attributed to Veronika Pathós, MORES researcher at ELTE Centre for Social Sciences. The design is minimalist, emphasizing the message with subtle visual accents. Credit: MORES.
New MORES study of 28 European democracies finds: higher polarisation weakens democratic accountability. As divisions grow, accountability further declines.🧪
Read more and download the study:
📖mores-horizon.eu/blog/when-democracy-erod...
#MORESresearch #Democracy
Negative emotions are everywhere—in the media & politics.
In this video, Prof Eran Halperin, MORES co-investigator at @picr-lab.bsky.social, explains how emotion-regulation strategies may help people stay balanced when politics gets too emotional.
▶️ youtu.be/E_FugFDXmg4
#MORESProject #Research 🧪
A person with long hair smiles while looking at a digital device in an indoor setting. The image features overlaid text reading, “Navigate emotions, shape politics. Join our free newsletter now,” accompanied by abstract blue quotation mark design element (the MORES Project icon) and a small speech bubble icon.
Our next MORES newsletter arrives tomorrow 🗞️
It features an interview with the team behind MORES Pulse AI — a new multilingual tool that detects emotions in text and helps users assess and shape communication.
Sign up today 👉 preview.mailerlite.io/forms/957275...
#MORES #AI #Research #Science
Can metaverses change how we feel about real-life politics?
@gameinsociety.bsky.social thinks so.
He built MetaMORES—a 3D space for emotional expression & collective decision-making. It’s a game, but also a way to explore how political choices unfold online.
👉https://bit.ly/mauco
#Research 🧪
Headshot of Eran Halperin, Professor and MORES Co-Investigator at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A quote appears at the bottom: 'We are interested in examining when and how populism—and populist rhetoric—becomes corrosive to democratic institutions.' Neutral background with the subject in formal attire. Credit: MORES.
Can democracies resist the emotional pull of “the people” versus “the elites”?
MORES researchers are testing whether spotting emotional triggers and manipulative cues can help citizens push back against divisive rhetoric—& protect democratic debate.
🧪 mores-horizon.eu/blog/can-dem...
#Populism
Just launched: MORES Pulse, a free, research-based AI tool that reveals emotions hidden in text.
Perfect for researchers, journalists, communicators & anyone curious about how emotions drive narratives.🧪
Learn more: bit.ly/4nsLvU9
#MORESresearch #AI #TechForGood #HorizonEU #emotions
#Tools
Can fiction teach us something real about politics? 🎬
MORES researcher @tscher.bsky.social at @viadrina.eu analyses 3 European TV shows—and explains how their protagonists turn anger into inclusive governance.🧪
▶️ Full explainer: bit.ly/47ErSmT
#MORESresearch #Populism #TVseries #Democracy
Silhouette of a person standing against a sunlit brick wall, with a sharp triangular shadow stretching upward, cast by an unseen structure. Photo credit: Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash.
Why do we feel collective fear—climate change, migrants?
Fear protects us from danger and can coordinate smart action. However, it can also be stretched into endless “crisis” talk by politicians, which can manipulate and divide.🧪
Learn how to spot the framing: mores-horizon.eu/glossary/fear
Smiling young woman with curly hair and eyes closed, radiating joy while raising her hand, overlaid with bold text that reads: “Joy. Pleasant, Powerful, and Political.” Credit: MORES project.
Joy is short-lived—but it forms lasting memories and can be deeply social.
We explore how joy strengthens group identity and brings people together in moments of political meaning. 🧪
Learn why joy matters for democracy: mores-horizon.eu/glossary/joy
#MORESresearch #Emotions #Society #HorizonEU
