Common neurodegenerative diseases as well as healthy aging lead to cognitive changes in various domains. As the percentage of the elderly increases around the world, it is important to gain a better understanding of these changes. Early stages of cognitive decline do not affect the independence of the elderly. However, changes in certain aspects of life, such as decision- making, have been observed even in the initial phases of decline. Similar mechanisms that change with cognitive decline are also important for social attitudes, including the increasingly present populist views, and consequently have a significant impact on society. Populism refers to the idea that society can be separated into “us” and “them”, into “virtuous people” and “others”, which can be the elite or minorities. Populism is tightly connected to media, especially as the media is skilfully used to spread populistic ideas. In this thesis, the association between populist attitudes and cognitive disorders was studied using a questionnaire and neuropsychological assessments. Populist attitudes were measured on the dimensions of anti- elitism, people centrism and othering, as well as on these same dimensions in connection to the media. Data were gathered for 27 participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 24 participants with subjective cognitive decline (SCD), and 26 control participants. All participants completed a survey by phone. Additionally, for participants with SCD and MCI, data from a neuropsychological examination were collected. This study found significantly more heterogeneous answers in the group with MCI than in the group with SCD and the control group on the dimension of media’s anti-elitism. A statistical trend of more heterogeneity in the answers of the group with MCI compared to the control group on the dimension of othering was also uncovered. Other results on populist attitudes did not differ significantly among the groups. Nevertheless, descriptive statistics showed a consistent pattern of greater heterogeneity of answers across all dimensions of populism in participants with MCI compared to the controls. The findings were more mixed for participants with SCD. All the participants in this research expressed their agreement or disagreement with populist attitudes more extremely than the participants of the Slovenian representative public opinion survey. The associations between socio-demographic factors and the dimensions of anti-elitism, people-centrism, and othering were shown to differ between the participants with cognitive disorders and the controls. Analysis uncovered a connection between lower anti-elitism and better executive functions, more heterogeneous answers on people-centrism and better results on language and associated executive function tests, as well as between less heterogeneous answers on othering and better-preserved executive functions. This thesis provides evidence to support the view that populist attitudes, or susceptibility to them, change with cognitive decline. In addition, the findings suggest that decline in different cognitive domains is connected to specific changes in social attitudes. Moreover, the results highlight the importance of researching populist views on an individual level and the benefits of separately studying social attitudes in the elderly.
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