News - 28 Marzo 2019 European and US Populism: Key Insights for Strong Minds Cognitive psychology offers the tools to understand how populist movements leverage envy and fear to gain popular support. Yet populists do not offer solutions to the big problems of the modern world, such as globalization and climate change. While we desperately need a rational approach to confront issues, populism appears to be part of the problem, and not part of a solution.