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Reposted by Stefan Leach

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

National identity drives a range of actions, from civic engagement to intergroup violence. Our new paper presents a novel approach using LLMs to code expressions of positive (national identification, patriotism) & defensive (nationalism, national narcissism) identities. osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

⭐Conclusions⭐ LLMs offer a reliable, valid, and scalable approach to labeling texts for nuanced expressions of national identity across contexts and languages, enabling new insights into contemporary and historical politics. Feedback welcome! ➤ osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/9jcvr_v1 🧵 8/8

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

📈Insights📈 Applying LLMs to political communications revealed: ➤ Expressions of national identities in US presidential addresses have doubled over the twentieth century ➤ Defensive national identities are five times more prevalent in Republicans' social media posts than Democrats' 🧵 7/8

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

📈Generalizability📈 We applied the approach to languages other than English with ease and no loss of validity. LLM labels for nationalism tracked those provided by native-language speakers across 400+ world leader speeches in 25 languages (Global Populism Database; Hawkins et al., 2025). 🧵 6/8

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

📈Validity📈 The best LLMs converged with domain experts in 75%+ of cases and out-performed crowdworkers and classifiers based on dictionary scores–whilst being 1000x cheaper than the former. 🧵 5/8

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

📈Reliability📈 Labels for national identities were stable across prompts, models, and time. 🧵 4/8

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

✏️Method✏️ We tasked GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Llama 4 Maverick with labelling texts for national identification and patriotism (positive identities) and national narcissism and nationalism (defensive identities). 🧵 3/8

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

💡Motivation💡 Political outcomes are shaped by how people identify with their nation—from patriotic pride (positive identities) to our-country-first nationalism (defensive identities). Capturing these expressions remains a challenge, but LLMs promise a cheap and scalable alternative. 🧵 2/8

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

📚Preprint📚 Gregson, Nikadon, Formanowicz, @chiarazazzarino.bsky.social, Kitchin, Kosinski, @jayvanbavel.bsky.social @alekscichocka.bsky.social ➤ osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/9jcvr_v1 Tasked LLMs to label national identities in social media posts and political speeches (25 languages, 13M words) 🧵 1/8

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 28/05/2024

👋Feedback welcome👋 This is a preprint that has yet to be peer reviewed. Any comments, ideas, or suggestions for improvement appreciated! Thanks to the NYU Social Identity & Morality Lab for their helpful feedback throughout the project! osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵 7/7

osf.io

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 28/05/2024

⭐Conclusions⭐ 1. Appeals to national identities linked to online engagement and electoral success 2. Expressing exceptionalist and defensive identities particularly beneficial for right-wing politicians 🧵 6/7

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 28/05/2024

📈Results II 📈 Democrats who used more defensive rhetoric before an election received a 42% smaller vote share (no effect for Republicans). Politicians from both parties received a 16% greater vote share when using more positive identity rhetoric. 🧵 5/7

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 28/05/2024

📈Results I 📈 Expressions of national exceptionalism and entitlement (defensive identity) liked and reposted more when posted by right-wing politicians (but not left-wing). National attachment and pride (positive identity) liked more regardless of who posted. 🧵 4/7

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 28/05/2024

✏️Method✏️ Used GPT3.5 to code 750K posts from UK and US politicians for national exceptionalism and entitlement (defensive identity) + attachment and pride (positive identity). GPT’s annotations were comparable to humans’. 🧵 3/7

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 28/05/2024

💡Motivation💡 Effective social media strategies rooted in identity politics are thought to play an important role in contemporary politics, but their effectiveness remains unclear. 🧵 2/7

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Stefan Leach @stefanleach.bsky.social · 28/05/2024

📚Preprint📚 /w Jan Nikadon, Chiara Zazzarino, Magda Formanowicz, Aleksandra Cislak, @jayvanbavel.bsky.social, Michal Kosinski, @alekscichocka.bsky.social We analysed politicians' X posts to test the links between national identity rhetoric and political success! osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵 1/7

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