RAPID: Antecedents and Consequences of Disaster-Related Conspiracy Theories

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Abstract

A conspiracy theory is the belief that powerful actors are engaging in wide-ranging, black-boxed (often criminal or ambiguously legal) activities for their own political or personal gain. Conspiracy theories often arise in response to large-scale, surprising, negative events as an attempt for people to satisfy epistemic and existential needs for order, certainty, and control that are triggered by the event. Although conspiracy theory beliefs often the result of mundane psychological and strategic processes, they can have negative consequences for democratic governance/accountability, national security, and national health, prosperity, and welfare. Conspiracy theories center on blame attribution and can motivate attitudes and behavior in response to the attribution. As such, they are particularly problematic for democratic governance and accountability. To examine the effect of public perception of conspiracy theories on electoral outcomes in the aftermath of a major natural disaster, this project surveys a nationally representative sample of 1,000 citizens in a region that has just experienced a major earthquake prior to a national election and 1,000 citizens shortly after the national election. The study advances understanding of the assertion that people who perceive themselves to be on the losing side of politics are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than their counterparts on the winning side of politics. The project will survey a nationally representative sample of 1,000 citizens prior to a national election and a second nationally representative sample of 1,000 citizens shortly after the national election. The surveys will be comprised of questions aimed at assessing the extent to which respondents endorse a series of earthquake-related conspiracy theories as well as the antecedents and consequences of conspiracy theory beliefs. A stratified probability sampling frame based on the random selection of districts and neighborhoods/villages as primary sampling units will be used for both the pre- and post-election surveys. Both samples will be weighted to national demographic benchmarks. The proposed project advances our understanding of these consequential beliefs in three ways: (1) it argues that different conspiracy theories can satisfy different motives, and that, therefore the strength of association between commonly-studied antecedents and each conspiracy theory will vary depending on the characteristics of the conspiracy theories themselves, (2) it explores whether the antecedents and consequences of conspiracy theory beliefs differ before and after a hotly contested, ideologically-charged election, (3) the project's pre/post-election design will enable a direct test the assertion that people who perceive themselves to be on the losing side of politics are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than their counterparts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.