Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Emotional Distress as a Mediator of the Threat Sensitivity and Conspiratorial Ideation Relation

Bowes, Shauna Marie, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Lisa Fazio at Vanderbilt University, this postdoctoral award fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the relationships among conspiratorial ideation, threat sensitivity, and emotional distress. Conspiratorial ideation is a pervasive problem in America that is strongly associated with threat sensitivity, spanning existential, epistemic, and outgroup threat sensitivity, and emotional distress, spanning anxiety, anger, and depression. Understanding whether and to what extent threat sensitivity precedes conspiratorial ideation across the lifespan and levels of prior commitment to conspiracy theories will shed light on when conspiratorial ideation starts and how it manifests. Adolescence may represent a “window of vulnerability” for conspiratorial ideation, and individuals with a strong commitment to conspiracy theories are most likely to act on their beliefs in ways that are detrimental to society. Thus, it is crucial to understand conspiratorial ideation in these populations. Perhaps even more importantly, examining whether emotional distress mediates the relations between threat sensitivity and conspiratorial ideation and identifying whether conspiratorial ideation is related to neural instantiations of threat sensitivity will assist future research aiming to develop effective and long-lasting interventions for conspiratorial ideation. The integration of social science, developmental science, and behavioral neuroscience will provide essential insights into conspiratorial ideation and how to change it. Preliminary research suggests that threat sensitivity longitudinally predicts conspiratorial ideation, raising the important possibility that threat sensitivity may help explain the emergence of conspiratorial ideation. Yet, the emotional mechanisms underlying these relations remain opaque, preventing a full understanding of conspiratorial ideation. As such, this study will uncover whether emotional distress mediates the longitudinal relations between threat sensitivity and conspiratorial ideation. In Study 1, the longitudinal relations between multiple forms of threat sensitivity (existential, epistemic, and outgroup) and conspiratorial ideation will be examined in 3 samples: non-conspiratorial adults, adolescents (11 – 17 yr), and conspiratorial adults. Moreover, different forms of emotional distress (depression, anxiety, and anger) will be examined as mediators in these relations. There will be 3 timepoints, with each timepoint being separated by a period of 6 weeks. This study also aims to investigate whether conspiratorial ideation is related to neural indicators of threat sensitivity, which will ultimately assist future research aiming to develop effective and long-lasting interventions for conspiratorial ideation. In Study 2, a neural instantiation of threat sensitivity will be examined in relation to conspiratorial ideation in 3 samples: non-conspiratorial adults, adolescents (11 – 17 yr), and conspiratorial adults. Specifically, late positive potential (LPP) reactivity will be examined, which is an event-related potential (ERP) component that is heightened for threatening, but not neutral, images. Participants will complete self-report measures of conspiratorial ideation, threat sensitivity, and emotional distress, and they will then complete the ERP task. The ERP task will be a novel emotional interrupt task. The proposed research will increase our understanding of the development and maintenance of conspiratorial ideation and broadly advance knowledge in the social and behavioral sciences. 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.