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

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学博士后奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在范德比尔特大学的Lisa Fazio博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金奖支持一位早期职业科学家研究阴谋思想、威胁敏感性和情绪困扰之间的关系。阴谋思想在美国是一个普遍存在的问题，它与威胁敏感性密切相关，包括存在性、认知性和外群体威胁敏感性，以及情绪困扰，包括焦虑、愤怒和抑郁。了解威胁敏感性在一生中是否以及在多大程度上先于阴谋思想，以及事先对阴谋理论的承诺水平，将有助于了解阴谋思想何时开始以及如何表现出来。青少年可能是阴谋思想的“脆弱窗口”，对阴谋论有强烈信念的个人最有可能以对社会有害的方式按照他们的信仰行事。因此，了解这些人群中的阴谋思想是至关重要的。也许更重要的是，研究情绪困扰是否介导威胁敏感性和阴谋观念之间的关系，以及确定阴谋观念是否与威胁敏感性的神经实例化有关，将有助于未来旨在开发有效和持久干预阴谋观念的研究。社会科学、发展科学和行为神经科学的整合将提供关于阴谋思想以及如何改变它的基本见解。初步研究表明，威胁敏感性在纵向上预测阴谋思想，提出了威胁敏感性可能有助于解释阴谋思想出现的重要可能性。然而，这些关系背后的情感机制仍然不透明，阻碍了对阴谋思想的充分理解。因此，本研究将揭示情绪困扰是否在威胁敏感性与阴谋意念的纵向关系中起中介作用。在研究1中，多种形式的威胁敏感性（存在、认知和外群体）与阴谋思想之间的纵向关系将在3个样本中进行检验：非阴谋成人、青少年（11 - 17岁）和阴谋成人。此外，不同形式的情绪困扰（抑郁、焦虑和愤怒）将作为这些关系的中介进行检查。将有3个时间点，每个时间点之间间隔6周。本研究亦旨在探讨阴谋意念是否与威胁敏感性的神经指标相关，以协助未来研究开发有效且持久的阴谋意念干预措施。在研究2中，威胁敏感性的神经实例将在三个样本中检验与阴谋思想的关系：非阴谋的成年人、青少年（11 - 17岁）和阴谋的成年人。具体来说，晚期正电位（LPP）反应性将被检查，这是一个事件相关电位（ERP）成分，在威胁性图像中被提高，而不是中性图像。参与者将完成阴谋思想、威胁敏感性和情绪困扰的自我报告，然后完成ERP任务。ERP任务将是一种新型的情绪中断任务。这项研究将增加我们对阴谋思想的发展和维持的理解，并广泛地推进社会和行为科学的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.