RAPID: Antecedents and Consequences of Disaster-Related Conspiracy Theories

阴谋论认为，有权势的人为了自己的政治或个人利益，正在从事广泛的、暗箱操作的（通常是犯罪的或模糊的法律的）活动。阴谋论通常出现在大规模的，令人惊讶的，负面的事件，作为一种尝试，让人们满足认知和存在的需要，秩序，确定性和控制，由事件触发。虽然阴谋论信仰通常是世俗心理和战略过程的结果，但它们可能对民主治理/问责制，国家安全以及国家健康，繁荣和福利产生负面影响。阴谋论以责备归因为中心，可以激发态度和行为来回应归因。因此，它们对民主治理和问责制特别成问题。 为了研究公众对阴谋论的看法对重大自然灾害后选举结果的影响，该项目调查了一个具有全国代表性的样本，其中包括在全国选举前刚刚经历过大地震的地区的1 000名公民和全国选举后不久的1 000名公民。这项研究促进了对这一论断的理解，即认为自己处于政治失败一方的人比政治胜利一方的人更有可能相信阴谋论。 该项目将在全国选举前对具有全国代表性的1 000名公民进行抽样调查，并在全国选举后不久对具有全国代表性的1 000名公民进行第二次抽样调查。调查将包括一些问题，旨在评估受访者对一系列与地震有关的阴谋论的认可程度，以及阴谋论信念的前因和后果。选举前和选举后的调查将采用分层概率抽样框架，以随机选择的地区和邻里/村庄为主要抽样单位。这两个样本将根据国家人口基准进行加权。拟议的项目以三种方式推进了我们对这些重要信念的理解：（1）不同的阴谋论可以满足不同的动机，因此，共同研究的前因与每个阴谋论之间的关联强度将取决于阴谋论本身的特征，（2）它探讨了阴谋论信仰的前因和后果是否在激烈竞争的，意识形态充满的选举之前和之后有所不同，（3）项目前期/后期-选举设计将使一个直接的测试断言，人们谁认为自己是在政治上失败的一方更有可能相信阴谋论比他们的同行。这个奖项反映了国家科学基金会的法定基金会的使命是履行其使命，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价，被认为值得支持。

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.