Apocalypticism is the belief in an impending large-scale catastrophic event that would threaten the survival of the human race. Despite the high level of apocalypticism among American adults, there has been little empirical research conducted to determine whether this proclivity is socially consequential. Conspiracism, a related factor, is widely studied empirically and is associated with many negative societal effects. Though research suggests a possible correlation between these variables, empirical research has not examined whether apocalypticism is a robust predictor of conspiracism. I hypothesize and test whether apocalypticism is predictive of belief in conspiracy theories using data from the 2018 Chapman Survey of American Fears, a nationally representative sample of American adults. From this data a multi-item conspiracism index was created and analyzed in relation with a measure of belief in apocalypticism. Regression analyses show that apocalyptic belief is the strongest predictor of conspiracism within the model, surpassing sociodemographic, political and religious characteristics. These results demonstrate that apocalypticism is an important factor to consider when studying conspiracism, and suggests that future researchers should further investigate apocalypticism using a variety of social scientific methods.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:asrf-2022 |
| Date | 25 April 2023 |
| Creators | Summers, Olivia |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Appalachian Student Research Forum |
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