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Anxiety in International Politics During COVID

COVID-19 Research Area(s): Mental Health & Wellbeing, Politics, Governance & Law

We seek to demonstrate that political, social, end environmental threats that are relevant to International Relations cause people to seek ontological security by affirming an established system of meaning. To do so, we will determine if 1) political, social, end environmental threats cause people to become more nationalistic, and if 2) political, social, end environmental threats can cause people to become more nationalistic or more cosmopolitan, depending on which belief system is salient (this is consistent with the belief that they become more extreme when they experience anxiety). This project offers an experimental test of these hypotheses, but also uses the present COVID-19 crisis to evaluate how people's attitudes have changed since an earlier (no-threat) time point.

Post date: 
Apr 29, 2020