The dynamics of public opinion following terror attacks: Evidence for a decrease in equalitarian values from Internet Search Volume Indices

Troïan, Jaïs; Arciszewski, Thomas; Apostolidis, Thémis

doi:10.5817/cp2019-3-4

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Since McPhail and Miller (1973) conducted their study, however, the way people communicate with one another has changed considerably, especially with the technological advances and growing access to social media. When troubled by an event, people use Internet and search engines to learn more (Troian et al., 2019). Moreover, through social media platforms, they can engage in exchange of information and points of view about social and political events.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of social identity in the explanation of collective action: An intergroup perspective on the Yellow Vests movement

Mahfud

Urbanska

Guimond

2021

J Applied Social Pyschol

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Social psychologists have developed influential theoretical models to understand intergroup conflicts, radicalism, and collective action. November 2018 saw the emergence of a new powerful movement in France named the Yellow Vests. Born on social media, the movement has sustained an unprecedented period of intense protests and violent clashes with the police, challenging the French government. As such, this movement offers an ideal context to examine the real‐world relevance of current social‐psychological theorizing. Using a social identity and self‐categorization perspective, two correlational studies (three samples, N = 1,849) tested the role of self‐categorization as a group member, or social identity, in accounting for individual participation in normative and nonnormative collective action. Using different operationalizations of identification, both studies confirm a powerful role of identification as a Yellow Vest and provided evidence that the effect of social media use on collective action is fully mediated by self‐categorization as a Yellow Vest. An alternative model suggesting that social media use mediated the relation between social identity and collective action was not supported by the data.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of social identity in the explanation of collective action: An intergroup perspective on the Yellow Vests movement

Mahfud

Urbanska

Guimond

2021

J Applied Social Pyschol

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“…Terrorists attempt to harm targeted communities in two ways: (1) directly by injury and (2) indirectly by shifting public opinion against the targeted communities ( 7 , 8 ). However, psychological research suggests that terrorists do not generally succeed in their second objective: initially, attacked minorities experience greater acceptance ( 8 , 9 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term causal effects of far-right terrorism in New Zealand

Bulbulia,

Afzali,

Yogeeswaran

et al. 2023

PNAS Nexus

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The Christchurch mosque attacks in 2019, committed by a radical right-wing extremist, resulted in the tragic loss of 51 lives. Following these events, there was a noticable rise in societal acceptance of Muslim minorities. Comparable transient reactions have been observed elsewhere. However, the critical questions remain: can these effects endure? Are enduring effects evident across the political spectrum? It is challenging to answer such questions because identifying long-term causal effects requires estimating unobserved attitudinal trajectories without the attacks. Here, we use six preattack waves of Muslim acceptance responses from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) to infer missing counterfactual trajectories (NZAVS cohort 2012, N=4,865; replicated in 2013 cohort, N=7,894). We find (1) the attacks initially boosted Muslim acceptance; (2) the magnitude of the initial Muslim acceptance boost was similar across the political spectrum; (3) no changes were observed in negative control groups; and (4) two- and three-year effects varied by baseline political orientation: liberal acceptance was stable, conservative acceptance grew relative to the counterfactual trend. Overall, the attacks added five years of growth in Muslim acceptance, with no regression to preattack levels over time. Continued growth among conservatives highlights the attack’s failure to divide society. These results demonstrate the utility of combining methods for causal inference with national-scale panel data to answer psychological questions of basic human concern.

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“…In addition, when extracting data regarding a specific word in Google Trends, it is possible to retrieve its prevalence among all search entries in a given population. For example, data extracted for the word “completely” would count each time this word was contained in every request among the population and area of interest during a specified time span (for more information regarding the inner workings and applications of Google Trends data, see also Jun et al, 2018; Troian, Arciszewski, & Apostolidis, 2019).…”

Section: The Present Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Absolutist Words From Search Volume Data Predict State-Level Suicide Rates in the United States

Arciszewski

2020

Clinical Psychological Science

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Suicide continues to be a major public health issue, especially in the United States. It is a well-established fact that depression and suicidal ideation are risk factors for suicide. Drawing on recent research that shows that absolutist words (e.g., “completely,” “totally”) constitute linguistic markers of suicidal ideation, we created an online index of absolutist thinking (ATI) using search query data (i.e., Google Trends time series). Mixed-model analyses of age-adjusted suicide rates in the United States from 2004 to 2017 revealed that ATI is linked with suicides, β = 0.22, 95% CI = [0.12, 0.31], p < .001, and predicts suicides within 1 year, β = 0.16, 95% CI = [0.05, 0.28], p = .006, independently of state characteristics and historical trends. It is the first time that a collective measure of absolutist thinking is used to predict real-world suicide outcomes. Therefore, the present study paves the way for novel research avenues in clinical psychological research.

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The dynamics of public opinion following terror attacks: Evidence for a decrease in equalitarian values from Internet Search Volume Indices

Cited by 7 publications

References 47 publications

The role of social identity in the explanation of collective action: An intergroup perspective on the Yellow Vests movement

The role of social identity in the explanation of collective action: An intergroup perspective on the Yellow Vests movement

Long-term causal effects of far-right terrorism in New Zealand

Absolutist Words From Search Volume Data Predict State-Level Suicide Rates in the United States

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