The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation.

Numerous studies find associations between social media use and beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation. While such findings are often interpreted as evidence that social media causally promotes conspiracy beliefs, we theorize that this relationship is conditional on other individual-level predispositions. Across two studies, we examine the relationship between beliefs in conspiracy theories and media use, finding that individuals who get their news from social media and use social media frequently express more beliefs in some types of conspiracy theories and misinformation. However, we also find that these relationships are conditional on conspiracy thinking--the predisposition to interpret salient events as products of conspiracies--such that social media use becomes more strongly associated with conspiracy beliefs as conspiracy thinking intensifies. This pattern, which we observe across many beliefs from two studies, clarifies the relationship between social media use and beliefs in dubious ideas. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-021-09734-6.

COVID-19 and Urban Futures: Impacts on Business Closures in Miami-Dade County

The COVID-19 pandemic altered the local economic geographies of many U.S. cities, and it remains unclear how long these changes will persist. This study analyzed the sociospatial dynamics of business closures in Miami-Dade County, Florida, from August 2020 to August 2021 with an explicit focus on reconciling the pandemic's effects in the context of location theory. We found that traditional urban centers and transit-concentrated areas experienced disproportionately higher rates of business closures during the study period, suggesting a potential wave of commercial suburbanization in Miami. Middle-class and working-class Hispanic neighborhoods suffered the most business closures. The results of correlation analysis and spatial regression models suggested a positive association between the incidence of COVID-19 cases and business closures at both zip code and individual business levels. These results also beckon a revaluation of the role of certain urban externalities in traditional location theory. The importance of automobile accessibility and agglomeration effects are poised to persist beyond the pandemic, but the benefits of proximity to the public transport system might decline. The trends observed in Miami suggest that the pandemic could generate more automobile-reliant employment subcenters in U.S. cities and amplify problems of intraurban inequality and urban sprawl. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] La pandemia del COVID-19 alteró las geografías económicas locales de muchas ciudades de los Estados Unidos, y aún no hay claridad por cuánto tiempo más persistirán estos cambios. Este estudio analizó la dinámica socioespacial del cierre de negocios en el Condado de Miami-Dade, Florida, de agosto del 2020 hasta agosto del 2021, centrándose explícitamente en reconciliar los efectos de la pandemia dentro del contexto de la teoría locacional. Descubrimos que los centros urbanos tradicionales y las áreas de tránsito concentrado experimentaron tasas desproporcionadamente más altas de cierres de negocios durante el período del estudio, lo cual sugiere una ola potencial de suburbanización comercial en Miami. Los vecindarios hispánicos de clase media y de la clase trabajadora sufrieron al máximo de cierres de negocios. Los resultados del análisis de los modelos de correlación y regresión espacial sugirieron una asociación positiva entre la incidencia de los casos de COVID-19 y los cierres de negocios, tanto al nivel de los códigos zip como de los negocios individuales. Estos resultados también invitan a la revaluación del papel de ciertas externalidades urbanas en la teoría locacional tradicional. La importancia de la accesibilidad al automóvil y los efectos de la aglomeración muestran disposición a persistir más allá de la pandemia, opero los beneficios de la proximidad del sistema de transporte público podría declinar. La tendencia observada en Miami sugiere que la pandemia podría generar más subcentros de empleo dependientes del automóvil en las ciudades americanas y ampliar los problemas de desigualdad intraurbana y la dispersión urbana. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] COVID-19疫情改变了美国许多城市的地方经济地理。目前, 尚不清楚这些变化会持续多久。本研究分析了2020年8月至2021年8月期间佛罗里达州迈阿密-戴德县商业倒闭的社会空间变化, 根据区位理论探讨了对疫情影响的缓解。我们发现, 在此期间, 传统的城市中心和交通密集地区经历了不成比例的更高的商业倒闭率, 这表明迈阿密可能会出现商业郊区化浪潮。西班牙裔中产阶级和工人阶级社区出现了最多的商业倒闭。相关性分析和空间回归模型结果表明, 在邮政编码尺度和个体尺度, COVID-19发病率与商业倒闭都存在着正相关性。这些结果也呼吁, 需要重新评估某些城市外部特性在传统区位理论中的作用。汽车可及性和聚集效应的重要性将会一直持续到疫情之后, 但公共交通系统的临近优势可能会下降。迈阿密的趋势表明, COVID-19可能会在美国城市产生更多依赖于汽车的就业分中心, 加剧城市内部不平等、城市扩张等问题。 (Chinese) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Annals of the American Association of Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

How Anti-Social Personality Traits and Anti-Establishment Views Promote Beliefs in Election Fraud, QAnon, and COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

Conspiracy theories and misinformation (CTM) became a salient feature of the Trump era. However, traditional explanations of political attitudes and behaviors inadequately account for beliefs in CTM or the deleterious behaviors they are associated with. Here, we integrate disparate literatures to explain beliefs in CTM regarding COVID-19, QAnon, and voter fraud. We aim to provide a more holistic accounting, and to determine which political, psychological, and social factors are most associated with such beliefs. Using a unique national survey, we find that anti-social personality traits, anti-establishment orientations, and support for Donald Trump are more strongly related to beliefs in CTM than traditional left-right orientations or other frequently posited factors, such as education, science literacy, and social media use. Our findings encourage researchers to move beyond the traditional correlates of political behavior when examining beliefs that express anti-social tendencies or a deep skepticism of social and political institutions.

How Anti-Social Personality Traits and Anti-Establishment Views Promote Beliefs in Election Fraud, QAnon, and COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

Conspiracy theories and misinformation (CTM) became a salient feature of the Trump era. However, traditional explanations of political attitudes and behaviors inadequately account for beliefs in CTM or the deleterious behaviors they are associated with. Here, we integrate disparate literatures to explain beliefs in CTM regarding COVID-19, QAnon, and voter fraud. We aim to provide a more holistic accounting, and to determine which political, psychological, and social factors are most associated with such beliefs. Using a unique national survey, we find that anti-social personality traits, anti-establishment orientations, and support for Donald Trump are more strongly related to beliefs in CTM than traditional left-right orientations or other frequently posited factors, such as education, science literacy, and social media use. Our findings encourage researchers to move beyond the traditional correlates of political behavior when examining beliefs that express anti-social tendencies or a deep skepticism of social and political institutions. [ FROM AUTHOR]

On the relationship between conspiracy theory beliefs, misinformation, and vaccine hesitancy.

At the time of writing, nearly one hundred published studies demonstrate that beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories and misinformation are negatively associated with COVID-19 preventive behaviors. These correlational findings are often interpreted as evidence that beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation are exogenous factors that shape human behavior, such as forgoing vaccination. This interpretation has motivated researchers to develop methods for "prebunking," "debunking," or otherwise limiting the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation online. However, the robust literatures on conspiracy theory beliefs, health behaviors, and media effects lead us to question whether beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation should be treated as exogenous to vaccine hesitancy and refusal. Employing U.S. survey data (n = 2,065) from July 2021, we show that beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories and misinformation are not only related to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal, but also strongly associated with the same psychological, social, and political motivations theorized to drive COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal. These findings suggest that beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation might not always be an exogenous cause, but rather a manifestation of the same factors that lead to vaccine hesitancy and refusal. We conclude by encouraging researchers to carefully consider modeling choices and imploring practitioners to refocus on the worldviews, personality traits, and political orientations that underlie both health-related behaviors and beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Sociopolitical and psychological correlates of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States during summer 2021.

Vaccine hesitancy and refusal continue to hamper COVID-19 control efforts. Throughout the pandemic, scientists and journalists have attributed lagging COVID-19 vaccination rates to a shifting set of factors including demography, experiences during the height of the pandemic, political views, and beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation, among others. However, these factors have rarely been tested comprehensively, in tandem, or alongside other potentially underlying psychological factors, thus limiting our understanding of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. This cross-sectional study assesses a diverse set of correlates of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy identified in previous studies using US survey data (N = 2055) collected in July-August 2021. The survey contained modules designed to assess various sociopolitical domains and anti- and pro-social personality characteristics hypothesized to shape vaccine hesitancy. Using logistic and multinomial regression, we found that the strongest correlate of vaccine hesitancy was belief in misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines, though we surmise that this common explanation may be endogenous to vaccine hesitancy. Political beliefs explained more variation in vaccine hesitancy-and in particular, vaccine refusal-after belief in COVID-19 vaccine misinformation was excluded from the analysis. Our findings help reconcile numerous disparate findings across the literature with implications for health education and future research.

Cause and effect: On the antecedents and consequences of conspiracy theory beliefs.

Since 2008, hundreds of studies have been published about conspiracy theories, many of which were in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. These studies are often motivated by concerns about the influence of exposure to conspiracy theories on beliefs, and the impact of conspiracy theory beliefs on behaviors. Numerous studies identify supportive correlations, concluding implicitly or explicitly that exposure causes belief and that beliefs subsequently cause behavior. We argue that while these causal relationships may exist, such conclusions currently lack robust evidence. We present an alternative model of the relationship between exposure, beliefs, and behaviors that accounts for other potentially causal factors and pathways. We encourage further work into the causal effects of exposure to, and beliefs in, conspiracy theories.

Household water insecurity will complicate the ongoing COVID-19 response: Evidence from 29 sites in 23 low- and middle-income countries.

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a set of public guidelines for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevention measures that highlighted handwashing, physical distancing, and household cleaning. These health behaviors are severely compromised in parts of the world that lack secure water supplies, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We used empirical data gathered in 2017-2018 from 8,297 households in 29 sites across 23 LMICs to address the potential implications of water insecurity for COVID-19 prevention and response. These data demonstrate how household water insecurity presents many pathways for limiting personal and environmental hygiene, impeding physical distancing and exacerbating existing social and health vulnerabilities that can lead to more severe COVID-19 outcomes. In the four weeks prior to survey implementation, 45.9% of households in our sample either were unable to wash their hands or reported borrowing water from others, which may undermine hygiene and physical distancing. Further, 70.9% of households experienced one or more water-related problems that potentially undermine COVID-19 control strategies or disease treatment, including insufficient water for bathing, laundering, or taking medication; drinking unsafe water; going to sleep thirsty; or having little-to-no drinking water. These findings help identify where water provision is most relevant to managing COVID-19 spread and outcomes.