Do The High And Low Class Believe In Conspiracy Theories When They Are Uncertain?

Conspiracy theory has long been a hot topic of research among scholars in the society.Contemporary society,people often face a threat to social order of events,such as a terrorist attack,war and economic crisis.At the same time,in the era of information explosion,people access to the message more and more widely,the credibility of the message cannot be guaranteed.The conspiracy theorists take this way to publicize the false statements,increase the uncertainty of the public.Foreign scholars pointed out that the uncertainty has an important influence on conspiracy theories,because the conspiracy theory can play an explanatory role to reshape the public's sense of order,which is urgently needed after the events that threaten the social order,and reduce the sense of uncertainty.Furthermore,according to the differences in cognition among different social classes,it is reasonable to think that the influence of uncertainty on different classes is different.In order to test this hypothesis,the purpose of this thesis is to study the influence of uncertainty on conspiracy theory of different classes under the social environment of China.Study 1,questionnaire was used to distribute questionnaires on the Internet.The subjects were mainly college students,graduate students,and adult subjects within two years of graduation.A total of 317 valid questionnaires were collected.we find that under the background of China,the sense of uncertainty can predict the conspiracy theory,and the further analysis finds that the social class would have an moderating affect on uncertainty to conspiracy theory.In particular,for the lower classes,the higher the uncertainty,the more likely to believe in conspiracy theories;For the high classes,uncertainty and conspiracy theories have no effect.Study 2 was conducted through an experiment with 120 college students as participants.In study 2,120 college students was randomly divided into four groups,manipulated to further verify the social class would have an moderating affect on uncertainty to conspiracy theory.The results of variance analysis showed that the results consistent with the study 1 support the research hypothesis.In general,this study draws the following conclusions:the uncertainty has a significant positive predictive effect on conspiracy theory,and uncertainty influences conspiracy theory indirectly via the moderate role of social class:in the low class conditions,the relationship between uncertainty and conspiracy theory was established;but in the high class conditions,the model was not.Finally,this study also puts forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions,which has certain application value.