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American apocalypse: The end 'feels personal and imminent'

Deutsche Welle · 🇩🇪 public Germany · · 834 words · By Conor Dillon; Gabriel Borrud
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What to know about American apocalypse: The end 'feels personal and imminent'

The article discusses a study on how beliefs about the end of the world influence attitudes toward global risks. Researchers found that perceptions of personal relevance and immediacy affect support for policies addressing issues like climate change and AI. The study involved participants from diverse backgrounds and examined factors like perceived cause and post-apocalyptic scenarios.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 7
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center100%
Right0%

3 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

American apocalypse: The end 'feels personal and imminent' March 24, 2026"People believe all sorts of things about how the world's going to end," said Matthew Billet, social psychologist at University of California, Irvine, US, in conversation with Science…

Why it matters

"Some people mean human extinction," Billet said.

Common ground

"Some people mean the collapse of civilization or some sort of transformation of civilization as we know it, sometimes leading to a utopia, or a revitalization of humanity.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

The article discusses a study on how beliefs about the end of the world influence attitudes toward global risks. Researchers found that perceptions of personal relevance and immediacy affect support for policies addressing issues like climate change and AI. The study involved participants from diverse backgrounds and examined factors like perceived cause and post-apocalyptic scenarios.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.dw.com/en/american-apocalypse-the-end-feels-personal-and-imminent/a-…

analyticsAnalysis

0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 95%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 7 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

verified Verified By Reference 3
help Insufficient Evidence 3
check_circle Corroborated 1
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Claim 1: “People's attitudes to global risks depend on four factors: how soon you think the world is going to end, how you think it's going to end, what role you personally have in its end, and what you think is going to happen after the end.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results from ResearchGate, Springer Nature, and the World Economic Forum discuss risk perception influenced by perceived immediacy, personal responsibility, and post-apocalyptic beliefs, aligning with the claim's factors.
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web search NEUTRAL — Individual resilience is crucial amid risingglobalthreats, yetriskperceptionsand resilience worldwide remain inadequately elucidated. This research pioneers a global-scale analysis of individualriskpe…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-46680-1
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web search NEUTRAL — Nov 24, 2018 ·The second group ofbeliefsperforms a stabilizing function, contributes to coping with anxiety beforeglobalthreats through increasing adherence to group norms: religiosity, orientationtow…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330901112_The_Psych…
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web search NEUTRAL — Riskperceptionisinfluencedbypersonalbeliefsand experience, which are shaped by accepted information and ideas 2. Earlier works by Slovic 3, 4 provide a comprehensive examination ofriskperception, expl…
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10630481/
verified
Claim 2: “Participants in the study came from a variety of religious backgrounds: Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, and non-religious.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia entries for 'Mainline Protestant', 'Evangelical Protestant', and 'Protestantism in the United States' confirm the existence of these religious groups, corroborating the claim's participant demographics.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The term Evangelical Catholic (from catholic meaning universal and evangelical meaning Gospel-centered) is used in Lutheranism, with those calling themselves Evangelical Catholic Lutherans or Lutheran…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Catholic
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The mainline Protestants (also referred to as modernist Protestants or oldline Protestants) are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States and Canada largely of the theologically liberal…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainline_Protestant
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Protestantism is the largest grouping of Christians in the United States, with its combined denominations collectively comprising about 43% of the country's population (or 141 million people) in 2019.…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism_in_the_United_St…
+ 3 more evidence sources
help
Claim 3: “People who think the world is going to end in their lifetime tend to see global risks like climate change, pandemics, or AI as more severe.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No web search results, cross-references, or Wikipedia entries provide evidence about the relationship between perceived end-of-world timing and severity ratings of specific global risks.
verified
Claim 4: “One in three contemporary Americans considers an apocalypse as 'personal and imminent.'”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia entries for 'African Americans' and 'Americans' do not address apocalyptic beliefs or survey data about 'one in three' Americans perceiving an apocalypse as imminent.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group who, as defined by the United States census, consists of Americans who have…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States. U.S. federal law does not equate nationality with race or ethnicity, but rather with citizenship. The U.S. has 37 ancestry groups with mo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal started in 2009 when representatives of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores received a large number of clay bullae and tablets originating in the ancient Near East.…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scandal
verified
Claim 5: “The study involved six pilot studies with a total of 2,079 participants in the US and Canada, and a pre-registered study of 1,409 people.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Web search results discuss pilot studies in general but do not specify the exact participant counts (2,079 or 1,409) or geographic scope (US/Canada). No direct evidence confirms the claim's numerical details.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — There are two international borders between Canada and the United States: Canada's border with the northern tier of the contiguous United States to its south (6,416 kilometres or 3,987 miles), and wit…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada–United_States_border
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Canada and the United States have had a long and complex relationship that has had a significant impact on each other's history, economy, and shared culture. The two countries have long considered the…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada–United_States_relations
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Toys "R" Us (Canada) Ltd. is a Canadian chain of toy stores. It was founded by the Canadian franchise of U.S. toy retail chain Toys "R" Us in 1984. Since 2018, it has operated independently and is bas…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toys_"R"_Us_Canada
+ 3 more evidence sources
help
Claim 6: “Participants were shown a list of five global risks: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No web search results, cross-references, or Wikipedia entries mention the specific list of five global risks (economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, technological) in the claim.
help
Claim 7: “The study was published in APA PsycNet and an open-access pre-print version is available from January 2026.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No web search results, cross-references, or Wikipedia entries confirm the study's publication date (January 2026) or its availability on APA PsycNet.
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.