People have long been fascinated with global catastrophic risks (GCRs; e.g., super-volcanoes, huge asteroid impact, very lethal pandemics, nuclear war/winter, artificial intelligence, bioweapons), some of which may lead to extinction of the human species. Yet attention to extreme hazards has not kept up with potential need. As perhaps (some) humans are indifferent to, or even positive about, prospects for extinction, this proposal assesses public responses—e.g., risk perceptions, judged need for action (including opportunity costs for other global problems; e.g., basic needs; other low probability, high consequence hazards that are less catastrophic), protective policy preferences, and non-protective and information search intentions—to both human extinction itself, and to GCRs that might yield extinction.

This will be the first systematic study of this issue, building upon a scanty scientific literature. Besides descriptive statistics about these beliefs and attitudes, this project will explore how threat, action, and stakeholder perceptions are related to protective, non-protective, and information search intentions, and how those perceptions relate to cognitive, affective, social, cultural, and demographic predictors. Nationally representative surveys and experiments (including tests of risk communication messages), supplemented by focus groups and cognitive interviews, will collect data.