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Structured research folder with findings, methodology, sources, and README for the April 2026 meaning-crisis hypotheses investigation. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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4.2 KiB
Data Sources Used
Research Project: Meaning Crisis — Causal Hypotheses (PR-00001) Date: 2026-04-22
Substrate Datasets Consulted
All evidence came from curated Substrate datasets. No external source APIs were queried directly.
DE-World-Values
- Path:
../Data/DE-World-Values/ - What we used: Postmaterialism index (Wave 5: 19.4%, Wave 7: 25.8%); life satisfaction scores (Wave 5: 7.5, Wave 7: 7.1); institutional trust in political parties (~21%); church exit and union membership trends
- Why we used it: Only dataset containing both postmaterialism and life satisfaction in the same survey waves — enables H3's within-dataset paradox test
- Evidence for: H3 (4/5 observations); H1 (institutional trust signal)
- Date accessed: 2026-04-22
DE-Mental-Health
- Path:
../Data/DE-Mental-Health/ - What we used: Gallup Engagement Index (15% engaged, 70% disengaged, 15% actively disengaged); mental illness rising to rank 1–2 of all sick-day causes since 2010; BPtK waitlist time series
- Why we used it: Hard endpoint for meaning outcomes; engagement data operationalizes subjective meaning at scale
- Evidence for: H1 (disengagement ≈ meaning deficit); H3 (outcome proxy for PM paradox)
- Date accessed: 2026-04-22
DE-Church-Exits
- Path:
../Data/DE-Church-Exits/ - What we used: Church exit counts 2010–2022 (~900k exits in 2022 alone); trajectory of accelerating exits aligned with WVS Wave 6/7
- Why we used it: Institutional disaffiliation is a direct proxy for shared narrative collapse in H3; also serves H2 as a structural atomization marker
- Evidence for: H3 (observation 2: church exits + union decline parallel PM rise)
- Date accessed: 2026-04-22
DE-Social-Isolation
- Path:
../Data/DE-Social-Isolation/ - What we used: Single-person household rate (rising trend, Destatis Mikrozensus); structural atomization data
- Why we used it: H3 predicts that PM fragmentation produces social atomization — rising single-person households are a structural proxy
- Evidence for: H3 (observation 4: single-person households rising alongside postmaterialism)
- Date accessed: 2026-04-22
DE-Platform-Media
- Path:
../Data/DE-Platform-Media/ - What we used: 59% social network usage; 47% news trust; 36% active news avoidance; smartphone saturation and usage intensity data
- Why we used it: H2 requires evidence of accelerating information velocity; smartphone saturation and trust erosion are the key proxies
- Evidence for: H2 (observation: 2010 acceleration matches smartphone saturation); H3 (trust erosion as downstream effect)
- Date accessed: 2026-04-22
DE-Epistemic-Competence
- Path:
../Data/DE-Epistemic-Competence/ - What we used: 21% of adults lack functional literacy; PISA trends; media literacy assessment data
- Why we used it: H2 predicts integration failure — low epistemic competence amplifies the effect of information velocity
- Evidence for: H2 (epistemic vulnerability amplifier)
- Date accessed: 2026-04-22
Sources Not Used (but in Substrate)
The following datasets were available but not directly consulted for hypothesis evaluation:
- DE-Democracy-Metrics — Relevant to H1 (political efficacy) but temporal ordering data (longitudinal by election cycle) was insufficient without SOEP cross-reference
- DE-Energy-Mix, DE-Federal-Budget, DE-Lobby-Transparency, DE-Parliament-Activity — No direct bearing on meaning-crisis causal mechanisms
- DE-Social-Mobility — Relevant background context but no direct hypothesis predictions
Data Gaps Identified
These sources are needed to resolve H1 and H2 inconclusiveness — not currently in Substrate:
| Gap | Required For | Source to Acquire |
|---|---|---|
| SOEP waves × political efficacy questions | H1 temporal ordering | DIW Berlin — SOEP data access request |
| BPtK waitlist time series (longitudinal) | H1 meaning → agency pathway | Bundepsychotherapeutenkammer annual reports |
| ARD/ZDF Onlinestudie individual-level media diet | H2 individual-level test | ARD/ZDF Medienforschung |
| Cross-national WVS comparison (PM rank vs. crisis severity) | H3 extension | World Values Survey Association — Wave 7 codebook |