Nearly 40 per cent of Hong Kong students in ‘veiled’ poll support violent protests
Experiment reveals ‘worrying’ level of radicalisation with almost 90 per cent of respondents viewing central authorities negatively
Nearly 40 per cent of Hong Kong students that took part in a social experiment were found to support violence in pursuit of political rights, according to a study by a group of international researchers.
The findings were from an experiment designed to show the true feelings of respondents by providing them with a “veil”.
Conducted in June last year, the report looked at reasons people protest, and polled 1,576 students from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
More young Hongkongers back independence and are less supportive of peaceful protest, poll shows
It was publicly released in January this year as a working paper under the National Bureau of Economic Research – a private non-profit American research organisation – and co-authored by four social scientists from Hong Kong, Germany, Britain and the US.
In September, one of the authors, Dr Noam Yuchtman, a visiting fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science’s department of management, told the Post that the students adopted much more radical political attitudes than expected.
Researchers used a method known as “list experiment” to extract truthful answers from respondents towards politically or morally sensitive questions.
Yuchtman said the 1,576 students were randomly split into two groups, with 790 in a control group and the other 786 in an experimental group.