People who live closer to long-run earthquake risk report stronger national in-group feelings: more pride in their country, more willingness to fight for it, and more support for giving nationals priority when jobs are scarce. The author measures this with a “national‑core” index made from three survey items (pride, willingness to fight, and job priority). Using data from the World Values Survey (1981–2022) across 63 countries and 494 subnational regions, the study finds that proximity to high‑risk seismic zones is associated with a meaningful increase on this index and on each of its three parts.

To reach this result the researcher matched individual survey responses to maps of long‑run seismic risk and compared people living in different regions of the same country and year. The main outcomes are the national‑core index and its components. The statistical estimates are reported in standardized form: closer distance to high‑risk zones predicts stronger national attachment overall, and the component effects are similarly-sized for pride, willingness to fight, and jobs priority.

The paper separates two ways earthquake risk could affect national feeling. One is a distributive channel: when a disaster hits many neighbors at once — a so‑called covariate risk — local and family insurance are less reliable, so people may turn to the state and treat national membership as a rule for sharing scarce public resources. The other is an expressive channel: people may interpret disaster as a shared national ordeal that generates pride and readiness to sacrifice. The expressive response is not automatic. It is strongest where religion and the state are institutionally aligned and where the religious field is cohesive, because religious institutions supply symbolic ways to narrate hardship as collective duty. The study also finds that religiosity rises near seismic risk, while family attachment and hostility toward outsiders do not.