The usual suspects: How psychological motives and thinking styles predict the endorsement of well‐known and COVID‐19 conspiracy beliefs

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Summary

Research on belief in conspiracy theories identified many predictors but often failed to investigate them together. In the present study, we tested how the most important predictors of beliefs in conspiracy theories explain endorsing COVID‐19 and non‐COVID‐19 conspiracy theories and conspiracy mentality. Apart from these three measures of conspiratorial thinking, participants ( N = 354) completed several measures of epistemic, existential, and social psychological motives, as well as cognitive processing variables. While many predictors had significant correlations, only three consistently explained conspiratorial beliefs when included in one model: higher spirituality (specifically eco‐awareness factor), higher narcissism, and lower analytical thinking. Compared to the other two conspiratorial measures, predictors less explained belief in COVID‐19 conspiracy theories, but this depended on items' content. We conclude that the same predictors apply to belief in both COVID and non‐COVID conspiracies and identify New Age spirituality as an important contributor to such beliefs.

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Most cited references 81

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At what sample size do correlations stabilize?

Felix D Schönbrodt, Marco Perugini (2013)

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Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate.

Jonathan Evans, Keith E Stanovich (2013)

Dual-process and dual-system theories in both cognitive and social psychology have been subjected to a number of recently published criticisms. However, they have been attacked as a category, incorrectly assuming there is a generic version that applies to all. We identify and respond to 5 main lines of argument made by such critics. We agree that some of these arguments have force against some of the theories in the literature but believe them to be overstated. We argue that the dual-processing distinction is supported by much recent evidence in cognitive science. Our preferred theoretical approach is one in which rapid autonomous processes (Type 1) are assumed to yield default responses unless intervened on by distinctive higher order reasoning processes (Type 2). What defines the difference is that Type 2 processing supports hypothetical thinking and load heavily on working memory. © The Author(s) 2013.

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Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.

Daniel Romer, Kathleen Jamieson (2020)

Rationale The COVID-19 pandemic poses extraordinary challenges to public health. Objective Because the novel coronavirus is highly contagious, the widespread use of preventive measures such as masking, physical distancing, and eventually vaccination is needed to bring it under control. We hypothesized that accepting conspiracy theories that were circulating in mainstream and social media early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the US would be negatively related to the uptake of preventive behaviors and also of vaccination when a vaccine becomes available. Method A national probability survey of US adults (N = 1050) was conducted in the latter half of March 2020 and a follow-up with 840 of the same individuals in July 2020. The surveys assessed adoption of preventive measures recommended by public health authorities, vaccination intentions, conspiracy beliefs, perceptions of threat, belief about the safety of vaccines, political ideology, and media exposure patterns. Results Belief in three COVID-19-related conspiracy theories was highly stable across the two periods and inversely related to the (a) perceived threat of the pandemic, (b) taking of preventive actions, including wearing a face mask, (c) perceived safety of vaccination, and (d) intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Conspiracy beliefs in March predicted subsequent mask-wearing and vaccination intentions in July even after controlling for action taken and intentions in March. Although adopting preventive behaviors was predicted by political ideology and conservative media reliance, vaccination intentions were less related to political ideology. Mainstream television news use predicted adopting both preventive actions and vaccination. Conclusions Because belief in COVID-related conspiracy theories predicts resistance to both preventive behaviors and future vaccination for the virus, it will be critical to confront both conspiracy theories and vaccination misinformation to prevent further spread of the virus in the US. Reducing those barriers will require continued messaging by public health authorities on mainstream media and in particular on politically conservative outlets that have supported COVID-related conspiracy theories.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Vukašin Gligorić:

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7528-6806

v.gligoric@uva.nl

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Appl Cogn Psychol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Appl Cogn Psychol

Journal ID (doi): 10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0720

Journal ID (publisher-id): ACP

Title: Applied Cognitive Psychology

Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc. (Hoboken )

ISSN (Print): 0888-4080

ISSN (Electronic): 1099-0720

Publication date (Electronic): 26 May 2021

Electronic Location Identifier: 10.1002/acp.3844

Affiliations

[ ¹ ] Department of Psychology University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands

Author notes

[*] [* ] Correspondence

Vukašin Gligorić, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 129B, 1018 WS Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Email: v.gligoric@ 123456uva.nl

Author information

Vukašin Gligorić https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7528-6806

Article

Publisher ID: ACP3844

DOI: 10.1002/acp.3844

PMC ID: 8212084

PubMed ID: 34177101

SO-VID: 9b1ec30c-d2dc-4522-8110-acda701d2aba

License:

This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date revision received : 29 April 2021

Date received : 16 April 2021

Date accepted : 14 May 2021

Page count

Figures: 0, Tables: 2, Pages: 11, Words: 9503

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details-of-publishers-convertor Converter:WILEY_ML3GV2_TO_JATSPMC version:6.0.2 mode:remove_FC converted:18.06.2021

ScienceOpen disciplines: Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry

Keywords: conspiracy mentality,conspiracy theories,conspiratorial beliefs,covid‐19,psychological motives,spirituality

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry

Keywords: conspiracy mentality, conspiracy theories, conspiratorial beliefs, covid‐19, psychological motives, spirituality

The usual suspects: How psychological motives and thinking styles predict the endorsement of well‐known and COVID‐19 conspiracy beliefs

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Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 81

At what sample size do correlations stabilize?

Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate.

Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.

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