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

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 conspira...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied cognitive psychology Vol. 35; no. 5; pp. 1171 - 1181
Main Authors: Gligorić, Vukašin, Silva, Margarida Moreira, Eker, Selin, Hoek, Nieke, Nieuwenhuijzen, Ella, Popova, Uljana, Zeighami, Golnar
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Wiley 01.09.2021
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
John Wiley and Sons Inc
Subjects:
Beliefs
Cognition
Cognitive ability
Cognitive Style
Conspiracy
conspiracy mentality
conspiracy theories
conspiratorial beliefs
COVID-19
Evaluative Thinking
Information processing
Measures
Motivation
Narcissism
Pandemics
Predictor Variables
psychological motives
Religious Factors
Self Concept
Spirituality
Theories
Theory
psychological motives
COVID‐19
conspiracy theories
conspiratorial beliefs
spirituality
conspiracy mentality
ISSN:0888-4080, 1099-0720
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary: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.
Bibliography:Selin Eker, Nieke van Hoek, Ella Nieuwenhuijzen, Uljana Popova, and Golnar Zeighami contributed equally to the manuscript.
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ISSN:0888-4080
1099-0720
DOI:10.1002/acp.3844