Conspiracy beliefs and distrust of science predicts reluctance of vaccine uptake of politically right-wing citizens

Abstract

It is not uncommon for conspiracy theories to have a political agenda, some conspiracies are more endorsed by the political left-wing than the political right-wing and vice-versa. Conspiracy theories quickly flourished as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and this may have been an underlying factor in a reluctance by some in following public health policies such as the wearing of face masks. In the present study, we surveyed a community sample of 1358 adults just prior to the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Aotearoa New Zealand. Our first aim was to determine whether one’s political orientation, whether they are politically left- or right-wing, would be predictive of an individual’s belief in conspiracy theories and determine whether this relationship can be exacerbated by a distrust in science. The second aim was to determine how such a relationship could explain an individual’s vaccine hesitancy. Our results supported that indeed those that identify as right-wing tended to have higher hesitancy associated with taking the COVID-19 vaccine. However, we demonstrated that this association, in part, can be explained by a corresponding belief in COVID-19 related conspiracies. Interestingly, such a relationship only emerged in the presence of a general distrust in science. In other words, if a right-wing individual has at least a moderate trust in science, they demonstrated similarly low endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracies as their left-wing counterparts. Mitigating the right-wing endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracies then aligned with a reduction in vaccine hesitancy. Our findings indicated that public interventions seeking to increase trust in science may mitigate right-wing endorsement of conspiracy theories and thus lead to a more unified and positive response to public health behaviours such as vaccination.