Abstract
One of the appeals of conspiracy theories in times of crises is that they provide someone to blame for what has happened. Thereby, they increase distrust, negative feelings, and hostility toward implicated actors, whether those are powerful social outgroups or one’s own government representatives. Two studies reported here examine associations of COVID-19 conspiracy theories with prejudice, support for violence, and other and negative social outcomes. In Study 1 (N = 501), the endorsement of the more specific conspiracy theories about the alleged role of China was associated with more prejudiced views of Chinese and Italian people. In Study 2 (N = 1024), lowered trust in government regulations and increased hostility associated with the COVID-19 and generic conspiracy beliefs were correlated with justification of and willingness to engage in non-compliance with regulations, violent attacks on 5G masts, and anti-government protests. Across both of the studies, higher exposure to news about COVID-19 was associated with lower endorsement of conspiracy theories, but also with increased feelings of anxiety and lack of control, which in turn were correlated with higher COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs endorsement. We highlight the potential social problems which are associated with the wide-spread endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
Highlights
Since the first reported cases of the new disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus at the end of the year 2019 rapidly grew into global pandemic, the spread of the disease was accompanied by a massive surge of conspiracy theories, that are known to arise in times of increased uncertainty, when people feel threatened and lacking control (van Prooijen and Douglas, 2017; Douglas et al, 2019; see Stojanov and Halberstadt, 2020)
We examined the prevalence of conspiracy beliefs in our sample
While in the first study, we focused on prejudiced attitudes against groups most associated with the coronavirus at the time, as the most obvious instance of negative social outcomes accompanying conspiracy theories at the time, as the pandemic progressed the mood in society shifted
Summary
Since the first reported cases of the new disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus at the end of the year 2019 rapidly grew into global pandemic, the spread of the disease was accompanied by a massive surge of conspiracy theories, that are known to arise in times of increased uncertainty, when people feel threatened and lacking control (van Prooijen and Douglas, 2017; Douglas et al, 2019; see Stojanov and Halberstadt, 2020). As it became apparent that vaccination will likely provide the best way to deal with the new virus, many countries saw the rise of conspiracy theories related to vaccines against COVID-19. Later still, growing frustration with the strict healthpreventive measures that had to be issued by many countries likely contributed to the rise of conspiracy beliefs that were focused mostly at the governmental measures issued to counter the pandemic (testing for COVID-19 as a means to collect your genetic material or inserting microchips into your brain, lockdown and vaccination as government means to control the masses). In Slovakia, where both of the present studies were conducted, conspiracy theories have become so widespread that a public poll conducted in October 2020 among Slovak middleschool teachers showed that almost one-third of them believe that COVID-19 vaccination means the population will be inserted with “nano-chips” in their body (Gdovinová, 2020)
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