Perceived Government Transparency and COVID-19 Conspiracy Beliefs: The Mediating Role of Conspiracy Mentality.

Abstract

As transparency is believed to be a key factor linked to trust in the government, we explore the link between the perceived lack of transparency and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. Two studies were conducted (N1 = 264 and N2 = 113) using both correlational (Study 1) and experimental (Study 2) designs. The results show a positive relationship between the perception of a lack of transparencies in the context of pandemic policies (Study 1), general lack of transparency in the decision-making process (Study 2), and belief in conspiracy theories about the emergence of the COVID-19 virus and vaccines' related fake news. This effect was mediated by a general conspiracy mentality. That is, people who evaluated policies as non-transparent presented a higher conspiracy mentality, and this, in turn, was related to belief in specific COVID-19 conspiracy theories.