Abstract
Collective traumas may often lead to deep societal divides and internal conflicts. In this article, we propose that conspiracy theories emerging in response to victimizing events may play a key role in the breakdown of social cohesion. We performed a nationally representative survey in Poland (N = 965) two years after the Smoleńsk airplane crash in which the Polish president was killed, together with 95 political officials and high-ranking military officers. The survey found that people endorsing conspiratorial accounts of the Smoleńsk catastrophe preferred to distance themselves from conspiracy non-believers, while skeptics preferred greater distance to conspiracy believers. We also examined the role of people’s belief in the uniqueness of in-group historical suffering as an important antecedent of both conspiracy thinking and hostility towards outgroups (conspiracy believers and non-believers).
Highlights
Collective traumas may often lead to deep societal divides and internal conflicts
Social distance towards conspiracy non-believers was positively related to the belief in the uniqueness of ingroup victimhood and to the endorsement of the Smolensk Conspiracy, while only the belief in the Smolensk Conspiracy correlated with social distance towards conspiracy believers, as Table 1 shows
The present survey study performed in the aftermath of the Smoleńsk catastrophe suggests that conspiratorial explanations of this collectively traumatic incident undermined social cohesion: People endorsing conspiratorial accounts of the Smoleńsk catastrophe expressed the desire to distance themselves from conspiracy non-believers, whereas people opposing conspiracy explanations preferred greater distance to conspiracy believers
Summary
Collective traumas may often lead to deep societal divides and internal conflicts. In this article, we propose that conspiracy theories emerging in response to victimizing events may play a key role in the breakdown of social cohesion. We examined the role of people’s belief in the uniqueness of in-group historical suffering as an important antecedent of both conspiracy thinking and hostility towards outgroups (conspiracy believers and non-believers) You murdered him!" – said the leader of the ruling Polish party, Jarosław Kaczyński, in a heated parliamentary debate in July 2017, while addressing the opposition party leaders With these words he referred to the alleged responsibility of the former liberal government for the 2010 airplane crash in which the President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, was killed. A society suffering from a collective trauma may become highly polarized over these different interpretations of the traumatic event, thereby undermining social cohesiveness and leading to internal conflicts and clashes
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