PSIHOLOGIJA VJEROVANJA U TEORIJE ZAVJERE / PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSPIRACY BELIEFS

Mersiha Jusić

doi:10.48052/19865244.2022.3.57

Authors

Mersiha Jusić International University of Sarajevo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48052/19865244.2022.3.57

Keywords:

conspiracy theories, misinformation, COVID-19, personality, social media

Abstract

Conspiracy theories have always existed, and (some) people have always believed in them. However, due to the expansion of contemporary media and information technologies, as well as social networks becoming primary platforms of information, the issue of how conspiracy beliefs affect daily lives has become popular again. Current societal, political and health crises have sparked global research interest in the topic. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become obvious how significant these beliefs are in determining health behavior and adhering to preventive anti-epidemic measures. Therefore, it is of immense importance, both theoretical and practical, to approach the characteristics of this phenomenon scientifically. This article analyzes psychological and social factors of conspiracy beliefs. Through the prism of epistemic, existential and social needs, the article tries to explain what pushes individuals toward the conspiracy theories. It also discusses individual and personality differences as the underpinning basis for susceptibility to conspiracy beliefs. A special focus is put on universal principles of cognitive functioning that boost conspiracy beliefs (confirmation bias, saving cognitive resources, cognitive closure, effect of illusory truth, etc.) Considering their exceptional societal importance, the author puts a special focus on the effects of conspiracy theories on health relevant behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the lack of a clear theoretical framework in this recently emerging research field, the author reflects on existing and potential prevention and intervention tools belonging to social-psychological, health and communication strategies. The importance of the media and information literacy as a means to improve resilience to misinformation is also discussed.

References

Baptista, J. P., Gradim, A., 2020. Understanding Fake News Consumption: A Review. Social Science 9, 185, str. 1-22.

Bartlett, J., Miller, C., 2010. The power of unreason: Conspiracy theories, extremism and counter‐terrorism. London: Demos.

Bowes, S. M., Costello, T.H., Ma, W., Lilienfeld, S.O., 2020. Looking under the tinfoil hat: Clarifying the personological and psychopathological correlates of conspiracy beliefs. Journal of Personality, 00, str. 1-15.

Brotherton, R., Eser, S., 2015. Bored to fears: Boredom proneness, paranoia, and conspiracy theories. Personality and Individual Differences, 80, str.1-5.

Cassese, E., Farhart, C., Miller, J., 2020. Gender Differences in COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Beliefs. Politics & Gender, 16(4), str. 1009-1018.

Cichocka, A., Marchlewska, M., Golec de Zavala, A., 2016. Does self‐love or self‐hate predict conspiracy beliefs? Narcissism, self‐esteem, and the endorsement of conspiracy theories. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(2), str. 157–166.

Darwin, H., Neave, N., Holmes, J., 2011. Belief in conspiracy theories. The role of paranormal belief, paranoid ideation and schizotypy. Personality and Individual Difference, 50, str.1289-1293.

Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., 2017. The psychology of conspiracy theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), str. 538-542. Dostupno na: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0963721417718261. [4. 3. 2021].

Douglas, K.M., Uscinski, J.E., Sutton, R.M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C.S., Deravi, F., 2019. Understanding Conspiracy Theories. Advances in Political Psychology, 40 (1): str. 3-35.

Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Tang, D.T.W., 2010. Explicit warnings reduce but do not eliminate the continued influence of misinformation. Memory & Cognition, 38, str. 1087-1100.

Farhart, C. E., Miller, J.M., Saunders, K.L., 2020. Conspiracy Stress or Relief? Learned Helplessness and Conspiratorial Thinking. U: Suhay,E.,Baker, D. The Politics of Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. str. 1-38.

Fazio, L. K., Brashier, N. M., Payne, B. K., Marsh, E. J., 2015. Knowledge does not protect against illusory truth. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(5), 993.

Fazio L. K., 2020. Repetition increases perceived truth even for known falsehoods. Collabra: Psychology, 6. 38. 10.1525/collabra.347.

Festinger, L., 1957. A Theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Franks, B., Bangerter, A., Bauer, M. W., 2013. Conspiracy theories as quasi‐religious mentality: An integrated account from cognitive science, social representations theory, and frame theory. Frontiers in Psychology, 4 (424), str.1-12. Dostupno na: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00424/full. [4. 3. 2021].

Freeman, D., 2016. Persecutory delusions: a cognitive perspective on understanding and treatment. Lancet Psychiatry, 3: str. 685-692.

Freeman, D., Bentall, R. P., 2017. The concomitants of conspiracy concerns. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 52(5), str. 595-604. Dostupno na: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-017-1354-4. [4. 3. 2021].

Galliford, N., Furnham, A., 2017. Individual difference factors and beliefs in medical and political conspiracy theories. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 58, str. 422-428.

Ghaddar, A., Khandaqji, S., Awad, Z., Kansoun, R., 2022. Conspiracy beliefs and vaccination intent for COVID-19 in an infodemic. PLoS ONE 17(1): e0261559. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0261559

Goertzel, T., 1994. Belief in conspiracy theories. Political Psychology, 15, str. 731-742.

Goreis, A., Voracek, M., 2019. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Psychological Research on Conspiracy Beliefs: Field Characteristics, Measurement Instruments, and Associations With Personality Traits. Frontiers in Psychology, 10:205, str. 1-13. Dostupno na: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00205/full. [15. 3. 2021].

Gratz, K. L., Roemer, L., 2004. Multidimensional assessment of emotion regulation and dysregulation: Development, factor structure, and initial validation of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale. Journal of Psychopathological Behavioral Assessment, 26, str. 41-54.

Grzesiak-Feldman, M., 2013. The effect of high-anxiety situations on conspiracy thinking. Current Psychology, 32, str.100-118.

Guerrini Usubini, A., Cattivelli, R., Varallo, G. Castelnuovo, G. Molinari, E. Giusti, E.M., Musetti, A., 2021. The relationship between psychological distress during the second wave lockdown of COVID-19 and emotional eating in Italian young adults: The mediating role of emotional dysregulation. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 11, 569.

Hofstadter, R., 1966. The paranoid style in American politics. U: Hofstadter, R. The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. New York: Knopf. str. 3-40.

Hollander, B. A., 2017. Partisanship, individual differences, and news media exposure as predictors of conspiracy beliefs. Journal of Mass Communication Q, 95, str. 691-713.

Jolley, D., Douglas, K. M., 2014a. The social consequences of conspiracism: Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and reduce one's carbon footprint. British Journal of Psychology, 105(1), str. 35-56.

Jolley, D., Douglas, K.M., 2014b. The Effects of Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories on Vaccination Intentions. PLoS ONE 9(2): e89177. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0089177

Jusić, M., 2021. Mladi kao konzumenti i evaluatori informacija dostupnih na internetu – kako djelovati? U: Memišević, H., Hadžić, S. Zbornik radova sa međunarodne konferencije Multidisciplinarni pristup u edukaciji i rehabilitaciji. Sarajevo: Perfecta, str. 163-174.

Lahrach, Y., Furnham, A., 2017. Are modern health worries associated with medical conspiracy theories? Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 99, str. 89-94.

Lazer, D., Ruck, D. J., Shugars, S., Joseph, K., Grinberg, N., Gallagher, R. J., Horgan, L., Gitomer, A., Bajak, A., Baum, M. A., Ognyanova, K., Qu, H., Hobbs, W. R., McCabe, S., Green, J. The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States., 2020. Report No 18. The state of the nation: a 50-state COVID-19 survey report. Dostupno na: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/vzb9t. [10. 4. 2021].

Leiser, D., Duani, N., Wagner‐Egger, P., 2017. The conspiratorial style in lay economic thinking. PLoSONE, 12(3), e0171238. Dostupno na: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0171238#sec001. [15. 3. 2021].

Leman, P. J., Cinnirella, M., 2013. Beliefs in conspiracy theories and the need for cognitive closure. Frontiers in Psychology, 4 (378), str. 1-15. Dostupno na: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00378/full [1. 5. 2021].

Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Ecker, U. K. H., Albarracín, D., Amazeen, M. A., Kendeou, P., Lombardi, D., Newman, E. J., Pennycook, G., Porter, E., Rand, D. G., Rapp, D. N., Reifler, J., Roozenbeek, J., Schmid, P., Seifert, C. M., Sinatra, G. M., Swire-Thompson, B., Van der Linden, S., Vraga, E. K., Wood, T. J., Zaragoza, M. S., 2020. The Debunking Handbook 2020. Dostupno na: https://sks.to/db2020. [15. 3. 2021].

Liekefett, L., Christ, O., Becker, J. C., 2021. Can conspiracy beliefs be beneficial? Longitudinal linkages between conspiracy beliefs, anxiety, uncertainty aversion, and existential threat. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 965.

Marchlewska, M., Cichocka, A., Kossowska, M., 2018. Addicted to answers: Need for cognitive closure and the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48, str.109-117.

McCrae, R. R., Costa, P. T. Jr., (2008). The five-factor theory of personality. U: John, O.P., Robins, R.W., Pervin, L.A. Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3.izdanje). New York, NY: Guilford Press. str. 159-181.

Miller, J.M., Saunders, K.L., Farhart, C.E., 2016. Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust. American Journal of Political Science, 60 (4): str.824-844.

Motta, M., Stecula, D., 2021. Quantifying the effect of Wakefield et al. (1998) on skepticism about MMR vaccine safety in the U.S.. PLOS ONE 16(8): e0256395. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256395

Moulding, R., Nix-Carnell, S., Schnabel, A., Nedeljkovic, M., Burnside, E. E., Lentini, A. F., Mehzabin, N., 2016. Better the devil you know than a world you don’t? Intolerance of uncertainty and worldview explanations for belief in conspiracy theories. Personality and Individual Differences, 98, str. 345-354. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2016.04.060

Newheiser, A., Farias, M., Tausch, N., 2011. The functional nature of conspiracy beliefs: Examining the underpinnings of belief in the Da Vinci Code conspiracy. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(8), str.1007-1011.

Oliver, J. E., Wood, T. J., 2018. Enchanted America: How intuition and reason divide our politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Orosz, G., Krekó, P., Paskuj, B., Tóth-Király, I., Bothe, B., Roland-Lévy, C., 2016. Changing conspiracy beliefs through rationality and ridiculing. Frontiers in Psychology, 7:1525. Dostupno na: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01525/full. [18. 3. 2021].

Pipes, D., 1997. Conspiracy: How the paranoid style flourishes and where it comes from. New York, NY: Simon & Schusters.

Porat, T., Garaizar, P., Ferrero, M., Jones, H., Ashworth, M., Vadillo, M. A., 2019. Content and source analysis of popular tweets following a recent case of diphtheria in Spain. European Journal of Public Health, 29 (1), str. 117-122. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky144

Pratt, R., 2003. Theorizing conspiracy. Theory and Society, 32 (2), str. 255-271.

Pytlik, N., Soll, D., Mehl, S., 2020.Thinking Preferences and Conspiracy Belief: Intuitive Thinking and the Jumping to Conclusions-Bias as a Basis for the Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11:568942. Dostupno na: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.568942/full. [20. 4. 2021].

Radnitz, S., Underwood, P., 2017. Is belief in conspiracy theories pathological? A survey experiment on the cognitive roots of extreme suspicion. British Journal of Political Science, 47(1), str. 113-129.

Richey, S., 2017. A Birther and a truther: the influence of the authoritarian personality on conspiracy beliefs. Politics & Policy, 45, str. 465-485. 50. Romer, D., Jamieson, K.H., 2020. Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. Social Science & Medicine, 263, str. 113356. Dostupno na: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362030575X. [18. 3. 2021].

Roozenbeek, J., Schneider, C.R., Dryhurst, S.,Kerr, J., Freeman, A.L.J., Recchia, G., van der Bles, A.M., van der Linden, S., 2020. Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world. Royal Society Open Science, 7, 201199. Dostupno na: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.201199. [15. 3. 2021].

Rosenstock, I. M., 1966. Why people use health services. Milbank Mem Fund Q, 44:Suppl: str. 94-127. https://doi.org/10.2307/3348967.

Scandurra, C., Pizzo, R., Pinto, L.E., Cafasso, C., Pellegrini, R., Cafaggi, F., D’Anna, O., Muzii, B., Bochicchio, V., Maldonato, N.M., 2022. Emotion Dysregulation and Conspiracy Beliefs about COVID-19: The Moderating Role of Critical Social Media Use. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education 12 (10), str. 1559-1571. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe12100109

Scherer, L. D., Pennycook, G., 2020. Who Is Susceptible to Online Health Misinformation? American Journal of Public Health, 110, str. 276-277. Dostupno na: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305908. [21. 4. 2021].

Seymour, B., Getman, R., Saraf, A., Zhang, L. H., Kalenderian, E., 2015. When advocacy obscures accuracy online: digital pandemics of public health misinformation through an antifluoride case study. American Journal of Public Health, 105 (3), str. 517-523. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302437

Shmueli, L. 2021.Predicting intention to receive COVID-19 vaccine among the general population using the health belief model and the theory of planned behavior model. BMC Public Health, 21, 804. Dostupno na: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33902501/ [2. 11. 2022].

Stanovich, K. E., West, R F., 2000. Individual difference in reasoning: implications for the rationality debate? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23 (5), str. 645-726.

Swami, V., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Furnham, A., 2010. Unanswered questions: a preliminary investigation of personality and individual difference predictors of 9/11 conspiracist beliefs. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24, str. 749-761.

Swami, V., Furnham, A., Smyth, N., Weis, L., Lay, A., Clow, A.,2016. Putting the stress on conspiracy theories: examining associations between psychological stress, anxiety, and belief in conspiracy theories. Personality and Individual Differences, 99, str.72-76.

Uscinski, J. E., Parent, J. M. 2014., American Conspiracy Theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Van der Tempel, J., Alcock, J. E., 2015. Relationships between conspiracy mentality, hyperactive agency detection, and schizotypy: Supernatural forces at work? Personality and Individual Differences, 82, str.136-141.

Van Prooijen, J.‐W., Jostmann, N. B., 2013. Belief in conspiracy theories: The influence of uncertainty and perceived morality. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43(1), str. 109-115.

Van Prooijen, J.‐W., Acker, M., 2015. The influence of control on belief in conspiracy theories: Conceptual and applied extensions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29(5), str. 753-761

Van Prooijen, J.-W., Krouwel, A. P. M., Pollet, T. V., 2015. Political Extremism Predicts Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(5), str. 570-578.

Van Prooijen, J.-W., Staman, J., Krouwel, A. P. M., 2018. Increased conspiracy beliefs among ethnic and Muslim minorities. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 32, str. 661-667.

Van Prooijen, J.-W., 2020. An existential threat model of conspiracy theories. European Psychologist, 25, str. 16-25. doi: 10.1027/1016-9040/a000381

Wang, Y., McKee, M., Torbica, A., Stuckler, D., 2019. Systematic Literature Review on the Spread of Healthrelated Misinformation on Social Media. Social science & Medicine, 240, 112552; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112552

World Health Organization (WHO). 2020. Infodemic Management: Infodemiology. Dostupno na: https://www.who.int/teams/risk-communication/infodemic-management/1st-who-infodemiology-conference [4. 11. 2022].

Yeh, Y.-C., Chen, I.-H., Ahorsu, D.K., Ko, N.-Y., Chen, K.-L., Li, P.-C., Yen, C.-F., Lin, C.-Y., Griffins, M.D., Pakpur, A.H. 2021. Measurement invariance of the Drivers of COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance Scale: Comparison between Taiwanese and mainland Chinese-speaking populations. Vaccines, 9(3), str. 297. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9030297PMID: 33810036