TY - JOUR
T1 - Conspiracy mentality and political orientation across 26 countries
AU - Imhoff, Roland
AU - Zimmer, Felix
AU - Klein, Olivier
AU - António, João H. C.
AU - Babinska, Maria
AU - Bangerter, Adrian
AU - Bilewicz, Michal
AU - Blanuša, Nebojša
AU - Bovan, Kosta
AU - Bužarovska, Rumena
AU - Cichocka, Aleksandra
AU - Delouvée, Sylvain
AU - Douglas, Karen M.
AU - Dyrendal, Asbjørn
AU - Etienne, Tom
AU - Gjoneska, Biljana
AU - Graf, Sylvie
AU - Gualda, Estrella
AU - Hirschberger, Gilad
AU - Kende, Anna
AU - Kutiyski, Yordan
AU - Krekó, Peter
AU - Krouwel, Andre
AU - Mari, Silvia
AU - Đorđević, Jasna Milošević
AU - Panasiti, Maria Serena
AU - Pantazi, Myrto
AU - Petkovski, Ljupcho
AU - Porciello, Giuseppina
AU - Rabelo, André
AU - Radu, Raluca Nicoleta
AU - Sava, Florin A.
AU - Schepisi, Michael
AU - Sutton, Robbie M.
AU - Swami, Viren
AU - Thórisdóttir, Hulda
AU - Turjačanin, Vladimir
AU - Wagner-Egger, Pascal
AU - Žeželj, Iris
AU - van Prooijen, Jan Willem
N1 - Funding Information:
This work has been coordinated, presented and discussed within the framework of EU COST Action CA15101 ‘Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories (COMPACT)’. German data stem from the 2014 Innovation Sample of the Socio-Economic Panel83 (SOEP). Data from the Andalusian survey conducted in Spain come from the research project ‘Conspiracy Theories and Disinformation’ directed by Estrella Gualda (University of Huelva, Spain), whose fieldwork was supported and executed by the Institute of Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC) in the context of a grant received for executing the 5th Wave of the Citizen’s Panel Survey for Social Research in Andalusia (ref. EP-1707, PIE 201710E018, IESA/CSIC, https://panelpacis.net/; E.G.). The Czech part of the study was supported by grant 20-01214S (S.G.) from the Czech Science Foundation and by RVO: 68081740 (S.G.) of the Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - People differ in their general tendency to endorse conspiracy theories (that is, conspiracy mentality). Previous research yielded inconsistent findings on the relationship between conspiracy mentality and political orientation, showing a greater conspiracy mentality either among the political right (a linear relation) or amongst both the left and right extremes (a curvilinear relation). We revisited this relationship across two studies spanning 26 countries (combined N = 104,253) and found overall evidence for both linear and quadratic relations, albeit small and heterogeneous across countries. We also observed stronger support for conspiracy mentality among voters of opposition parties (that is, those deprived of political control). Nonetheless, the quadratic effect of political orientation remained significant when adjusting for political control deprivation. We conclude that conspiracy mentality is associated with extreme left- and especially extreme right-wing beliefs, and that this non-linear relation may be strengthened by, but is not reducible to, deprivation of political control.
AB - People differ in their general tendency to endorse conspiracy theories (that is, conspiracy mentality). Previous research yielded inconsistent findings on the relationship between conspiracy mentality and political orientation, showing a greater conspiracy mentality either among the political right (a linear relation) or amongst both the left and right extremes (a curvilinear relation). We revisited this relationship across two studies spanning 26 countries (combined N = 104,253) and found overall evidence for both linear and quadratic relations, albeit small and heterogeneous across countries. We also observed stronger support for conspiracy mentality among voters of opposition parties (that is, those deprived of political control). Nonetheless, the quadratic effect of political orientation remained significant when adjusting for political control deprivation. We conclude that conspiracy mentality is associated with extreme left- and especially extreme right-wing beliefs, and that this non-linear relation may be strengthened by, but is not reducible to, deprivation of political control.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122868408&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41562-021-01258-7
DO - 10.1038/s41562-021-01258-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 35039654
SN - 2397-3374
VL - 6
SP - 392
EP - 403
JO - Nature Human Behaviour
JF - Nature Human Behaviour
ER -