Are societies in conflict more susceptible to believe in COVID-19 conspiracy theories? A 66 nation study.

Abstract

Conspiracy theories widely influence our social and political lives. A recent example is the broad impact such theories had on government's efforts to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In that context, public's compliance and willingness to get vaccinated was found to be substantially and negatively affected by the belief in conspiracy theories, among various factors. In the present study, we tested whether some countries are more susceptible to conspiracy theories than others. We examined, for the first time, the idea that the degree of intensity of conflict predicts the degree of belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. A multilevel analysis across 66 countries (N = 46,450) demonstrated that people living in countries with higher conflict intensity tended to be more susceptible to COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. These findings are the first large-scale comparative evidence of the profound psychological effects of conflicts on the involved societies. Public Significance StatementThe belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories has severe implications on public's health. Thus, it is important to better understand the reasons behind such beliefs. The present study provides new information which helps to better understand the contexts in which conspiracy belief thrive.

The promise and limits of moral exemplars for intergroup conflict resolution and reconciliation

“…Violent intergroup conflicts often change into intractable ones. The constant existential uncertainty (Jonas & Fritsche, 2013), widespread conspiracy theories (Bilewicz, 2022; Hebel‐Sela et al, 2022), and paralyzing trauma‐generated threat (Li et al, 2023) all lead to perceptions of adversaries as homogeneous groups, forces of good and evil (Rudnev et al, 2020). This phenomenon, known as moral vitalism, has severe intergroup consequences, as it leads to further conflict escalations and support for more violent policies (Campbell & Vollhardt, 2014).…”

Palestinian and Jewish public representatives' attitudes toward violence in the Palestinian community in Israel: Conspiracy and cultural violence perspectives

“…The conspiracy views of Palestinian public figures can also be understood in terms of the societal effects. Conspiracy beliefs tend to appear where perceptions of inequality, deprivation or social exclusion predominate (Hebel-Sela et al, 2022b). Given that Palestinian Arab minority is subordinated to Jewish majority in many domains of life (Saabneh, 2015), the conspiracy views maintained by their representatives may be seen as manifestation of this lower social status and the exclusionary policy applied towards Palestinian Arab community.…”

“…The conspiracy views expressed by Palestinian Arab public figures can also be understood in terms of intergroup conflict. Since Israel is considered a deeply divided society (Lewin-Epstein and Cohen, 2019) where two ethnic groups even reside mostly separately from each other (Shdema and Martin, 2022), and given the fact that Israel is situated on higher places in terms of both conflict intensity and conspiracy beliefs (Hebel-Sela et al, 2022b), it can be seen as an arena for intergroup conflict and conspiracy beliefs. Minorities tend to perceive high outgroup threat (Van Prooijen and Song, 2018).…”

“…Power actors can refer to individuals, groups or organizations (Constantinou et al, 2021). The example of conspiracy beliefs is the perception of COVID-19 as a hoax or thinking that Bill Gates has created some microdevice that is injected when vaccinating against the virus (Hebel-Sela et al, 2022b).…”

“…When two groups are in conflict (which do not have to be violent), perceiving one another as antagonistic and salient, and consequently, encompassing some threat, it develops a belief in this antagonistic group’s plotting some secret goal (Hebel-Sela et al, 2022a). Indeed, study by Hebel-Sela et al (2022b) conducted on the data from 66 countries has found a positive association between the intergroup conflict intensity and mean extent of conspiracy beliefs. This is highly applicable to Israel which is constituted as deeply divided society (Lewin-Epstein and Cohen, 2019).…”