COVID-19 Scientific Facts vs. Conspiracy Theories: Is Science Failing to Pass Its Message?

Abstract

Science may be failing to convince a significant number of people about COVID-19 scientific facts and needed public health measures. Individual and social factors are behind believing conspiracy theories. Adults (N = 1001) were asked to rate their beliefs in various conspiracy theories circulating in social media, rate their psychological distress relating to COVID-19, rate their trust in science to solve COVID-19 problems, and rate their willingness to adhere to measures regarding social distancing and quarantine. The findings showed conspiracy theories are widely believed and related to lower age, lower education, living in less densely populated areas, and lower income. Stronger conspiracy theory beliefs predicted science mistrust and unwillingness to adhere to public health measures. Psychological state was a strong predictor of conspiracy beliefs. Recommendations, stemming from the findings, for reducing such beliefs and better serving public health are discussed.

Acceptance and adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures are shaped predominantly by conspiracy beliefs, mistrust in science and fear - A comparison of more than 20 psychological variables

“…Despite the possible involvement of further variables in the link between attitude and behaviour, it is a striking finding that COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs hadof all variables -the strongest direct association with adherence as well. Our results therefore add to a growing body of recent evidence for the significant impact of unwarranted beliefs and mistrust in science in the fight against the pandemic (Allington et al, 2020;Bierwiaczonek et al, 2020;Bruder & Kunert, 2021;Constantinou et al, 2021;Earnshaw et al, 2020;Freeman et al, 2020;Gratz et al, 2021;Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020;Pavela Banai et al, 2020Plohl & Musil, 2021;Pummerer et al, 2021;Reinders Folmer et al, 2020;Romer & Jamieson, 2020;Šrol et al, 2021;Teovanović et al, 2021Teovanović et al, , 2021. Remarkably, this result emerged in a sample that did not consist of particularly strong conspiracy believers.…”

“…Relatedly, previous studies found a positive relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and the use of social media as source of information (Allington et al, 2020). An important step forward might thus for example be to encourage people to rely more on trusted sources (Constantinou et al, 2021;Pavela Banai et al, 2020).…”

“…Conspiracy beliefs emerged almost immediately after the first reports of COVID-19 and continued to attract attention from people all over the world (Gogarty & Hagle, 2020). Conspiracy beliefs can undermine preventive behaviour (Allington et al, 2020;Bierwiaczonek et al, 2020;Constantinou et al, 2021;Earnshaw et al, 2020;Freeman et al, 2020;Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020;Pavela Banai et al, 2020;Pummerer et al, 2021;Romer & Jamieson, 2020;Teovanović et al, 2021), and the study of conspiracy beliefs is therefore of great relevance in the context of acceptance and adherence to preventive measures.…”

“…Such findings have led to the conceptualisation of a trait-like "conspiracy mentality", characterized by a general tendency to mistrust official information or to take side views (e.g., Brotherton et al, 2013;Bruder et al, 2013;Imhoff & Bruder, 2014). The role of the different components of a contaminated mindware in relation to preventive measures has so far only been investigated independently from each other or in pairs (Allington et al, 2020;Bierwiaczonek et al, 2020;Constantinou et al, 2021;Earnshaw et al, 2020;Freeman et al, 2020;Gratz et al, 2021;Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020;Pavela Banai et al, 2020;Plohl & Musil, 2021;Pummerer et al, 2021;Reinders Folmer et al, 2020;Romer & Jamieson, 2020;Teovanović et al, 2021Teovanović et al, , 2021, but to the best of our knowledge, no study has yet carefully considered all of these components within the same sample. Following the approach of contaminated mindware, conspiracy mentality, anti-science attitude and paranormal beliefs can be considered as higher-order concepts superordinate to more specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, and we will explore whether these higher-order concepts have a direct association with acceptance and adherence when controlling for the indirect effect of specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs.…”

How Are Conspiracy Beliefs Associated with Generosity?

“…It has further been suggested that mistrust triggers biased information processing (e.g., lower analytical thinking and scientific literacy) which eventually results in conspiracy beliefs (Pierre, 2020). Recently, lack of trust in media (Bruder & Kunert, 2021;Lockyer et al, 2021;Su et al, 2021), government and public health institutions (Bruder & Kunert, 2021;De Coninck et al, 2021;Kim & Kim, 2021;Pummerer et al, 2021), and science (Constantinou et al, 2020;Eberl et al, 2021;Erceg et al, 2020) have also been shown to play a key role in fostering conspiracy beliefs about the origins of COVID-19. A large-scale cross-country comparison showed that in countries where people find fewer reasons to trust institutions (e.g., countries that lack rule of law), there are significantly higher levels of COVID-19-related and general conspiracy beliefs (Alper, 2021).…”