The Enemy of ‘Ummah: Belief in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories indirectly affected vaccination decisions

Abstract

In our three pre-registered studies, we aimed to unravel the root cause and societal implications of belief in Jewish conspiracy theories among Indonesian Muslims. Our findings in Study 1 (N=385) confirmed our predictions that symbolic threat and collective narcissism were strongly related to belief in Jewish conspiracy and mediated the association between religious zeal and Jewish conspiracy beliefs. In Study 2 (N=370), we found that Jewish conspiracy beliefs indirectly predicted vaccination refusal and delay through vaccination conspiracy beliefs, and observed no evidence to confirm the moderating role of religiosity in reinforcing vaccination conspiracy beliefs. In Study 3 (N=396), we replicated our findings in Study 2 that belief in Jewish conspiracy theories was strongly related to vaccination conspiracy belief. Also, participants who blamed the Jews for the coronavirus pandemic were inclined to refuse a coronavirus vaccination when it is available. We argue that religiosity might not be directly related to conspiratorial thinking but, instead, activates a sense of outgroup threats among religious individuals making them more likely to endorse Jewish conspiracy theories. Despite the assumption that Jewish conspiracy theories are somehow benign, our findings dispute this premise.

Conspiracy Beliefs and Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Acehnese People

“…Several studies have shown that conspiracy beliefs have long been a major predictor and play a strong role in shaping negative views of vaccination and the rejection of scientific evidence related to vaccines [4,38,39]. In Indonesia, the linkage between conspiracy beliefs and vaccine hesitancy has also been demonstrated by Zein et al, who found that beliefs in Jewish conspiracies and vaccine conspiracies significantly influence parents' decisions to delay or refuse vaccination for their children [40]. Douglas et al stated that in times of crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, people tend to seek important information that they believe can answer their questions [4].…”

Are more religious people less willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19?

“…Future studies could investigate whether these ideas refer to conspiracy theories -such as that "the coronavirus is a plot by globalists to destroy religion by banning gatherings" (Freeman et al, 2020) and/or to claims that call into question the efficacy and safety of the vaccines. As these beliefs often correlate with resistance to vaccination (e.g., Callaghan et al, 2020;Freeman et al, 2020;Reiter et al, 2020;Zein et al, 2020), perhaps religious communities are environments relatively fertile for their development and/or propagation.…”

“…Despite this inconsistency, the association between religiosity and vaccination deserves further investigation. For example, there is some evidence that more religious people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories about the vaccine and/or the coronavirus (Drew, 2021;Freeman et al, 2020), and this could decrease their intention to get vaccinated (Freeman et al, 2020;Zein, Arinda & Rikardi, 2020). Some authors have raised different hypotheses to explain why religiosity is negatively associated with other types of attitude related to containing the pandemic -such as social isolation.…”

Covid-19 Vaccination is Approaching, Why Should You Hesitate? Effect of Disgust, Conspiratorial Belief on Anti-Vaccination Attitude

“…Immunization and vaccine conspiracies are included in hoaxes spread on social media with a percentage of 31.08 percent. Research in Indonesia on religious conspiracy theories and vaccination behaviour has been carried out by Zein et al [11]. The results of his research show that the association of the conspiracy regarding the Jews with the conspiracy regarding the vaccine looks very strong, and can indirectly lead to the rejection of the vaccine.…”