Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs, mistrust, and compliance with government guidelines in England

Abstract

Background An invisible threat has visibly altered the world. Governments and key institutions have had to implement decisive responses to the danger posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Imposed change will increase the likelihood that alternative explanations take hold. In a proportion of the general population there may be strong scepticism, fear of being misled, and false conspiracy theories. Our objectives were to estimate the prevalence of conspiracy thinking about the pandemic and test associations with reduced adherence to government guidelines. Methods A non-probability online survey with 2501 adults in England, quota sampled to match the population for age, gender, income, and region. Results Approximately 50% of this population showed little evidence of conspiracy thinking, 25% showed a degree of endorsement, 15% showed a consistent pattern of endorsement, and 10% had very high levels of endorsement. Higher levels of coronavirus conspiracy thinking were associated with less adherence to all government guidelines and less willingness to take diagnostic or antibody tests or to be vaccinated. Such ideas were also associated with paranoia, general vaccination conspiracy beliefs, climate change conspiracy belief, a conspiracy mentality, and distrust in institutions and professions. Holding coronavirus conspiracy beliefs was also associated with being more likely to share opinions. Conclusions In England there is appreciable endorsement of conspiracy beliefs about coronavirus. Such ideas do not appear confined to the fringes. The conspiracy beliefs connect to other forms of mistrust and are associated with less compliance with government guidelines and greater unwillingness to take up future tests and treatment.

Perception of and anxiety about COVID-19 infection and risk behaviors for spreading infection: An international comparison

“…Differences in the basic trust of officials because of cultural factors as well as recent political conflicts may have contributed to these results. It was reported very recently that an alarming number of individuals in England believe conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and these theories are associated with less adherence to official guidelines for precautionary behaviors [22]. On the contrary, we observed that the questionnaire respondents who had an acquaintance who was infected with the virus were likely to trust official information about COVID-19.…”

Adherence to safety and self-isolation guidelines, conspiracy and paranoia-like beliefs during COVID-19 pandemic in Poland - associations and moderators

“…The relationship between mistrust, paranoia-like thoughts, and adherence to medical or epidemiological recommendations has been described in recent research ( Freeman et al, 2020 ; Marinthe, Brown, Delouvée, & Jolley, in press), where paranoia-like and conspiracy beliefs in England and France are associated with lower adherence to safety guidelines. Importantly, believing in conspiracy theories is associated negatively with trust towards science in general ( Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Gignac, 2013 )⁠.…”

“…Quarantine adherence was linked to socio-cultural norms and perceived pro-social character of isolation, perceived benefits of quarantine, perceived risk of disease outbreak and trust in government ( Webster et al, 2020 )⁠. We may expect that people with high levels of general interpersonal mistrust (e.g., having exaggerated paranoia-like thoughts) and perceiving epidemiological threat as illusionary, benign or a conspiracy, would be less inclined towards adherence to safety guidelines ( Freeman et al, 2020 ). Recently, all these factors may be operating even more intensively due to the high level of uncertainty and related stress during COVID-19 epidemic.…”

“…physical isolation, avoiding public places). However, as discussed above, distrust inherent for paranoia-like and conspiracy beliefs may most probably incline to diminished adherence to safety and self-isolation measures ( Freeman et al, 2020 ), when perceiving guidelines as malign. It could indicate that sense of anxiety and risk particularly associated with coronavirus - and not anxiety in general - could have a modifying effect on the relationship between paranoia-like beliefs and conspiracy beliefs and adherence to self-isolation and safety measures.…”

Perception of and Anxiety About COVID-19 Infection and Risk Behaviors for Spreading Infection: An International Comparison

“…It was reported very recently that an alarming number of individuals in England believe conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and these theories are associated with less adherence to o cial guidelines for precautionary behaviors. 22 On the contrary, we observed that the questionnaire respondents who had an acquaintance who was infected with the virus were likely to trust o cial information about COVID-19. Considering these results, the residents of Japan are potentially vulnerable to conspiracy theories in part because of the rare experience of an acquaintance's infection, although there is no evidence suggesting the spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories in Japan.…”