COVID-19: Belief in Conspiracy Theories and the Need for Quarantine

Abstract

Background. Situations that are characterized by unexpected scenarios, unpredictable developments, and risks to life and health facilitate beliefs in conspiracy theories. These beliefs — together with reliable information, intentional and unintentional misinformation and rumors — determine attitudes toward the situations and ways to overcome them. Objective. To examine the effect of belief in conspiracy theories on the recognition of the need for quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic; the effect of personality traits on belief in conspiracy theories and on the recognition of the need for quarantine; the relationship of belief in conspiracy theories with assessment of the dangers of COVID-19 and with feelings of hopelessness. Design. The study was conducted over a period when the number of coronavirus cases was growing, during the first three weeks of the lockdown in Russia. The sample included 667 undergraduate and graduate students aged 16–31 (M = 20.44, SD = 2.38); 74.2% of the participants were women. Respondents filled out two online questionnaires. The first related to perceptions about the COVID-19 pandemic; the second was a brief HEXACO inventory. Results. Belief in Conspiracy Theories accounts for 13% of variance in Recognition of the Need for Quarantine; together with Dangers of COVID-19 and Hopelessness, conspiracy beliefs account for more than a quarter of the variance. Personality traits defined in the context of the 6-factor personality model have a small effect on conspiracy beliefs about the coronavirus and on perception of the need for quarantine. Conclusion. Belief in conspiracy theories is associated not only with irrational views of reality, but also with the adoption of ineffective behaviors.

Antecedents and consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs: A systematic review

“…Conflicting or confusing information can be particularly inflammatory to psychological well-being, especially when the information is threatening or when combined with the relentless stream of negative news on social networks and media ( Amanzio et al, 2020 ; Mukhtar, 2021 ). As such, belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, feeling insufficiently informed, and a lack of trust in the readiness of the government to deal with the pandemic was associated with greater feelings of hopelessness during the early stages of quarantine in Russia ( Egorova et al, 2020 ).…”

Irrational Beliefs about COVID-19: A Scoping Review

“…Hopelessness, which is a result of the self-perceived inability to respond to external threats, stimulates a desire to create a simulation of safety and correlates significantly with COVID-19 CTs [ 79 ]. A high level of uncertainty (concerning oneself, one’s place in the world and one’s future) is a common factor for CTs, even if they are contradictory.…”

“…As expected, accurate beliefs about COVID-19 were broadly associated with cognitive reflection, and actively open-minded and analytical thinking [ 55 , 64 , 72 , 81 , 86 ]. Belief in COVID-19 CTs had a positive correlation with faith in intuition, and with lack of sensibility to a contradiction, both typical characteristics of irrational thinking [ 72 , 79 ].…”

“…Another psychological trait that is associated with CTs is the avoidance of uncertainty: those who are less tolerant of uncertain situations and consider themselves unable to respond to external threats (feeling hopelessness) were more likely to believe in CTs on COVID-19 [ 72 , 79 , 92 ]. Moreover, the research by Miller and colleagues also found that the psychological predisposition to resilience is a buffer against COVID-19 CTs [ 80 ].…”

“…COVID-19 CT has also been associated with moral character traits such as honesty/humility (with a negative association); extraversion [ 79 ]; machiavellianism and primary psychopathy (with a positive correlation), and external blame attitude [ 79 , 81 , 93 ].…”