The impact of risk perceptions and belief in conspiracy theories on COVID-19 pandemic-related behaviours

Abstract

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, conspiracy theories about the virus spread rapidly, and whilst governments across the globe put in place different restrictions and guidelines to contain the pandemic, these were not universally adhered to. This research examined the association between pandemic related risk perceptions, belief in conspiracy theories, and compliance with COVID-19 public guidelines amongst a UK sample (n = 368). Participants rated their level of concern for a series of potential risks during the pandemic (to the economy, personal health, freedom, media integrity and health risk to others). Participants also rated their level of belief in different conspiracy theories and self-reported their behaviour during the first UK lockdown. Mediational analyses showed that stronger belief in conspiracy theories was associated with perceptions of lower risk to health and higher risk to the economy and freedom, which in turn were associated with lower compliance with COVID-19 related governmental guidelines. Perception of information transparency risks did not mediate the association between belief in conspiracy theories and compliant behaviours. These results highlight the key role that risk perception may play in translating belief in conspiracy theories into low compliance with governmental COVID-19 related guidelines. Our findings suggest new patterns with respect to the relationship between conspiracy theory adherence and salience of different risk perceptions amidst the pandemic, which could have implications for the development of public health messaging and communication interventions.

Do you trust the rumors? Examining the determinants of health-related misinformation in India.

“…Our findings reiterate past work that supports a conspiratorial mindset, suggesting that people who endorse some conspiracies tend to validate multiple other conspiracies (Brotherton et al, 2013;Bruder et al, 2013). As such conspiratorial beliefs tend to be unchanging in nature (Kroke & Ruthig, 2022) and can affect health behaviors, this finding has serious implications including reduced support for health-protective behaviors (Allington et al, 2021;Bierwiaczonek et al, 2020;Uscinski et al, 2020), non-compliance with public health guidelines and policies (Pummerer et al, 2022), reduced risk perceptions (Hughes et al, 2022), and increased use of alternative medicine (Oliver & Wood, 2014).…”

Knowledge of Human Monkeypox and Its Relation to Conspiracy Beliefs among Students in Jordanian Health Schools: Filling the Knowledge Gap on Emerging Zoonotic Viruses

“…The widespread prevalence of conspiracy beliefs was manifested amid the COVID-19 pandemic with suggested negative psychological, social, and health impacts [ 59 , 60 , 61 ]. Specifically, our previous research has shown that the belief in the manmade origin of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the endorsement of the notion that COVID-19 is part of a biologic warfare, was associated with higher anxiety levels among the general public and among university students in Jordan [ 47 , 48 ].…”

Contemporary trends in psychological research on conspiracy beliefs. A systematic review

“…There is evidence that health-related CBs can lower health-seeking intentions ( Natoli and Marques, 2021 ). In many studies, anti-COVID-19 health protective attitudes and behavior were negatively related to COVID-19 CBs ( Biddlestone et al, 2020 ; Bierwiaczonek et al, 2020 ; Earnshaw et al, 2020 ; Egorova et al, 2020 ; Kowalski et al, 2020 ; Rieger, 2020 ; Romer and Jamieson, 2020 ; Abadi et al, 2021 ; Allington et al, 2021 ; Farias and Pilati, 2021 ; Karić and Međedović, 2021 ; Resnicow et al, 2021 ; Soveri et al, 2021 ; Chayinska et al, 2022 ; Latkin et al, 2022 ; Pavela Banai et al, 2022 ; Garry et al, 2022 ; Hughes et al, 2022 ; Pummerer et al, 2022 ) and conspiracy mentality ( Gualda et al, 2021 ; Oleksy et al, 2021a ; Pellegrini et al, 2021 ; Plohl and Musil, 2021 ; Maftei and Holman, 2022 ). However, sometimes no relationship ( Prichard and Christman, 2020 ; Alper et al, 2021 ; Naveed et al, 2021 ; Schnell et al, 2021 ; Šuriņa et al, 2021 ; Yarosh et al, 2021 ) or even positive relationships ( Alper et al, 2021 ; Corbu et al, 2021 ; Wang and Kim, 2021 ) between these variables were reported.…”