Naslov
Political distrust as a determinant of endorsement of conspiracy theories: Evidence from multiple international datasets

Autori
Maglić, Marina ; Pavlović, Tomislav ; Franc, Renata

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
XXIX Scientific Conference Empirical Studies in Psychology / Filipović Đurđević, Dušica i sur. - Beograd : Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Beogradu, 2023, 81-81

Skup
XXIX Scientific Conference Empirical Studies in Psychology

Mjesto i datum
Beograd, Srbija, 31.03.2023. - 02.04.2023

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
trust, parliament ; politicians ; conspiracy theories ; conspiracy beliefs

Sažetak
Trust in the political system has been recognized as an important building block of well-functioning social systems. On the other hand, distrust in the political system can motivate individuals to find leadership and relevant information elsewhere. The lack of political trust can become a severe problem in crises as citizens may be unwilling to follow the recommendations of political leaders and rely on other sources of information. In other words, we hypothesized that distrust in politicians and the national parliament could represent a fertile ground for the development and spread of various conspiracy theories. We used three large-scale international data sets - European Social Survey rounds 9 (N = 49519 from 29 European countries) and round 10 (N = 26094 from 15 European countries available at the time when the manuscript was prepared), and ICSMP COVID-19 data (N = 51404 participants from 69 countries around the world) - to evaluate the relationships between trust in politicians and parliament and the support for conspiracy theories. The analyses were carried out at the individual and country level. To avoid the issue of reverse causality in our country-level analyses, aggregated data on political trust from ESS round 9 was used to predict aggregated support for conspiracy theories on secret groups making relevant political choices, scientists deceiving the public, and COVID-19 being artificially developed from ESS round 10 and conspiracy theories on COVID- 19 from ICSMP COVID-19 data. Individual-level analyses were based on the data on trust in politicians and parliament and support for conspiracy theories from ESS round 10. Results robustly confirm our expectations: on the individual level and in each country, participants who reported less trust in politicians and national parliaments also reported more belief in all the conspiracy theories (r between -.38 in Latvia and -.09 in Portugal, all p < .01). Moreover, belief in conspiracy theories on the national level was higher in countries with lower overall trust in politicians and national parliament (r between -.92 and -.86 in the data set consisting of ESS round 9 and ESS round 10 and r between -.77 and -.63 in the data set consisting of ESS 9 and ICSMP COVID-19, all p < .01). These findings confirm the relevance of political (dis)trust in the development and spread of conspirational narratives and highlight the need to better understand its individual and contextual determinants.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Psihologija, Interdisciplinarne društvene znanosti

POVEZANOST RADA