Oleksy Tomasz, Wnuk Anna, Gambin Małgorzata, Łyś Agnieszka
Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, ul. Stawki 5/7, 00-183, Warsaw, Poland.
The Robert B. Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, ul. Stawki 5/7, 00-183, Warsaw, Poland.
Soc Sci Med. 2021 Jul;280:114028. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114028. Epub 2021 May 15.
Conspiracy theories about COVID-19 pose a serious threat to public health by providing false information and undermining official health recommendations. However, existing studies rarely employed longitudinal designs, precluding the determination of the directionality between endorsement of conspiracy theories and its societal consequences. Also, relatively little research examined whether the association between protective health behaviour and the endorsement of conspiracy theories is affected by the content of a given theory.
A four-wave longitudinal panel survey on the association between belief in a wide range of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour was carried out on a representative sample of Polish citizens (T1 = 1130, T2 = 971, T3 = 818, T4 = 688). Analyses were performed using Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models.
The results showed a reciprocal, bidirectional association between conspiracy mentality and protective behaviour. The same effect was also observed between protective behaviour and threat of authoritarianism. We did not find evidence that specific COVID-19 related conspiracy theories directly (and differently) predict within-person changes in protective behaviour over time.
Our results showed that the association between various conspiracy-related variables and anti-pandemic COVID-19 variables differs at within- and between-person levels. Changes in the adherence to pro-health measures were negatively predicted by conspiracy mentality and a feeling of threat that the solutions introduced by the government may limit civil rights. Specific conspiracy beliefs were significantly related to protective behaviour only at the between-person level.
关于新冠疫情的阴谋论通过提供虚假信息和破坏官方健康建议，对公众健康构成严重威胁。然而，现有研究很少采用纵向设计，因而无法确定阴谋论的认同与其社会后果之间的方向性。此外，相对较少的研究考察了保护性健康行为与阴谋论认同之间的关联是否受特定理论内容的影响。
对波兰公民的代表性样本进行了一项关于对新冠疫情各种阴谋论的信念与保护行为之间关联的四波纵向面板调查（T1 = 1130，T2 = 971，T3 = 818，T4 = 688）。使用随机截距交叉滞后面板模型进行分析。
结果显示阴谋心态与保护行为之间存在相互的、双向的关联。在保护行为与威权主义威胁之间也观察到了同样的效应。我们没有发现证据表明与新冠疫情相关的特定阴谋论能直接（且不同地）预测随着时间推移保护行为在个体内部的变化。
我们的结果表明，各种与阴谋相关的变量和新冠疫情防控相关变量之间的关联在个体内部和个体之间层面存在差异。阴谋心态以及认为政府采取的措施可能会限制公民权利的威胁感对坚持有利于健康的措施变化有负面预测作用。特定的阴谋信念仅在个体之间层面与保护行为显著相关。
