Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, Sapienza University, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Associazione Scuola di Psicoterapia Cognitiva (APC-SPC), 00185 Rome, Italy.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Aug 2;19(15):9499. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159499.
The COVID-19 pandemic represents an event that unsettled the social and economic life of many people. When individuals are faced with shocking events, they may need to find plausible explanations for such events to restore control and make sense of reality. The adoption of conspiracy beliefs may represent a functional strategy for this purpose. The present study investigated whether the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs may be associated with the degree to which an upsetting event (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic) is perceived as incoherent with individuals' general set of expectations about the world functioning (i.e., the natural order of things). Analyzing data from a community sample of 565 Italian participants, a path analysis model highlighted a mediation pattern where the natural order of things was negatively related to the adoption of conspiracy beliefs and, thus, was indirectly and positively related to support for the norms aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19, feelings of guilt about neglecting such norms, and intentions to be compliant with COVID-19 vaccination. Moreover, the natural order of things was indirectly and negatively related to attitudes focused on economic issues rather than public health and to negative attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines through reduced beliefs in conspiracies.
新冠疫情大流行是一个扰乱了许多人社会和经济生活的事件。当个人面临令人震惊的事件时，他们可能需要为这些事件找到合理的解释，以恢复控制并理解现实。接受阴谋论可能代表了一种达到这一目的的功能策略。本研究调查了接受阴谋论是否与人们对世界运转的一般期望（即事物的自然秩序）与令人不安的事件（即新冠疫情大流行）之间的不连贯性程度有关。通过对来自意大利 565 名参与者的社区样本进行路径分析模型分析，结果表明，存在一种中介模式，即事物的自然秩序与阴谋论的采用呈负相关，因此，与支持旨在遏制新冠病毒传播的规范、对忽视这些规范的内疚感以及遵守新冠病毒疫苗接种的意愿呈间接和正相关。此外，事物的自然秩序与关注经济问题而不是公共卫生的态度以及对新冠病毒疫苗的负面态度通过减少对阴谋论的信仰而呈间接和负相关。
