Department of Philosophy and Social Studies, University of Crete, Crete, Greece.
Department of Management, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
PLoS One. 2022 Sep 7;17(9):e0273172. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273172. eCollection 2022.
Believing in conspiracy theories is a major problem, especially in the face of a pandemic, as these constitute a significant obstacle to public health policies, like the use of masks and vaccination. Indeed, during the COVID-19 pandemic, several ungrounded explanations regarding the origin of the virus or the effects of vaccinations have been rising, leading to vaccination hesitancy or refusal which poses as a threat to public health. Recent studies have shown that in the core of conspiracy theories lies a moral evaluation component; one that triggers a moral reasoning which reinforces the conspiracy itself. To gain a better understanding of how conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 affect public health containment behaviors and policy support via morality-relevant variables, we analysed comprehensive data from the International Collaboration on the Social & Moral Psychology (ICSMP) of COVID-19, consisting of 49.965 participants across 67 countries. We particularly explored the mediating role of two levels of morality: individual and group-based morality. Results show that believing in conspiracy theories reduces adoption of containment health-related behaviors and policy support of public health measures, but moral identity and morality-as-cooperation significantly mediate this relationship. This means that beliefs in conspiracy theories do not simply constitute antecedents of cognitive biases or failures, nor maladaptive behaviors based on personality traits, but are morally infused and should be dealt as such. Based on our findings, we further discuss the psychological, moral, and political implications of endorsement of conspiracy theories in the era of the pandemic.
相信阴谋论是一个主要问题，尤其是在面对大流行病时，因为这些理论对公共卫生政策构成了重大障碍，例如使用口罩和接种疫苗。事实上，在 COVID-19 大流行期间，针对病毒起源或疫苗效果的一些毫无根据的解释不断出现，导致人们对接种犹豫不决或拒绝接种，这对公共卫生构成了威胁。最近的研究表明，阴谋论的核心包含道德评价成分；这种成分触发了一种道德推理，从而强化了阴谋本身。为了更好地了解 COVID-19 相关阴谋信念如何通过与道德相关的变量影响公共卫生遏制行为和政策支持，我们分析了 COVID-19 国际合作社会与道德心理学 (ICSMP) 的综合数据，该数据来自 67 个国家的 49965 名参与者。我们特别探讨了两种层次的道德的中介作用：个体道德和群体道德。研究结果表明，相信阴谋论会减少对遏制与健康相关的行为和对公共卫生措施的政策支持，但道德认同和合作道德在很大程度上调解了这种关系。这意味着，对阴谋论的信仰不仅仅构成了认知偏见或失败的前提，也不是基于人格特质的适应性行为，而是充满了道德内涵，应该以这种方式来处理。基于我们的发现，我们进一步讨论了在大流行时代，对阴谋论的认可所带来的心理、道德和政治影响。
