New research has found that the belief that the Coronavirus Pandemic is a hoax, that its severity as exaggerated for other reasons, is a ‘gateway’ to believing in conspiracy theories in general.
People who reported greater belief in various conspiracies about the pandemic (which have no basis in truth) were more likely to report a belief that the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
The results have led the Ohio State University researchers to propose the idea that COVID is a “gateway conspiracy”, the way many believe partaking in any recreational drug use will lead to more harsh, illegal drug use. The research shows that conspiratorial beliefs prompted by a single even lead to believing others over time. The research also indicates that distrust is a trigger.
“It’s speculative, but it appears that once people adopt one conspiracy belief, it promotes distrust in institutions more generally – it could be government, science, the media, whatever,” said Russell Fazio, senior author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State. “Once you start viewing events through that distrustful lens, it’s very easy to adopt additional conspiracy theories.”
The study was published October 26, 2022 in PLOS ONE journal.
Research into the belief of conspiracy theories is fairly new and has been primarily focused on identifying traits that lead to the belief in conspiracies.
In June 2020, 501 participants in a survey were asked to answer questions about their beliefs in conspiracy theories surrounding COVID-19, political ideology, and conspiracist ideation. A five point scale was used ranging from “definitely not true” to. “definitely true” rating statements that posed if UFO sighting were planned by authorities to distract from real alien contact to advances in technology were buried to protect a current industry.
In December of that year, 107 of the same participants were asked to respond again to questions to gauge their conspiratorial thinking. Researchers were able to further assess conspiratorial thinking by asking the participants to report the extent they believed the 2020 election had excessive voter fraud.
The data from the surveys showed that those who participated and believed that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was purposefully released for “dark purposes” and that its severity was exaggerated had a greater belief that the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump. It also showed that compared to the June survey baseline, COVID skeptics were much more likely to endorse conspiracies six months later.
The Ohio State data showed a trend that indicates that financial distress during the lockdowns of 2020 were a factor in adopting conspiracy theories about the pandemic, even among those who started off with low levels of conspiracist ideation. The study has focused specially on conspiracies that not supported to be true by any evidence to gauge the beliefs.
Researchers note that a better understanding of what less to people believing in conspiracy theories could better help stop the spread of conspiratorial ideation, which is linked to a higher risk of violence, discrimination and poor health choices, among other negative individual societal outcomes.
“These findings show that we need to be prepared for any additional large-scale events similar to COVID-19 to stem off conspiracist ideation because once people go down the rabbit hole, they may get stuck,” says first author Javier Granados Samayoa, who completed the work while a graduate student in psychology at Ohio State.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation. Additional co-authors, all from Ohio State, included Fazio lab members Courtney Moore, Shelby Boggs, Jesse Ladanyi and Benjamin Ruisch, now at the University of Kent in England.