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Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus

The present study investigated variables potentially associated with a lack of concern about COVID-19 and belief in the conspiracy theory that China is responsible for the virus. In particular, the study looked at Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, gender, and consistency of handedness as predict...

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Autores principales: Prichard, Eric C., Christman, Stephen D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7732680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33329265
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.597671
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author Prichard, Eric C.
Christman, Stephen D.
author_facet Prichard, Eric C.
Christman, Stephen D.
author_sort Prichard, Eric C.
collection PubMed
description The present study investigated variables potentially associated with a lack of concern about COVID-19 and belief in the conspiracy theory that China is responsible for the virus. In particular, the study looked at Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, gender, and consistency of handedness as predictors of nine Likert-type items gauging attitudes, behavior, and beliefs regarding the virus. Initial analyses showed that Authoritarianism predicted less concern about the impact of the virus on health, less mask wearing, and a stronger belief in China’s responsibility for the illness. Conspiracy Beliefs were associated with a stronger belief in China’s responsibility. Women expressed greater degrees of concern about their own and others’ health and about the financial wellbeing of others. In order to reduce the number of dimensions, and thus the number of tests that could yield a type one error, the nine items were then submitted to a principal components analysis which yielded a “Concern about COVID” factor and a “Blame for China” factor. Authoritarianism is generally associated with less concern about the virus. In addition, men showed less concern about the virus overall than women. Both Authoritarianism and Conspiracy Beliefs accounted for unique variance in blame on China for the virus.
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spelling pubmed-77326802020-12-15 Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus Prichard, Eric C. Christman, Stephen D. Front Psychol Psychology The present study investigated variables potentially associated with a lack of concern about COVID-19 and belief in the conspiracy theory that China is responsible for the virus. In particular, the study looked at Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, gender, and consistency of handedness as predictors of nine Likert-type items gauging attitudes, behavior, and beliefs regarding the virus. Initial analyses showed that Authoritarianism predicted less concern about the impact of the virus on health, less mask wearing, and a stronger belief in China’s responsibility for the illness. Conspiracy Beliefs were associated with a stronger belief in China’s responsibility. Women expressed greater degrees of concern about their own and others’ health and about the financial wellbeing of others. In order to reduce the number of dimensions, and thus the number of tests that could yield a type one error, the nine items were then submitted to a principal components analysis which yielded a “Concern about COVID” factor and a “Blame for China” factor. Authoritarianism is generally associated with less concern about the virus. In addition, men showed less concern about the virus overall than women. Both Authoritarianism and Conspiracy Beliefs accounted for unique variance in blame on China for the virus. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-11-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7732680/ /pubmed/33329265 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.597671 Text en Copyright © 2020 Prichard and Christman. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Prichard, Eric C.
Christman, Stephen D.
Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus
title Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus
title_full Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus
title_fullStr Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus
title_full_unstemmed Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus
title_short Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus
title_sort authoritarianism, conspiracy beliefs, gender and covid-19: links between individual differences and concern about covid-19, mask wearing behaviors, and the tendency to blame china for the virus
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7732680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33329265
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.597671
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