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Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland
RATIONALE: 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...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier Ltd.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9755974/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34023709 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114028 |
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author | Oleksy, Tomasz Wnuk, Anna Gambin, Małgorzata Łyś, Agnieszka |
author_facet | Oleksy, Tomasz Wnuk, Anna Gambin, Małgorzata Łyś, Agnieszka |
author_sort | Oleksy, Tomasz |
collection | PubMed |
description | RATIONALE: 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. METHODS: 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. RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSIONS: 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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9755974 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Elsevier Ltd. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-97559742022-12-16 Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland Oleksy, Tomasz Wnuk, Anna Gambin, Małgorzata Łyś, Agnieszka Soc Sci Med Article RATIONALE: 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. METHODS: 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. RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSIONS: 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. Elsevier Ltd. 2021-07 2021-05-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9755974/ /pubmed/34023709 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114028 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Oleksy, Tomasz Wnuk, Anna Gambin, Małgorzata Łyś, Agnieszka Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland |
title | Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland |
title_full | Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland |
title_fullStr | Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland |
title_full_unstemmed | Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland |
title_short | Dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protective behaviour: A four-wave panel study in Poland |
title_sort | dynamic relationships between different types of conspiracy theories about covid-19 and protective behaviour: a four-wave panel study in poland |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9755974/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34023709 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114028 |
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