Publications

  • Pilch I., Turska-Kawa A., Wardawy P., Olszanecka-Marmola A, Smołkowska-Jędo W. (2023), Contemporary trends in psychological research on conspiracy beliefs. A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1075779
Background: 

The number of psychological studies on conspiracy beliefs has been systematically growing for about a dozen years, but in recent years, the trend has intensified. We provided a review covering the psychological literature on conspiracy beliefs from 2018 to 2021. Halfway through this period, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, accompanied by an explosion of movements based on conspiracy theories, intensifying researchers’ interest in this issue.

Methods: 

Adhering to PRISMA guidelines, the review systematically searched for relevant journal articles published between 2018 and 2021. A search was done on Scopus and Web of Science (only peer-reviewed journals). A study was included if it contained primary empirical data, if specific or general conspiracy belief(s) were measured and if its correlation with at least one other psychological variable was reported. All the studies were grouped for the descriptive analysis according to the methodology used, the participants’ characteristics, the continent of origin, the sample size, and the conspiracy beliefs measurement tools. Due to substantial methodological heterogeneity of the studies, narrative synthesis was performed. The five researchers were assigned specific roles at each stage of the analysis to ensure the highest quality of the research.

Results: 

Following the proposed methodology, 308 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility and 274 articles (417 studies) meeting the inclusion criteria were identified and included in the review. Almost half of the studies (49.6%) were conducted in European countries. The vast majority of the studies (85.7%) were carried out on samples of adult respondents. The research presents antecedents as well as (potential) consequences of conspiracy beliefs. We grouped the antecedents of conspiracy beliefs into six categories: cognitive (e.g., thinking style) motivational (e.g., uncertainty avoidance), personality (e.g., collective narcissism), psychopathology (e.g., Dark Triad traits), political (e.g., ideological orientation), and sociocultural factors (e.g., collectivism).

Conclusion and limitations: 

The research presents evidence on the links between conspiracy beliefs and a range of attitudes and behaviors considered unfavorable from the point of view of individuals and of the society at large. It turned out that different constructs of conspiracy thinking interact with each other. The limitations of the study are discussed in the last part of the article.

  • Turska-Kawa, A., Stępień-Lampa, N. (2023). Conspiracy Theory Mobilisation Mechanisms in the Context of the War in Ukraine: A Study of Polish Twitter. In: Turska-Kawa, A., Kasińska-Metryka, A., Pałka-Suchojad, K. (eds) War in Ukraine. Media and Emotions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37608-5_4
Background

After a particularly difficult period of the pandemic, which disrupted the sense of security, both economic and social, as well as psychological one, Poles have been exposed to yet another difficult test. The war in Ukraine and its direct social, political and cultural impacts on Poland broke the fragile post-pandemic set-up and deprived people of prospects to return to a settled and predictable reality. At the same time, it was the reason some people have focused on Internet-driven conspiracy theories—conspiracy theories, defined as explanatory beliefs about a group of actors that collude in secret to reach malevolent goals (Bale in Patterns of Prejudice 41(1), 45–60, 2007; van Prooijen & Douglas in European Journal of Social Psychology 48(7), 897–908, 2018). During crises, people are prone to support conspiracy theories (Bavel et al. in Nature Human Behaviour 4, 460–471, 2020; van Prooijen & Douglas in Memory Studies 10(3), 323–333, 2017; van Prooijen & Douglas in European Journal of Social Psychology 48(7), 897–908, 2018). They seem to be efficient in situations that we find hard to explain and offer plausible solutions (Oleksy et al. in Personality and Individual Differences 168, 110289, 2021). The theories provide illusive perspectives and false knowledge to silence our uncertainty. 

Results:

The article attempts to analyse social and psychological mobilization mechanisms used in the conspiracy-type content on Twitter during the first phase of the war in Ukraine. Research proves that disinformation on Twitter can spread much more widely than true information, depending on the depth of the tweet cascades, the users involved in sharing and the time of sharing. The study is both quantitative (number of accounts, followers, comments, etc.) and qualitative in its attempt to point out mobilization mechanisms used to attract supporters of conspiracy theories.

  •  MATUSZEWSKI P., RAMS-ŁUGOWSKI M. and PAWŁOWSKI J. (2024). FROM POLITICAL TREASON TO THE METAPHYSICAL STRUGGLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL. LEVELS OF POLITICAL CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES FOR DIFFUSION, JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS, vol. 17, no. 1. https://www.jofcp.org/assets/jcp/Articles-2024/JCP-January24-6.pdf
Abstract

This study explores the prevalence of conspiracy theories in political communication. The analysis reveals that conspiratorial political discourse deviates from non-conspiratorial discourse, displaying internal inconsistencies. Various subgroups within the conspiracy theory community have developed distinct ways of perceiving, classifying, attending, and assigning meaning to events. This study contends that the appeal of conspiracy theories is rooted in their cultural embeddedness. Utilising a dataset of tweets that mentioned, replied to, or were authored by Polish politicians and political parties, this study incorporates Thick Big Data by combining quantitative analysis with qualitative content analysis. The typology of conspiracy theories includes three levels based on their deviation from conventional knowledge. These levels have been empirically illustrated in the political context of Poland. This differentiation sheds light on the diffusion of political conspiracy theories, suggesting that the probability of adoption depends on the proximity to an individual’s mindscape.

Abstract

There is no easy explanation for why some people believe in conspiracy theories. Susceptibility to conspiracy theories can be associated with a range of various factors in which both psychological and situational components play a significant role. In this article, I aim to provide a review of potential psychological and situational factors that fuel conspiracy theorising, focusing primarily on examples relating to politics. Moreover, I aim to analyse the effects of conspiracy theories on society and politics. At the beginning, I will define the key terms used in psychology research. Then, I will discuss psychological factors. I will review current research on predispositions that drive people to believe conspiracy theories. These may comprise psychological motives (epistemic, existential, and social), cognitive factors (e.g. intuitive thinking style), personality traits (e.g. maladaptive traits), or worldviews (e.g. authoritarian worldviews). In the next section, I aim to illuminate situational factors. Large-scale and threatening events may drive people to seek explanations in the wrong places, specifically, in conspiracies. A notable example is the COVID-19 pandemic when the popularity of conspiracy theories greatly increased. Overall, a combination of specific predispositions and situations may significantly contribute to higher levels of conspiracy beliefs, which, consequently, severely impact society. 

Abstract

After the collapse of the non-democratic regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, new democratic states emerged in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and began their state building on the wave of
democratic enthusiasm. Majority of those countries, including Slovenia, entered European Union in early 2000s as consolidated well-working democracies, although public trust in democratic political institutions has been on the slow decline since gaining independence, only to drop substantially more after global economic crisis and wave of populist politics hit CEE in the last decade. Author is analyzing trends in (dis)trust levels in key political institutions in Slovenia with emphasis on the wave of conspiracy theories, which extensively spread during and after global coronavirus pandemic.
Crisis events such as recent global pandemic have triggered a wave of concerns about the actual backgrounds of global crises, and those concerns eroded public trust into key political and administrative institutions and added fuel to the conspiracy theories that were often embraced by political parties and non-governmental stakeholders that exploited sometimes-legitimate concerns to their own benefits.
Keywords: conspiracy theories; political trust; information; institutions; Slovenia

Abstract

Smolensk, including the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński. To this day, many conspiracies have grown around this event regarding the alleged assassination in which Russian secret services were supposed to be involved. The aim of the article is to diagnose how social identity created based on party identification affects conspiracy thinking connected with the presidential Tu-154 plane crash. We analyse research on belief in the Smolensk attack theory conducted by Polish opinion research centres in 2010-2022. They show that the voters of the Law and Justice party believe to a much greater extent that the Smolensk catastrophe is, in fact, an
assassination of President Lech Kaczyński ordered by Vladimir Putin. The conducted analysis confirms that the political dimension of social identity (conceptualized in the study as trust in Law and Justice government and party identification) determines the endorsement of the Smolensk conspiracy. This factor is more important for belief in the assassination theory than such factors as
conspiracy mentality, gender, age, place of residence, and education.
Keywords: conspiracy theories; conspiracy beliefs; social identity; party affiliation; Smolensk plane crash.

Abstract

Despite cognitive similarities, the relationship between religiosity and conspiracy beliefs remains ambiguous due to their heterogeneity and variation in cultural contexts. The Polish study addresses these discrepancies by using complementary measures, including the strength of faith, religious beliefs, experiences, and practices. Conspiracy theory beliefs were assessed using a generic
measure and four specific theories on vaccination, the Ukrainian war, COVID-19, and 5G networks. An online survey was conducted, collecting 898 responses from conspiracy theory believers to explore the relationship. The results show that for generic conspiracist beliefs religious experience and religious beliefs emerge as positive determinants, while religious practices emerge as a negative
determinant. For specific conspiracy theories on vaccination, the Ukrainian war, and 5G technology, the positive correlation occurs with the strength of faith and religious experience. None of the
religious factors are statistically significant for COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. The research findings highlight the need for more in-depth and comparative studies.
Keywords: religiosity; conspiracy beliefs; conspiracy theories; conspiracy mentality.

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