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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Soc. Psychol.
Sec. Attitudes, Social Justice and Political Psychology
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frsps.2024.1447313

Need for Cognitive Closure, Political Trust and Belief in Conspiracy Theories during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Provisionally accepted
Alexander Jedinger Alexander Jedinger 1*Lena Masch Lena Masch 2
  • 1 GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany
  • 2 Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Beliefs in conspiracy theories associated with the coronavirus disease are seen as a threat to individual and collective health, as well as a danger to democracy. This research examines the effect of individual differences in the need for cognitive closure and political trust on the endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. We hypothesize that individuals high in cognitive closure and low in political trust will seize on conspiracy accounts of the pandemic. In contrast, we expect that individuals high in cognitive closure and political trust are more likely to disregard conspiracies surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from a preregistered study (N = 2,883) among a representative sample of the German population, we find that individuals high in need for cognitive closure are more prone to accept conspiracy narratives. At the same time, prepandemic trust and concurrent trust in political and medical institutions are negatively related to conspiracy beliefs. We find no support for a moderating effect of political trust. These findings will help to address the psychological sources of beliefs in coronavirus-related conspiracy theories and to design practical measures to fight conspiratorial thinking.

    Keywords: Need for cognitive closure, cognitive style, Conspiracy beliefs, COVID-19, Coronavirus

    Received: 11 Jun 2024; Accepted: 16 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Jedinger and Masch. 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) or licensor 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.

    * Correspondence: Alexander Jedinger, GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.