Conspiratorial Thinking During COVID-19: The Roles of Paranoia, Delusion-Proneness, and Intolerance of Uncertainty.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 global pandemic has left many feeling a sense of profound uncertainty about their world, safety, and livelihood. Sources espousing misinformation and conspiracy theories frequently offer information that can help make sense of this uncertainty. Individuals high in intolerance of uncertainty (IU) may be particularly impacted by the impoverished epistemic environment and may thus be more drawn to conspiratorial thinking (CT). In the present work, we show across 2 studies (N = 519) that COVID-19-specific CT is associated with higher levels of IU as well as delusion-proneness, and paranoia. Furthermore, delusion-proneness and paranoia explained the relationship between IU and CT and emerged as independent partial correlates of CT even when controlling for other facets of sc

SUBMITTER: Larsen EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8416269 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature