System threat during a pandemic: How conspiracy theories help to justify the system

Jiayan Mao, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, S.-L. Yang, Y.-Y. Guo

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have endorsed conspiracy theories about foreign governments yet shown increased trust and support for their own government. Whether there is a potential correlation between these social phenomena and the psychological mechanisms behind them is still unclear. Integrating insights from the existential threat model of conspiracy theories and system justification theory, two experimental studies were conducted to investigate whether belief in out-group conspiracy theories can play a mediating role in the effects of system threat on people's system justification beliefs against the background of the pandemic. The results show that system threat positively predicts individuals’ system-justifying belief, and belief in out-group conspiracy theories mediated this relationship.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-11
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Pacific Rim Psychology
Volume15
Early online date7 Dec 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'System threat during a pandemic: How conspiracy theories help to justify the system'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this