Beyond General Political Attitudes: Conspiracy Mentality as a Global Belief System Predicts Endorsement of International and Local Conspiracy Theories
Abstract
Conspiracy mentality is a general tendency to attribute significant events to the actions of malevolent actors, without referencing to a specific event. In two independent representative surveys of adult Serbian citizens (N1 = 1194; N2 = 1258) we validated Serbian version of the conspiracy mentality questionnaire (CMQ), a reasonably content-free tool designed to capture global conspiratorial beliefs. We successfully validated the adapted CMQ and replicated findings on two national representative samples. In both studies the results demonstrated: good psychometric properties of the CMQ and its predictive capacity for endorsing the international Conspiracy Theories (CTs) (Study 1) and the locally specific CTs (Study 2) over and above the measures of perceptions of political climate (trust in institutions, corruption perception, feeling of insecurity - Study 1), and generalized political attitudes (right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, political cynicism - Study 2). T...he study presents a unique adaptation and implementation of the CMQ in the non-English speaking country with very active and widespread conspiracy beliefs and a long history of conflicts.
Keywords:
political climate / political attitudes / local-universal conspiracy theories / conspiracy mentalitySource:
Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2021, 9, 1, 144-158Publisher:
- Psychopen, Trier
Funding / projects:
- The Democratic and National Capacities of Serbia’s Institutions in the Process of International Integrations (RS-179009)
DOI: 10.5964/jspp.5609
ISSN: 2195-3325
WoS: 000663335200010
Scopus: 2-s2.0-85109124898
Institution/Community
Psihologija / PsychologyTY - JOUR AU - Milošević-Đorđević, Jasna AU - Žeželj, Iris AU - Đurić, Zivojin PY - 2021 UR - http://reff.f.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/3250 AB - Conspiracy mentality is a general tendency to attribute significant events to the actions of malevolent actors, without referencing to a specific event. In two independent representative surveys of adult Serbian citizens (N1 = 1194; N2 = 1258) we validated Serbian version of the conspiracy mentality questionnaire (CMQ), a reasonably content-free tool designed to capture global conspiratorial beliefs. We successfully validated the adapted CMQ and replicated findings on two national representative samples. In both studies the results demonstrated: good psychometric properties of the CMQ and its predictive capacity for endorsing the international Conspiracy Theories (CTs) (Study 1) and the locally specific CTs (Study 2) over and above the measures of perceptions of political climate (trust in institutions, corruption perception, feeling of insecurity - Study 1), and generalized political attitudes (right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, political cynicism - Study 2). The study presents a unique adaptation and implementation of the CMQ in the non-English speaking country with very active and widespread conspiracy beliefs and a long history of conflicts. PB - Psychopen, Trier T2 - Journal of Social and Political Psychology T1 - Beyond General Political Attitudes: Conspiracy Mentality as a Global Belief System Predicts Endorsement of International and Local Conspiracy Theories EP - 158 IS - 1 SP - 144 VL - 9 DO - 10.5964/jspp.5609 ER -
@article{ author = "Milošević-Đorđević, Jasna and Žeželj, Iris and Đurić, Zivojin", year = "2021", abstract = "Conspiracy mentality is a general tendency to attribute significant events to the actions of malevolent actors, without referencing to a specific event. In two independent representative surveys of adult Serbian citizens (N1 = 1194; N2 = 1258) we validated Serbian version of the conspiracy mentality questionnaire (CMQ), a reasonably content-free tool designed to capture global conspiratorial beliefs. We successfully validated the adapted CMQ and replicated findings on two national representative samples. In both studies the results demonstrated: good psychometric properties of the CMQ and its predictive capacity for endorsing the international Conspiracy Theories (CTs) (Study 1) and the locally specific CTs (Study 2) over and above the measures of perceptions of political climate (trust in institutions, corruption perception, feeling of insecurity - Study 1), and generalized political attitudes (right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, political cynicism - Study 2). The study presents a unique adaptation and implementation of the CMQ in the non-English speaking country with very active and widespread conspiracy beliefs and a long history of conflicts.", publisher = "Psychopen, Trier", journal = "Journal of Social and Political Psychology", title = "Beyond General Political Attitudes: Conspiracy Mentality as a Global Belief System Predicts Endorsement of International and Local Conspiracy Theories", pages = "158-144", number = "1", volume = "9", doi = "10.5964/jspp.5609" }
Milošević-Đorđević, J., Žeželj, I.,& Đurić, Z.. (2021). Beyond General Political Attitudes: Conspiracy Mentality as a Global Belief System Predicts Endorsement of International and Local Conspiracy Theories. in Journal of Social and Political Psychology Psychopen, Trier., 9(1), 144-158. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.5609
Milošević-Đorđević J, Žeželj I, Đurić Z. Beyond General Political Attitudes: Conspiracy Mentality as a Global Belief System Predicts Endorsement of International and Local Conspiracy Theories. in Journal of Social and Political Psychology. 2021;9(1):144-158. doi:10.5964/jspp.5609 .
Milošević-Đorđević, Jasna, Žeželj, Iris, Đurić, Zivojin, "Beyond General Political Attitudes: Conspiracy Mentality as a Global Belief System Predicts Endorsement of International and Local Conspiracy Theories" in Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 9, no. 1 (2021):144-158, https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.5609 . .