Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 revealed a plethora of public health failings, and left the world with questions of how to effectively protect the self and others. A contributing factor to this failure was misinformation and conspiracy theories. This study sought to investigate how political affiliation interacted with the personality traits of agency and communion when predicting belief in conspiracy theories, perceived threat from the pandemic, and the efficacy of mitigation efforts during the pandemic. Participants (n =448) were widely recruited to be representative of the general population. Results generally indicated that those who identified as Republican tended to believe more in conspiracy theories, perceive that the pandemic posed less of a threat, and that mitigation efforts were less useful than their Democrat counterparts. Agency and communion interacted to predict conspiracy beliefs and perceived threat for Republicans but not for Democrats. Implications of these results are discussed.

Keywords

political affiliation, conspiracy, covid-19, agency, communion, personality, perceived threat, health