Autoren:	Frenken, Marius Imhoff, Roland
Titel:	A uniform conspiracy mindset or differentiated reactions to specific conspiracy beliefs? : Evidence from latent profile analyses
Online-Publikationsdatum:	26-Okt-2021
Erscheinungsdatum:	2021
Sprache des Dokuments:	Englisch
Zusammenfassung/Abstract:	Conspiracy theories arise for virtually any public event (e.g., pandemics, assassinations, disasters). In light of positively correlated endorsements of such beliefs, many have pointed to a more general mindset behind this. Others have argued against this notion of a consistent mindset. Applying Latent Profile Analyses, we examine the evidence for either uniform or differentiated response patterns to various items in five studies (reanalyzed datasets, total N = 7877). Overall, the results speak strongly to uniform reactions that could be summarized as a general mindset, but also revealed important qualifications. First, small parts of the samples show more differentiated patterns in relation to extraterrestrial cover-up narratives (Studies 2 to 4) or contradictory theories (Study 5). Second, indicators dealing with the general suppression of relevant information in the public were among the items with the highest approval ratings across all classes. One discussed implication is that existing scales are useful tools to measure conspiracy mindsets. Another implication is that the average endorsement of any conspiracy theory is a function of both the respondents’ conspiracy mindset and the item’s psychometric difficulty, strongly suggesting interpreting item endorsement only in relative terms, but refraining from interpreting a high agreement as an absolute number.
DDC-Sachgruppe:	150 Psychologie 150 Psychology
Veröffentlichende Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Organisationseinheit:	FB 02 Sozialwiss., Medien u. Sport
Veröffentlichungsort:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-6411
Version:	Published version
Publikationstyp:	Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Weitere Angaben zur Dokumentart:	Scientific article
Nutzungsrechte:	CC BY
Informationen zu den Nutzungsrechten:	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Zeitschrift:	International review of social psychology 34 1
Seitenzahl oder Artikelnummer:	27
Verlag:	Ubiquity Press
Verlagsort:	London
Erscheinungsdatum:	2021
ISSN:	2397-8570
URL der Originalveröffentlichung:	https://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.590
DOI der Originalveröffentlichung:	10.5334/irsp.590
Enthalten in den Sammlungen:	JGU-Publikationen