Welcome to Massey Research Online
Massey Research Online is an open access digital archive of the research and scholarship of Massey University and is jointly managed by the University Library and Information Technology Services.
Massey Research Online contains research theses and research outputs including published work by Massey University students and academic staff as well as peer-reviewed material not published elsewhere. In the case of previously published research outputs all requirements of copyright owners are observed.
Items in Massey Research Online are fully indexed and searchable on Google Scholar and NZ Research.
To submit research outputs to Massey Research Online, check out the Depositing content to MRO page. For all other queries, email the Library.
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Recent Submissions
The COVID-19 pandemic supercharged the spread of fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories worldwide. Using a national probability sample of adults from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study during 2020 (17–99 years old; M = 48.59, SD = 13.86; 63% women, 37% men; N = 41,487), we examined the associations between agreement with general conspiracy beliefs and political indicators of intention to vote and satisfaction with government, alongside political factors including trust in politicians, political efficacy, identity centrality, and political ideology. Left-wing political ideology, trust in politicians, and political efficacy accounted for most of the explained variance in satisfaction with the government. General conspiracy belief was also a unique contributor to lower satisfaction with the government. We also found a curvilinear relationship between political ideology with heightened belief in conspiracies at both ideological extremes and the centre. Findings are discussed in terms of the consequences of conspiracy belief on democratic engagement.