Browsing by Author "Clarke EJR"
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- ItemDemocracy and belief in conspiracy theories in New Zealand(Australian Political Studies Association, 2022) Marques MD; Hill SR; Clarke EJR; Williams M; Ling M; Kerr J; Douglas K; Cichocka A; Sibley C
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.
- ItemDoes Developing a Belief in One Conspiracy Theory Lead a Person to be More Likely to Believe in Others?(John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2025-02-17) Williams MN; Marques MD; Kerr JR; Hill SR; Ling M; Clarke EJRThe monological belief system model suggests that—for at least a subset of people—developing a belief in one conspiracy theory will cause them to be more likely to believe in others. This model has been influential in the literature, but its core causal hypothesis has never been credibly tested. We therefore tested it in two longitudinal studies. Study 1 used a sample from New Zealand and Australia (N = 498), with 7 monthly waves. Study 2 (preregistered) used a sample from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom (N = 978), with 13 monthly waves. We applied random intercept cross-lagged panel models, permitting a credible causal identification strategy, albeit we cannot rule out time-varying confounds. We find that increased belief in a conspiracy theory at one wave did (on average) predict increased belief in other conspiracies at the next wave, although the estimated coefficients were small.
- ItemPeople do change their beliefs about conspiracy theories-but not often.(Springer Nature Limited, 2024-02-15) Williams MN; Ling M; Kerr JR; Hill SR; Marques MD; Mawson H; Clarke EJRRecent research has produced a significant body of knowledge about the antecedents and consequences of individual differences in belief in conspiracy theories. What is less clear, however, is the extent to which individuals' beliefs in conspiracy theories vary over time (i.e., within-person variation). In this descriptive and exploratory study, we therefore aimed to describe within-person variability in belief in conspiracy theories. We collected data from 498 Australians and New Zealanders using an online longitudinal survey, with data collected at monthly intervals over 6 months (March to September 2021). Our measure of conspiracy theories included items describing ten conspiracy theories with responses on a 5-point Likert scale. While there was substantial between-person variance, there was much less within-person variance (intraclass r = 0.91). This suggests that beliefs in conspiracy theories were highly stable in our sample. This stability implies that longitudinal studies testing hypotheses about the causes and consequences of belief in conspiracy theories may require large samples of participants and time points to achieve adequate power. It also implies that explanations of belief in conspiracy theories need to accommodate the observation that beliefs in such theories vary much more between people than within people.
