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Testing the underlying structure of unfounded beliefs about COVID-19 around the world

P. Brzóska,M. Żemojtel-Piotrowska,J. Piotrowski,Bartłomiej Nowak,P. Jonason,Constantine Sedikides,Mladen Adamovic,K. Atitsogbe,Oli Ahmed,Uzma Azam,Sergiu Bălțătescu,K. Bochaver,A. Bolatov,Mario Bonato,Victor Counted,Trawin Chaleeraktrakoon,J. Ramos-Diaz,Sonya Dragova-Koleva,W. L. M. Eldesoki,C. Esteves,Valdiney V. Gouveia,Pablo Pérez de León,D. Iliško,J. A. Datu,F. Jia,V. Jovanović,T. Jukić,N. Khachatryan,Mónika Kovács,Uri Lifshin,Aitor Larzabal Fernandez,Kadi Liik,Sadia Malik,Chanki Moon,Stephan Muehlbacher,R. Najafi,Emre Oruç,Joonha Park,I. Šolcová,Rahkman Ardi,O. Ridic,Goran Ridic,Yadgar Ismail Said,Andrej Starc,Delia Ștefenel,K. Trà,Habib Tiliouine,R. Tomšik,J. Torres-Marín,C. Umeh,Eduardo Wills-Herrera,Anna Wlodarczyk,Zahir Vally,I. Yahiiaiev

Published 2023 in Thinking & Reasoning

ABSTRACT

Abstract Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates.

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