{"id":3704,"date":"2021-11-29T14:43:05","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T14:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/?p=3704"},"modified":"2021-11-29T14:43:22","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T14:43:22","slug":"how-anger-anxiety-and-hope-influence-the-attitudes-and-behaviours-of-covid-19-conspiracy-theory-believers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/2021\/11\/29\/how-anger-anxiety-and-hope-influence-the-attitudes-and-behaviours-of-covid-19-conspiracy-theory-believers\/","title":{"rendered":"How anger, anxiety, and hope influence the attitudes and behaviours of COVID-19 conspiracy theory believers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research findings on the roles of various emotive states on COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and compliance with government restrictions, published into the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology.<\/p>\r\n

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Research conducted by Linus Peitz<\/a>, Dr. Fanny Lalot<\/a>, Professor Karen Douglas<\/a>, Professor Robbie Sutton<\/a>, and Professor Dominic Abrams<\/a> on the emotive states brought up by COVID-19 conspiracy theories, as well as our compliance with government COVID-19 restrictions, has been published into the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology. The study focused on emotions of anxiety, anger, and hope: emotions that many have felt during the pandemic, and also drive our actions and attitudes. Using participants from the general population of regions of Scotland, Wales, and Kent.<\/p>\r\n

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The key finding of the paper demonstrated that among strong believers of COVID-19 pandemic conspiracy theories, feelings of anger and anxiety produced different levels of compliance and level of caution: anger was related to lower level of caution, and less law-abiding containment (isolation\/quarantine) behaviours; while anxiety was associated with higher law-abiding behaviours and increased levels of caution surrounding the virus.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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Another finding was that suspicion towards the official health advice from the current (Conservative) UK government was stronger among politically liberal participants. The results could reflect left-wing British citizens’ defiance towards the current Conservative government and their handling of the pandemic. This finding demonstrates how intergroup processes influence attitudes in the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\r\n

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The researchers voiced the need for future research to examine the emotional correlations of different conspiracy beliefs, as different emotional states are linked to different behavioural tendencies (e.g. fear-avoidance).\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

The full published research article can be found here.<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research findings on the roles of various emotive states on COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and compliance with government restrictions, published into the Journal of Pacific Rim … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76369,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3704"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3713,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3704\/revisions\/3713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/psychology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}