COVID-19 as an undesirable political issue: Conspiracy beliefs and intolerance of uncertainty predict adhesion to prevention measures

• DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-01416-0
• Publication Date: 2021-02-02T07:04:26Z
• Authors: Jessica Farias; Ronaldo Pilati
• Keywords: Social distance; Distancing; Pandemic

Conspiracy theories thrive in moments of crises because they provide straightforward answers that assist individuals coping with threats. The COVID-19 outbreak is such a crisis and boosted by the political turmoil related to politicization pandemic some countries. To assess role partisanship, intolerance uncertainty (IU), conspiracy beliefs our two criterion variables (support for prevention measures compliance social distancing), we applied an online questionnaire 662 participants. Our results indicate direct effects partisanship on support non-compliance distancing while IU has not directly affected any them. We have also found significant effect theory dimensions involving personal wellbeing (PW) control information (CI) but government malfeasance (GM) ones. Moreover, CI predicted distancing. Intolerance uncertainty, its turn, three beliefs. As interaction effects, belief GM, PW, moderated whereas only GM PW past Overall, suggest relevance diminishing around virus, providing basic scientific knowledge general population, assisting uncertainty. Besides, these findings insights into developing campaigns instruct population cope pandemic, producing behavioral change at societal individual levels.