{"title":"Populist attitudes and conspiracy beliefs: Exploring the relation between the latent structures of populist attitudes and conspiracy beliefs","authors":"C. Christner","doi":"10.5964/jspp.7969","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite the alleged affinity between populism and conspiracy theories, how they relate on the individual level remains relatively unknown. This study explores the relation between populist attitudes and conspiracy beliefs at the individual level. First, I test whether the conspiracist facets, which directly involve governmental participation, are associated with the dimensions of populist attitudes. Further, I examine the relation of political trust with the dimensions and facets of both constructs as well as their predictive power of the self-reported propensity to vote for a populist party. To test these assumptions, a cross-sectional study was conducted in Germany. Confirmatory factor analyses indicate a strong association between conspiracist facets that directly involve governmental participation and the anti-elitism and sovereignty dimensions of populist attitudes. Findings further show that low political trust is related to all dimensions of populist attitudes–especially anti-elitism–and to the conspiracist facets. Furthermore, the sovereignty dimension of populist attitudes and low political trust predict the propensity to vote for the right-wing populist party AfD. These findings provide new insights to a more nuanced understanding of populism on the individual level and the relation to conspiracy beliefs.","PeriodicalId":16973,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social and Political Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Social and Political Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.7969","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Despite the alleged affinity between populism and conspiracy theories, how they relate on the individual level remains relatively unknown. This study explores the relation between populist attitudes and conspiracy beliefs at the individual level. First, I test whether the conspiracist facets, which directly involve governmental participation, are associated with the dimensions of populist attitudes. Further, I examine the relation of political trust with the dimensions and facets of both constructs as well as their predictive power of the self-reported propensity to vote for a populist party. To test these assumptions, a cross-sectional study was conducted in Germany. Confirmatory factor analyses indicate a strong association between conspiracist facets that directly involve governmental participation and the anti-elitism and sovereignty dimensions of populist attitudes. Findings further show that low political trust is related to all dimensions of populist attitudes–especially anti-elitism–and to the conspiracist facets. Furthermore, the sovereignty dimension of populist attitudes and low political trust predict the propensity to vote for the right-wing populist party AfD. These findings provide new insights to a more nuanced understanding of populism on the individual level and the relation to conspiracy beliefs.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Social and Political Psychology (JSPP) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal (without author fees), published online. It publishes articles at the intersection of social and political psychology that substantially advance the understanding of social problems, their reduction, and the promotion of social justice. It also welcomes work that focuses on socio-political issues from related fields of psychology (e.g., peace psychology, community psychology, cultural psychology, environmental psychology, media psychology, economic psychology) and encourages submissions with interdisciplinary perspectives. JSPP is comprehensive and integrative in its approach. It publishes high-quality work from different epistemological, methodological, theoretical, and cultural perspectives and from different regions across the globe. It provides a forum for innovation, questioning of assumptions, and controversy and debate. JSPP aims to give creative impetuses for academic scholarship and for applications in education, policymaking, professional practice, and advocacy and social action. It intends to transcend the methodological and meta-theoretical divisions and paradigm clashes that characterize the field of social and political psychology, and to counterbalance the current overreliance on the hypothetico-deductive model of science, quantitative methodology, and individualistic explanations by also publishing work following alternative traditions (e.g., qualitative and mixed-methods research, participatory action research, critical psychology, social representations, narrative, and discursive approaches). Because it is published online, JSPP can avoid a bias against research that requires more space to be presented adequately.
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