Social worldviews predict the general factor of paranormal and generic conspiracist beliefs

The Spanish Journal of Psychology. 2023. Vol. 26. P. 1–14.

Grigoryev D., Gallyamova A.

Even though wide access to any warranted information in the modern age, the problem of unfounded belief is still relevant, since these beliefs often lead to negative consequences (e.g., vaccination refusal, homeopathic treatment, etc.). The aim of this study was testing the relationship of social worldviews with paranormal beliefs and conspiracy beliefs. We assumed dimensionality hypothesis based on functional standpoint that there should be a general factor (underlying all the domains of paranormal beliefs and generic conspiracist beliefs), which has associations with the social worldviews as well. Derived our analysis from the survey of 228 participants (Mage = 30.6, SD = 11.7), we found that (1) the structure of paranormal and generic conspiracist beliefs can be described by a bifactor model; (2) the general factor of paranormal and generic conspiracist beliefs in the bifactor model was positively associated with global belief in just world and dangerous worldview; (3) paranormal beliefs were positively associated with global belief in just world and negatively associated with competitive worldview; (4) generic conspiracist beliefs were positively associated with dangerous worldview, competitive worldview, and zero-sum game belief; (5) contrary to our hypotheses, there was no evidence for any negative association of paranormal beliefs with dangerous worldview or zero-sum game belief and for any negative association of generic conspiracist beliefs with global belief in just world. We claim that the unfounded beliefs can be of some functional nature, demonstrating a connection with social worldviews, which opens up new perspectives for considering this problem within the framework of social psychology.

Keywords: paranormal beliefs, social worldviews, conspiracy theories, Bifactor model, unfounded beliefs, generic conspiracist beliefs, dimensionality hypothesis

Publication based on the results of: Socio-cultural and psychological mechanisms of unity and polarization of Russian society in the context of global challenges (2023)