Relationships between invalidation, sociality breakdown and conspiracy thinking during the coronavirus pandemic – The key role of hostility

0559378 - PSÚ 2023 RIV IT eng A - Abstract
Filip, Miroslav - Kovář, Dominik - Jalůvková, M.
Relationships between invalidation, sociality breakdown and conspiracy thinking during the coronavirus pandemic – The key role of hostility.
Conference Handbook. Padova: Universita di Padova, 2022. s. 33-33.
[International Congress of Personal Construct Psychology /24./. 13.07.2022-16.07.2022, Padova]
Institutional support: RVO:68081740
Keywords : conspiracy thinking * coronavirus pandemic * psychological distress * distrust * hostility
OECD category: Psychology (including human - machine relations)
https://www.pcp2021.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Handbook-PCP-1.pdf

In the paper we report results from two mixed-method studies that investigated previously reported relationships between stress, distrust and pandemic conspiracy thinking. Previous studies are limited, because the relationships are reported only in terms of statistical findings without their deeper understanding. In the framework of PCP, we conceptualize stress as invalidation of personal constructs and distrust as a key phenomenon linked to a breakdown of sociality. Following Winter and Reed (2020), we hypothesize that the dynamic and unpredictable events of the pandemic may cause massive invalidation. In order to prevent massive invalidation, people more likely use the strategy of hostility (i.e., extorting validity of dysfunctional personal constructs), which in turn disrupts people’s mutual construing (sociality) and leads to increase in distrust. Hostility and increase in distrust lead to suspiciousness and conspiracy thinking. In our studies, all participants who prevented massive invalidation through hostility were distrustful of institutions and of people with different views of the pandemic. Furthermore, they were mostly suspicious or even believed pandemic conspiracy theories. We argue that, in contrast to mainstream research, the PCP approach provides psychological understanding of the relationships between conspiracy thinking and factors both at individual (stress) and social (distrust) levels.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0332713