Resilient state makes a conspiracy-resilient citizen: Cross-country, correlational and experimental evidence about the negative association between state resilience and belief in COVID-19, generic and climate change conspiracy theories

While a bulk of research on conspiracy beliefs focused on individual factors relevant to uncertainty, less has been done on how structural factors and their perception affects people’s conspiracy beliefs. In three studies, we aimed to test the prediction of conspiracy beliefs by state resilience. Study 1 (N = 44,318) showed that scores of countries in the State Resilience Index negatively predicted belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Next, a correlational Study 2 (N = 298), measuring perceived state resilience as an individual-level variable, showed that higher perceived state resilience predicted lower climate change conspiracy beliefs. In Study 3 (N = 283), experimentally manipulating perceived state resilience, we found a main effect of condition on generic and climate change conspiracy beliefs, with significantly lower scores of those conspiracy beliefs in high vs. low resilience condition. The importance of considering state relevant factors and their perception in our understanding of conspiracy beliefs is discussed.