The Prevalence and Antecedents of Nationalism Conspiracy Theories During Covid-19 in China

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.200826.065How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Covid-19 Dark-Triad Personality Conspiracy beliefs

Abstract

The deadly COVID-19 has been spreading across the globe, causing large-scale deaths, disruptions, recession, and distress. While most governments and citizens have been doing their best to tackle the challenges set by the pandemic, the difficult time also incubated disruptive thoughts, such as pandemic-related conspiracy theories. In China, the pandemic as well as the recently rising sentiment of nationalism caused the prevalence of the so-called nationalism conspiracy theories – the conspiracy theories that mix with nationalistic sentiment and that aim to devalue the other country. The most influential one of this kind is the one that claims the virus was manufactured by the United States and was used as a biological weapon to undermine Chinese economic development. In the current study, with a quantitative design, I intended to investigate the personality and attitudinal antecedents of nationalism conspiracy beliefs, based on evolutionary psychology as well as the political psychology perspective. Via a set of regression analysis, it has been found that one’s average score of the Dark Triad Personality (i.e., the general darkness) but not the impression about the target country, which was significant predictors of nationalism beliefs. Theoretical and practical implications were also discussed.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Ming Mu
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/08/28
TI  - The Prevalence and Antecedents of Nationalism Conspiracy Theories During Covid-19 in China
BT  - Proceedings of the 2020 4th International Seminar on Education, Management and Social Sciences (ISEMSS 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 334
EP  - 341
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200826.065
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.200826.065
ID  - Mu2020
ER  -