ArticleSocial and personality psychology compass2021
The COVID-19 pandemic and the search for structure: Social media and conspiracy theories.
Article in Social and personality psychology compass, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Development of a Conceptual Framework of Health Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review of Reviews.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2025Pooled it
- Article
- Identity-scaffolded epistemologies: adopting non-normative beliefs online through collective information bias.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Solution spillover: Pairing issues with ideological solutions fuels polarization.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- South Korea's Health Misinformation Response during COVID-19: A Narrative-Thematic Analysis.Asian bioethics review · 2025Article
- The role of interdependent self-construal in mitigating the effect of conspiratorial beliefs on vaccine acceptance.The British journal of social psychology · 2025Article
- Article
- Correlates of COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs in Japan: A cross-sectional study of 28,175 residents.PloS one · 2024Article
- News Waves: Hard News, Soft News, Fake News, Rumors, News Wavetrains.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Twitter's Role in Combating the Magnetic Vaccine Conspiracy Theory: Social Network Analysis of Tweets.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
- Predictors of Feeling of Threat Caused by COVID-19 Pandemic, the Distinctive Effects of Automatic vs. Reflective Emotions.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Between alternative and traditional social platforms: the case of gab in exploring the narratives on the pandemic and vaccines.Frontiers in sociology · 2023Article
- Cognitive and Cultural Factors That Affect General Vaccination and COVID-19 Vaccination Attitudes.Vaccines · 2022Article
- Public Opinion Manipulation on Social Media: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Bots during the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Processes of persuasion and social influence in conspiracy beliefs.Current opinion in psychology · 2022Review
- Cause and effect: On the antecedents and consequences of conspiracy theory beliefs.Current opinion in psychology · 2022Review
- Public Policy Measures to Increase Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination Rate in Russia.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- On the relationship between conspiracy theory beliefs, misinformation, and vaccine hesitancy.PloS one · 2022Article
- Positive and negative experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic among lonely and non-lonely populations in Germany.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Profiles in conspiracism: Associations with two psychiatric syndromes, religiosity and pandemic-related health behaviors.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The study outlines a model for how the COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely exacerbated the propagation of conspiracy beliefs and subsequent harmful behaviors. The pandemic has led to widespread disruption of cognitive and social structures. As people face these disruptions they turn online seeking alternative cognitive and social structures. Once there, social media radicalizes beliefs, increasing contagion (rapid spread) and stickiness (resistance to change) of conspiracy theories. As conspiracy theories are reinforced in online communities, social norms develop, translating conspiracy beliefs into real-world action. These real-world exchanges are then posted back on social media, where they are further reinforced and amplified, and the cycle continues. In the broader population, this process draws attention to conspiracy theories and those who confidently espouse them. This attention can drive perceptions that conspiracy beliefs are less fringe and more popular, potentially normalizing such beliefs for the mainstream. We conclude by considering interventions and future research to address this seemingly intractable problem.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.