Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs in the German-speaking general population: endorsement rates and links to reasoning biases and paranoia.
Sarah Anne Kezia KuhnRoselind LiebDaniel FreemanChristina AndreouThea Zander-SchellenbergPublished in: Psychological medicine (2021)
A noticeable proportion of our sample recruited in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland endorsed coronavirus conspiracy beliefs strongly or to some degree. These beliefs are associated with reasoning biases studied in delusion research. The non-probability sampling approach limits the generalizability of findings. Future longitudinal and experimental studies investigating conspiracy beliefs along the lines of reasoning are encouraged to validate reasoning aberrations as risk factors.