Angry people more likely to think COVID is a conspiracy

Have you ever been so angry you believed COVID-19 was a deep-state conspiracy? These people have.

New research published in the Journal of Research in Personality said people who experience anger more frequently are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories.

The findings showed that anger played a role in believing conspiracy theories, regardless of what the conspiracy theories were.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales decided to look into the relationship between anger and belief in conspiracy theories after noticing a growing interest in conspiracy theories since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“While conspiracy theories have been around for a long time, still not much is known about how they relate to specific emotions (e.g., anger, fear, sadness),” research associate at the University of New South Wales and study author Kinga Szymaniak wrote.

“In this investigation, we decided to focus on the connection between conspiracy beliefs and anger, because they seem to arise in response to similar factors and previous research has already suggested a potential relationship between the two.

“A better understanding of this relationship is likely to help us develop practical approaches to reduce the spread of harmful conspiracy beliefs by improving how we manage and handle anger.”

The initial study used 363 Polish participants and was conducted immediately after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

It suggested that individuals who are easily angered are more likely to believe in COVID-19 conspiracy theories.

In another study, researchers investigated whether feeling angry could affect people’s responses to conspiracy theories, especially among people for whom anger is a personality trait.

The study used 141 US participants who were randomly assigned to an anger-inducing task and asked to write about an anger-inducing task.

These participants were then told about a new conspiracy theory regarding a secret military base hidden under Berlin Airport.

They were then asked to rate the extent to which they believed it.

The participants with higher levels of anger as a personality trait who were asked to write about an anger-inducing task were more likely to believe the conspiracy theory.

Participants with higher levels of anger as a personality trait who wrote about a neutral task were less likely to believe the conspiracy theory.

This suggested that anger itself makes individuals more prone to believing conspiracy theories.