Testing the underlying structure of unfounded beliefs about COVID-19 around the world

AbstractUnfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates.Keywords: Unfounded beliefsCOVID-19conspiracy beliefshealth beliefscross-cultural Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe work of Magdalena Żemojtel-Piotrowska and Jarosław Piotrowski was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland under Grant [2017/26/E/HS6/00282]. The work of Peter Jonason was partially supported by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange under Grant [PPN/ULM/2019/1/00019/U/00001] the National Science Centre of Poland under Grant [2019/35/B/HS6/00682]. The participation of Iva Poláčková Šolcová was supported by the National Plan of Recovery “Systemic Risk Institute” under Grant [LX22NPO5101], funded by European Union - Next Generation EU (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, EXCELES). The work of Narine Khachatryan was supported by the RA Science Committee, in the frames of the research project No. 20TTSH-070. In accordance with the national law of several countries, there were no direct collaboration between researchers from conflicting countries.