TY - JOUR
T1 - Victims of conspiracies?
T2 - An examination of the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and dispositional individual victimhood
AU - Toribio-Flórez, Daniel
AU - Altenmüller, Marlene S.
AU - Douglas, Karen M.
AU - Gollwitzer, Mario
AU - Adinugroho, Indro
AU - Alfano, Mark
AU - Apriliawati, Denisa
AU - Azevedo, Flavio
AU - Betsch, Cornelia
AU - Białobrzeska, Olga
AU - Bret, Amélie
AU - Valdez, André Calero
AU - Cologna, Viktoria
AU - Czarnek, Gabriela
AU - Delouvée, Sylvain
AU - Doell, Kimberly C.
AU - Dohle, Simone
AU - Dubrov, Dmitrii
AU - Dzimińska, Małgorzata
AU - Elbaek, Christian T.
AU - Facciani, Matthew
AU - Fage-Butler, Antoinette
AU - Ferreira, Marinus
AU - Friese, Malte
AU - Fuglsang, Simon
AU - Gallyamova, Albina
AU - Garrido-Vásquez, Patricia
AU - Garrido Vásquez, Mauricio E.
AU - Genschow, Oliver
AU - Ghasemi, Omid
AU - Gkinopoulos, Theofilos
AU - Brambila, Claudia González
AU - Gordon, Hazel Clare
AU - Grigoryev, Dmitry
AU - Hernández-Mondragón, Alma Cristal
AU - Jin, Tao
AU - Jungkunz, Sebastian
AU - Jurgiel, Dominika
AU - Kerr, John R.
AU - Kojan, Lilian
AU - Komyaginskaya, Elizaveta
AU - Lamm, Claus
AU - Légal, Jean-Baptiste
AU - Levy, Neil
AU - Marques, Mathew D.
AU - Mayer, Sabrina J.
AU - Mede, Niels G.
AU - Milfont, Taciano L.
AU - Mitkidis, Panagiotis
AU - Nitschke, Jonas P.
AU - Paruzel-Czachura, Mariola
AU - Parzuchowski, Michal
AU - Pronizius, Ekaterina
AU - Pypno-Blajda, Katarzyna
AU - Rêgo, Gabriel Gaudencio
AU - Ross, Robert M.
AU - Schmid, Philipp
AU - Stanley, Samantha K.
AU - Syropoulos, Stylianos
AU - Szumowska, Ewa
AU - Teran-Escobar, Claudia
AU - Todorova, Boryana
AU - Vilares, Iris
AU - Warwas, Izabela
AU - Weber, Marcel
AU - Westfal, Mareike
AU - Wojcik, Adrian Dominik
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2025. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2025/12
Y1 - 2025/12
N2 - Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim, i.e., victim justice sensitivity (VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related covariates (e.g., mistrust). In a multinational sample from 15 countries (N = 14,978), VJS was positively associated with both general and specific conspiracy beliefs (about vaccines and climate change) within countries, though these associations varied across countries. However, economic, sociopolitical and cultural country-level factors that might explain the cross-country variability (e.g., GDP, Human Freedom Index, individualism–collectivism), including indices of collective exposure to direct violence, did not moderate the studied associations. Future research should investigate the relationship between victimhood and conspiracy beliefs, considering both intraindividual and intergroup perspectives.
AB - Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim, i.e., victim justice sensitivity (VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related covariates (e.g., mistrust). In a multinational sample from 15 countries (N = 14,978), VJS was positively associated with both general and specific conspiracy beliefs (about vaccines and climate change) within countries, though these associations varied across countries. However, economic, sociopolitical and cultural country-level factors that might explain the cross-country variability (e.g., GDP, Human Freedom Index, individualism–collectivism), including indices of collective exposure to direct violence, did not moderate the studied associations. Future research should investigate the relationship between victimhood and conspiracy beliefs, considering both intraindividual and intergroup perspectives.
KW - conspiracy beliefs
KW - conspiracy theories
KW - victim justice sensitivity
KW - victimhood
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105011080948
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP190101507
U2 - 10.1002/ejsp.70008
DO - 10.1002/ejsp.70008
M3 - Article
C2 - 42099958
AN - SCOPUS:105011080948
SN - 0046-2772
VL - 55
SP - 1252
EP - 1269
JO - European Journal of Social Psychology
JF - European Journal of Social Psychology
IS - 7
ER -