You’ve probably heard of “gateway” drugs, but a group of researchers at Ohio State University say there’s such a thing as a “gateway conspiracy.”
The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
One survey asked 501 people questions “assessing their beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, political ideology” and their affinity for the theories in June 2020. A possible trigger for these beliefs? A sense of distrust, according to OSU psychology professor Russell Fazio, senior author of the survey study.
“With COVID-19, there was this large event that people could not control, so how could they make sense of it? One way is by adhering to conspiracy theories.”