Traumatic Rift: How Conspiracy Beliefs Undermine Cohesion After Societal Trauma?

Authors

  • Michal Bilewicz
    Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
  • Marta Witkowska
    Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
  • Myrto Pantazi
    Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
  • Theofilos Gkinopoulos
    School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom
  • Olivier Klein
    Faculty of Psychology and Education, University Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium

Abstract

Collective traumas may often lead to deep societal divides and internal conflicts. In this article, we propose that conspiracy theories emerging in response to victimizing events may play a key role in the breakdown of social cohesion. We performed a nationally representative survey in Poland (N = 965) two years after the Smoleńsk airplane crash in which the Polish president was killed, together with 95 political officials and high-ranking military officers. The survey found that people endorsing conspiratorial accounts of the Smoleńsk catastrophe preferred to distance themselves from conspiracy non-believers, while skeptics preferred greater distance to conspiracy believers. We also examined the role of people’s belief in the uniqueness of in-group historical suffering as an important antecedent of both conspiracy thinking and hostility towards outgroups (conspiracy believers and non-believers).