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Stolen elections: How conspiracy beliefs during the 2020 American presidential elections changed over time
Author(s) -
Wang Haiyan,
Prooijen JanWillem
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3996
Subject(s) - outgroup , ingroups and outgroups , social psychology , psychology , presidential system , presidential election , in group favoritism , trait , politics , political science , social group , social identity theory , law , computer science , programming language
Conspiracy beliefs have been studied mostly through cross‐sectional designs. We conducted a five‐wave longitudinal study ( N = 376; two waves before and three waves after the 2020 American presidential elections) to examine if the election results influenced specific conspiracy beliefs and conspiracy mentality, and whether effects differ between election winners (i.e., Biden voters) versus losers (i.e., Trump voters) at the individual level. Results revealed that conspiracy mentality kept unchanged over 2 months, providing first evidence that this indeed is a relatively stable trait. Specific conspiracy beliefs (outgroup and ingroup conspiracy beliefs) did change over time, however. In terms of group‐level change, outgroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time for Biden voters but increased for Trump voters. Ingroup conspiracy beliefs decreased over time across all voters, although those of Trump voters decreased faster. These findings illuminate how specific conspiracy beliefs are, and conspiracy mentality is not, influenced by an election event.