Belief in Conspiracy Theories About covid-19 Amongst Venezuelan Students: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Although researchers have not satisfactorily tracked the origins of COVID-19, there are no indications that this virus has been engineered by human beings. Yet, conspiracy theories blaming either the United States or China, are increasingly popular. For a greater research project to be developed in the future, a pilot study was done, where 165 Venezuelan students were asked in a survey to rate their agreement with conspiracy theories about COVID-19. Although the majority of subjects were skeptical of these claims, the percentage of acceptance of COVID-19 conspiracy theories was still fairly high, if compared to other medical conspiracy theories. Educational level was not a significant predictive factor in acceptance of these conspiracy theories. Acceptance of other conspiracy theories has a significant relation, but only if they cohere with ideological positioning in the Venezuelan context. Likewise, ethnicity also correlated with belief in covid-19 conspiracy theories, but again, mediated by political alignments in the Venezuelan context.   How to cite this article: Andrade, G. (2021). Belief in conspiracy theories about covid-19 amongst Venezuelan students: A pilot study. Revista Colombiana de Psicología, 30(1), 79-88. https://doi.org/10.15446/rcp.v30n1.87357