ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic provided center stage attention to the almost universal existence of conspiracy beliefs and their potentially disruptive effect. Virtually all across the globe, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus was accompanied by allegations in diverse shapes and colors. While some claimed it was a manufactured bioweapon of either Chinese or American origin, others insisted that the virus itself either did not exist or was utterly harmless. Its proclaimed danger was only a hoax to distract from health damage due to 5G radiation or to microchip the world population in alleged vaccination campaigns. Often, the same people endorsed these seemingly contradictory propositions (Imhoff and Lamberty 2020a). This begged the question why is it that people believe in such ideas and might global health pandemics provide an ideal breeding ground that can explain the seeming uproar in conspiracy beliefs? In other words, what is the psychology behind them?
