Conspiracy theories, radicalization and quest for significance

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic has represented and continues to represent a moment of crisis for many societies worldwide. During times of emergency like this, conspiracy theories spread very quickly as they provide simple explanations to complex events giving the illusion of being in control of an unknown and often frightening reality. Recently there has been an increase in the spread, especially online, of conspiracy theories connected both to the Covid-19 pandemic and to other social events. However, the spread of conspiracy theories can have very serious social consequences such as favoring the flourishing of forms of radicalization. In the present cross-sectional research conducted in Italy (N = 197) we used the Significance Quest Theory (SQT;Kruglanski et al., 2017) to describe how radicalization is connected to the quest for significance that can lead people to embrace a conspiracy mentality which in turn can support radicalized cognitions and behaviors. The results of this study reveal that the relationships between quest for significance and the tendency to radicalization and forms of prejudice towards immigrants, are partly explained by conspiracy thinking. The theoretical-practical implications of this research take into consideration the developments of SQT applied to the understanding of conspiracy thinking and the prefiguration of educational actions to be designed in a transformative perspective.