Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 9, 2025

Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses
Published on: September 28, 2018
Agreement with COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Has Poor Temporal Stability
Vojtech Pisl1,2, Jan Volavka1, Gabriela Kavalirova3
1Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen, Charles University, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
None:
Low temporal stability may complicate the interpretation of survey measures of conspiracy theories (CTs). Current study examines the stability of endorsement of CTs on a popular set of items addressing COVID-19-related CTs. An online survey tapping two CTs about COVID-19 was administered to 179 students of general medicine. The same items were presented twice in March 2022 and once in May 2022. The mean endorsement of the CTs did not differ between March and May. The correlation between answers provided in March and May was low (.5 < r < .7). Most of those reporting agreement with CTs in March reported disagreement in May. Conspiracy believers' responses did not change between two measurements in March but were different in May, suggesting that the low temporal stability was due to situational factors rather than erroneous or random answers. Poor temporal stability of responses endorsing CTs may problematize interpretation of survey data. Respondents' endorsement of CTs may be affected by situational factors, inflating agreement with CTs, and correlations with other survey-based measures.
More Related Videos
10:46A Method of Trigonometric Modelling of Seasonal Variation Demonstrated with Multiple Sclerosis Relapse Data
Published on: December 9, 2015
07:26The Deese-Roediger-McDermott DRM Task: A Simple Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate False Memories in the Laboratory
Published on: January 31, 2017
Related Concept Videos
Confirmation Biases
Cause and Effect
Conformity
Immunological Memory
What is Immunological Memory?
Immunological memory is an integral function of the immune system that allows it to recognize and react more rapidly and effectively to pathogens previously encountered. This feature...
The Availability Heuristic
Group Polarization