Do you trust the rumors? Examining the determinants of health-related misinformation in India

Rumors, conspiracies, and health-related misinformation have gone hand-in-hand with the global COVID-19 pandemic, making it hard to obtain reliable and accurate information. Against this background, this study examined the different psychosocial predictors of believing in conspiratorial information related to general health in India. Indian participants (N = 826) responded to measures related to conspiratorial thinking, trust, moral emotions, political ideology, bullshit receptivity, and belief in conspiratorial information in an online survey. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to determine the validity of the instruments used with an Indian sample. Results revealed that lower subjective socioeconomic status, lower trust in political institutions, greater negative moral emotions, greater conspiratorial thinking, and right-leaning political ideology predicted beliefs in health-related conspiratorial information. In highlighting these potential psychosocial determinants of conspiratorial beliefs, we can move toward combating conspiracies effectively and developing necessary interventions for the same. Future work can focus on assessing the moderating effects of political ideology on conspiratorial beliefs in India.