Dispositional mindfulness, conspiracy mentality, and generic conspiracy beliefs: Preliminary empirical evidence of a mediational model
Year:
2025
Type of item:
Articolo in Rivista
Tipologia ANVUR:
Articolo su rivista
Language:
Inglese
Format:
Elettronico
Referee:
Sì
Name of journal:
PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
ISSN of journal:
0191-8869
N° Volume:
238
Page numbers:
1-4
Keyword:
Dispositional mindfulness; Conspiracy mentality; Conspiracy beliefs; Mediational model
Short description of contents:
An increasing amount of literature on dispositional mindfulness has focused on several positive outcomes, such
as psychological well-being, stress reduction, improved quality of life, and reduced levels of stereotypes and
prejudices. At the same time, recently, a large corpus of studies focused on antecedents and potential negative
consequences of conspiracy beliefs, which increasingly affect our societies. However, no previous study explored
the relationships between people's dispositional mindfulness and their adherence to conspiracy beliefs. The
current research conducted on 299 Italian participants contributes to filling this gap, hypothesizing that higher
dispositional mindfulness would be associated with lower adherence to generic conspiracy beliefs, via lower
levels of conspiracy mentality. Thus, a mediational path model was tested. The results confirmed the expectations,
showing that the more people reported higher dispositional mindfulness, the less they reported conspiracy
mentality, which in turn was associated with lower levels of adherence to generic conspiracy beliefs. This study
provided a preliminary empirical basis for future research and interventions, proposing itself to be a relevant first
step in investigating mindfulness-based interventions as preventive tools to counteract the increasing conspiracy
beliefs in our contemporary societies.