TY  - JOUR
TI  - To trust or not to trust in times of the COVID-19 pandemic ? Conspiracy endorsement and the role of adverse childhood experiences, epistemic trust and personality functioning
N1  - Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
ID  - discovery10184609
Y1  - 2024/01//
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116526
PB  - Elsevier
JF  - Social Science & Medicine
VL  - 341
A1  - Kampling, Hanna
A1  - Riedl, David
A1  - Hettich, Nora
A1  - Lampe, Astrid
A1  - Nolte, Tobias
A1  - Zara, Sandra
A1  - Ernst, Mareike
A1  - Brähler, Elmar
A1  - Sachser, Cedric
A1  - Fegert, Jörg M
A1  - Gingelmaier, Stephan
A1  - Fonagy, Peter
A1  - Krakau, Lina
A1  - Kruse, Johannes
SN  - 0277-9536
N2  - Rationale: Conspiracy endorsement is a public health challenge for the successful containment of the COVID-19 pandemic. While usually considered a societal phenomenon, little is known about the equally important developmental backdrops and personality characteristics like mistrust that render an individual prone to conspiracy endorsement. There is a growing body of evidence implying a detrimental role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) ? a highly prevalent developmental burden ? in the development of epistemic trust and personality functioning. This study aimed to investigate the association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement in the general population, specifically questioning a mediating role of epistemic trust and personality functioning. /

Methods: Based on cross-sectional data from a representative German survey collected during the COVID-19 pandemic (N=2,501), we conducted structural equation modelling (SEM) where personality functioning (OPD-SQS) and epistemic trust (ETMCQ) were included as mediators of the association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement. Bootstrapped confidence intervals (5,000 samples, 95%-CI) are presented for all paths. /

Results: ACEs were significantly associated with conspiracy endorsement (?=0.25, p<0.001) and explained 6% of its variance. Adding epistemic trust and personality functioning as mediators increased the explained variance of conspiracy endorsement to 19% while the direct association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement was diminished (?=0.12, p<0.001), indicating an indirect effect of personality functioning and epistemic trust in the association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement. Fit indices confirmed good model fit. /

Conclusions: Establishing an association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement further increases the evidence for early childhood adversities' far-reaching and detrimental effects. By including epistemic trust and personality functioning, these findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms in the way that ACEs may be associated with conspiracy endorsement.
KW  - Adverse child experiences
KW  -  Child maltreatment
KW  -  Conspiracy endorsement
KW  -  Personality functioning
KW  -  Epistemic trust
KW  -  COVID-19
KW  -  Mediation
AV  - public
ER  -