The who and the what: culprit-blaming and epistemic alternativeness in conspiracy theories about COVID-19

Conspiracy theories (CTs) flourish in situations of crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been no exception. Much existing research explains people's belief in CTs with a general trait-like conspiracy mentality. However, the pandemic has seen the emergence of CTs focusing on different elements: some speculate about the actors responsible for the crisis, others about the very nature of the pandemic itself. Drawing on this insight we propose a general distinction between two elements that are usually present to different degrees in CTs: the focus on a specific culprit to blame for (usually dramatic) social and political phenomena, and the questioning of widely shared epistemic principles. Based on this distinction, we hypothesize which political and psychological characteristics could make people more likely to endorse CTs emphasizing these different elements. Using novel survey data collected in 6 European countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Poland and Sweden) in two waves (2020 and 2021) we find that populism (particularly anti-elitism) is associated with a greater propensity to endorse CTs focused on culprit blaming, church attendance is more correlated with endorsement of alternative facts about the nature of the virus, and ideology is related to both aspects.