%0 Journal Article
%T Traumatic Rift: How Conspiracy Beliefs Undermine Cohesion After Societal Trauma?
%A Marta Witkowska
%A Michal Bilewicz
%A Myrto Pantazi
%A Olivier Klein
%A Theofilos Gkinopoulos
%J -
%D 2019
%R 10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699
%X Collective traumas may often lead to deep societal divides and internal conflicts. In this article, we propose that conspiracy theories emerging in response to victimizing events may play a key role in the breakdown of social cohesion. We performed a nationally representative survey in Poland (N = 965) two years after the Smole¨½sk airplane crash in which the Polish president was killed, together with 95 political officials and high-ranking military officers. The survey found that people endorsing conspiratorial accounts of the Smole¨½sk catastrophe preferred to distance themselves from conspiracy non-believers, while skeptics preferred greater distance to conspiracy believers. We also examined the role of people¡¯s belief in the uniqueness of in-group historical suffering as an important antecedent of both conspiracy thinking and hostility towards outgroups (conspiracy believers and non-believers)
%K [victimhood
%K collective trauma
%K conspiracy beliefs
%K social distance
%K Smole¨½sk]
%U https://ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop/article/view/1699