Correlation between coronavirus conspiracism and antisemitism: a cross-sectional study in the United Kingdom

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Allington, Daniel; Hirsh, David and Katz, Louise. 2023. Correlation between coronavirus conspiracism and antisemitism: a cross-sectional study in the United Kingdom. Scientific Reports, 13, 21104. ISSN 2045-2322 [Article]

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Official URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-41794-y

Abstract or Description

This article presents the fndings of a survey of UK-resident adults (n = 1790) carried out in December 2021 and designed to test for a relationship between antisemitism and coronavirus conspiracism. Antisemitism was measured using the Generalised Antisemitism (GeAs) scale, and coronavirus conspiracism was measured using a version of the Flexible Inventory of Conspiracy Suspicions (FICS). Hypotheses and methodology were pre-registered, and all data and code are open. There was found to be a positive correlation between coronavirus conspiracy suspicions and Generalised Antisemitism, robust to demographic controls. This correlation appears to be entirely accounted for by older forms of antisemitism: antisemitism as expressed in relation to Israel and its supporters was found to be associated with coronavirus conspiracism only because both of these variables were associated with antisemitism as expressed in relation to Jews identifed as Jews. Statistical analysis suggests that these fndings may be generalised from the sample to the UK adult population with some confdence, although no data were collected in other national contexts, such that generalisation to other national contexts must remain speculative.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41794-y

Additional Information:

Data collection was funded by Campaign Against Antisemitism and from the lead author’s personal research allowance at King’s College London.

Data Access Statement:

The datasets generated and analysed during the current study, as well as the pre-registration document and replication code for the study itself, are available in the Open Science Framework repository, https://osf.io/yu4ar/

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Sociology

Dates: