An Imbalance in the Scales

A psychology survey had unusual scales for conspiratorial beliefs.

A recent paper involved a survey of English adults about conspiracy theories. The paper in Psychological Medicine also studied self-reported adherence to government guidelines. As an example, the paper claimed:

around one-fifth endorsed to some degree that ‘Jews have created the virus to collapse the economy for financial gain’.

This article looks at the unusual scale used to measure conspiratorial beliefs.

Four for one

For this paper, Lucid collected 2,501 responses from English adults between 4th and 11th May 2020. The survey was online. It was a non-probability sample of English adults.

Questions asked about agreement with conspiratorial statements, such as:

Bill Gates created the virus in order to reduce the world population.

Respondents had five possible response options:

• Do not agree;
• Agree a little;
• Agree moderately;
• Agree a lot;
• Agree completely.

This is an unusual set of options. There are four options to agree, and only one to disagree. There is no means to express having a neutral or no opinion.