As the coronavirus pandemic has spawned a range of new conspiracy theories, studies have attempted to understand what prompts people to succumb to them.  For instance, it was shown that Republicans were more likely to believe Covid-19 conspiracy theories than Democrats.  New research from the University of Delaware suggests that men are also more likely to succumb.

“During a global pandemic, it’s kind of the perfect storm of uncertainty,” the researchers say. “And so when we feel a lack of control, uncertainty or powerlessness, we seek out explanations for why the event occurred that’s causing us to feel that way. And what this can do is it can lead us to connect dots that shouldn’t be connected because we’re trying to seek out answers. And sometimes those answers are conspiracy theories.”

Different pandemics

The researchers built upon previous work that highlighted how men and women experience the pandemic very differently.  They wanted to build on this and see whether gender also influenced our propensity to believe, and be influenced by, conspiracy theories.

The team ran a survey including 11 popular conspiracy theories, such as claims that the virus was manufactured by China or America; that it’s caused by 5G communication towers; that Bill Gates is behind the pandemic, and so on.

Lo and behold, statistically significant gender gaps appeared for nearly all of the conspiracy theories, regardless of whether the participants identified as Democrats or Republicans.  The researchers believe their findings are important, as while gender gaps in public opinion do exist, they’re usually far smaller in magnitude.

Why are men more susceptible?

The researchers believe two factors may be contributing to this gender gap.  The first is a sense of learned helplessness, which lends us to think that things are out of our control, and that our actions don’t really mean anything.  The second is a tendency to have conspiratorial thoughts, which lend us to think that major events and problems have an underlying conspiracy behind them.

Of these, the key was learned helplessness, which is something both men and women experience.  Constant failure to affect positive change in our lives can often result in us feeling utterly helpless, and powerless, to control things that matter to us.  This can then contribute to support for conspiracy theories.

“What we’re finding in this research is that men are more likely to score higher on learned helplessness,” the researchers say. “And that might be a boost that’s happening just as a result of the pandemic itself, that they’re feeling more of this because they can’t control what’s going on right now. That leads to these beliefs that, well, maybe there’s a secret group of people controlling these things behind the scenes.”

It’s a phenomenon that both men and women can suffer from, but it appears that at the moment, it’s men that are experiencing it more than women, which is thus influencing how they feel about Covid.

“Learned helplessness and a predisposition toward conspiratorial thinking explain about half of the gender difference that we find,” the researchers explain. “But there’s still more for us to do to try to understand this phenomenon.”

The team hope that their findings can help to better inform policy changes in public health, especially as it’s widely believed that women are more likely to engage in the kind of protective behaviors advocated by scientists and health officials than men are.

“So there may be some connection here between engaging in those activities and belief in conspiracy theories that we plan on exploring in future research,” the authors conclude.