Stable Worldviews or Context-Sensitive Systems? Longitudinal Evidence on the Development of Epistemically Suspect Beliefs Across Two Sociopolitical Contexts.

Authors

Sinan Alper, Kivanc Konukoglu, Fatih Bayrak, Ceyhun Yener, Ece Sezen Bagci, Burak Dogruyol, Onurcan Yilmaz

Published in

Personality & social psychology bulletin. Pages 1461672261463908. Jul 15, 2026. Epub Jul 15, 2026.

Abstract

Are epistemically suspect beliefs (ESBs)-including conspiracy, paranormal, and pseudoscientific beliefs-stable worldviews, or do they shift alongside changes in the sociopolitical context? Although often treated as enduring dispositions, little is known about their within-person development or sensitivity to sociopolitical conditions. We address this question using two five-wave panel studies conducted over 2 years in Türkiye (N = 595-2,077) and the United Kingdom (N = 350-959). Latent growth models show modest mean-level declines in ESBs alongside strong cross-domain coupling in both levels and trajectories. However, co-development patterns were context-sensitive. In Türkiye, within-person increases in perceived corruption covaried with increases in conspiracy beliefs, whereas this pattern did not consistently emerge in the United Kingdom. These findings indicate that ESBs are neither purely static dispositions nor fully context-driven reactions but exhibit a durable cross-domain structure with bounded sensitivity to sociopolitical conditions.

PMID:
42454457
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 15 Jul 2026.

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