Over the course of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, it has become clear how wide­spread con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about the pan­dem­ic are in Ger­many. To coun­ter­act their influ­ence in the social debate, it is impor­tant to find out which groups of peo­ple are par­tic­u­lar­ly prone to believe in these myths and how their believ­ers dif­fer from the rest of the pop­u­la­tion. This study inves­ti­gates the effects of socio-demo­graph­ics, media behav­iour, and val­ue ori­en­ta­tions on COVID-19 con­spir­a­cies. It explores whether the sup­port­ers of COVID con­spir­a­cies have dif­fer­ent fun­da­men­tal val­ues with regard to free­dom, secu­ri­ty, or equal­i­ty from peo­ple who do not sup­port such beliefs. The results of this study show that about 15 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion in Ger­many believe in a “COVID con­spir­a­cy” and this phe­nom­e­non can be found across var­i­ous groups of the pop­u­la­tion. It turns out that peo­ple whose val­ues are very com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed are less like­ly to believe in Coro­na con­spir­a­cy myths than oth­ers. This group of peo­ple either pri­ori­tis­es the com­mon good over their own actions or empha­sis­es the pro­tec­tion and equal­i­ty of all peo­ple. Fun­da­men­tal val­ues thus have a strong effect on belief in such myths.

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