**5. Results**

In order to construct a profile of the believer in conspiracy theories about vaccines/ vaccination, we ran a hierarchical OLS regression model (see Table 1).


**Table 1.** OLS regression model predicting belief in conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines.

The reported β weights are final β weights. \*\* *p* < 0.01, \*\*\* *p* < 0.001. a Continuous variable (in years). b Coded from 1 = low to 8 = high. c Coded from 1 = low to 7 = high. d Coded from 1 = low to 7 = high. e Coded from 1 = low to 7 = high. f Continuous thermometer variable (from 0% to 100%). g Coded from 1 = low to 7 = high.

> On a general level, we found that people's perceptions about the incidence of fake news on COVID-19 topics, the usefulness of SNS, along with education and religiosity are significant predictors of belief in conspiracy theories, while the frequency of COVID-19 news consumption from websites, SNS, and IM apps, critical thinking disposition, and age do not play a significant role in the profile of the believer in such narratives.

> Specifically, the results show that critical thinking disposition is not a significant predictor of belief in conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination; thus, H1 cannot be supported. The results show there is not a significant correlation between people's disposition towards critical thinking and their tendency to believe in COVID-19-related conspiracy theories.

> On the other hand, those people who more strongly believe that SNS are useful for being updated with any type of information are more prone to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination, supporting H2. In line with other research studies [31],

these results show that people using social media platforms to obtain information related to COVID-19 topics are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories about the disease.

Furthermore, people who perceive a higher incidence of fake news related to COVID-19 vaccination are more prone to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination, supporting our third hypothesis.

In terms of the COVID-19-related frequency of news consumption from online sources (i.e., general websites other than the official ones, social networking sites, and instant messaging apps), the results are not significant, thus invalidating our fourth hypothesis. This is relatively surprising since we expected a higher frequency of news consumption from such online sources to be associated with a higher tendency to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccines/vaccination.

As far as age is concerned, the results from our study are not significant (H5 was invalidated); age is not a significant predictor of belief in conspiracy theories, even though there are studies confirming that younger people are more prone to believe conspiracy narratives [11].

In terms of education, the results confirm that less-educated people are more prone to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination, thus offering support for H6. This result confirms prior studies [81] suggesting that people with high levels of education are less likely to believe in conspiracy theories than people with low levels of education, with this relationship being "the result of the complex interplay of multiple psychological factors that are associated with education" [81] (p. 50).

Furthermore, the results show that people who frequently go to church (i.e., people with higher levels of religiosity) are more prone to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination, supporting our H7.

#### **6. Discussion and Conclusions**

Fighting and overcoming the current pandemic has become one of the most difficult issues of public concern, especially in countries such as Romania, where vaccination and mass immunization rates are discouragingly low at the moment, despite the fourth pandemic wave we have just entered [97]. The widespread acceptance of a vaccine against COVID-19 is essential both for self-protection and the protection of others, but appears to be hindered by various factors, among which conspiratorial claims and narratives play a key role [7,98]. These narratives have become increasingly popular since COVID-19-related (online) news consumption has increased dramatically, as a natural consequence of people's interest in this completely new and unexpected respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. Against this background, our study aimed to empirically underpin possible predictors of individuals' tendencies to embrace (and eventually) circulate conspiracy narratives in order to provide a clearer image of who is more prone to believe in such misleading content about the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania.

On a general note, our results show that people's perceived usefulness of social media and perceived incidence of fake information about the virus in the media along with education and religiosity are strong predictors of Romanians' inclination to believe and further proliferate conspiracy theories related to vaccines and vaccination. At the same time, a higher frequency of news consumption from online sources (i.e., from general websites, other than official ones, from social networking sites, and instant messaging apps), critical thinking disposition, and age are not significant predictors of belief in conspiracy theories. Further, we explore possible explanations for each of these empirical findings and offer useful recommendations aimed at stimulating better public responses to the ongoing crisis in Romania.

The results from this study do not show a significant correlation between people's disposition towards critical/analytic thinking and their tendency to believe in conspiracies related to the COVID-19 context. Therefore, our first hypothesis was not validated. Nevertheless, we believe that analytic thinking is an important means to counter the widespread acceptance of conspiracy theories [6,37,42], as education proved to play an important role.

In other words, we sugges<sup>t</sup> that in order to successfully navigate conspiracies, misleading news, and other information disorders, one needs a complete set of skills and knowledge to critically evaluate digital content of varied types. By developing and practicing deliberation and contemplation, by stopping/pausing to critically evaluate new information before amplifying, appreciating, or sharing it, and by engaging in fact-checking, etc., people's vulnerability to misinformation could be significantly reduced.

Nevertheless, main findings show that higher use of SNS for people to keep abreast of what is happening in the world (H2) and a higher perceived incidence of fake news related to COVID-19 (H3) are strongly associated with a higher tendency to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccines/vaccination. In line with previous research [31,34], our results support the idea that people who use social media platforms to learn about the coronavirus-related topics are more likely to give credit to conspiratorial content about the disease and its wider implications. However, this is not so surprising in at least two respects: (1) information circulating on social media has been shown to have a greater potential to be misleading or even false [99]; (2) when mainstream media coverage related to COVID-19 has been lacking or provided rather conflicting aspects of what people could do to limit their exposure to the infection or to help [100], social media has covered these issues either through false or true data, and social platforms have seen high growth in engagemen<sup>t</sup> [101].

Furthermore, as the results validating our third hypothesis show, people who perceive a higher incidence of fake news about COVID-19 vaccination are more likely to trust conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination. We believe this may be due to the fact that people who believe that, with regard to the pandemic, they are also exposed to a lot of disinformation may experience high levels of stress and anxiety, thus drawing on available heuristics to navigate the "infodemic" associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, we sugges<sup>t</sup> taking more effective measures to reduce informational "pollution" in the digital media environment, either by imposing stricter regulations on platforms or, even more effectively, by making people aware of the dangers they may come across in the digital media arena and by supporting them to act more responsibly when engaging with any form of online content. First, people should be aware of the potential dangers in the current media environment; then, they should be encouraged to actively check information on a regular basis—i.e., to practice lateral reading [102]. Yet, in order to achieve all the above, "public institutions need to work together and with digital platforms, media professionals, fact checkers and researchers" [103].

At the same time, in contrast to what we initially hypothesized, our results do not support the claim that people who consume more COVID-19-related news from online sources such as general websites, social networking sites and instant messaging apps are more prone to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination (thus offering no support for H4). Although we find this result rather counterintuitive (especially since previous studies have found a positive correlation between exposure to digital media and conspiracy beliefs—see, for instance, Ali et al., 2020 [65]; De Coninck et al., 2021 [68]; Fridman et al., 2020 [67]), one possible explanation could be that people do not always make clear distinctions between the different sources of information they use to gain knowledge about COVID-19 topics, particularly since these topics have been well covered by all media. Additionally, building on findings provided by other recent research conducted in Romania [101] which show higher levels of intermedia agenda settings during the pandemic, we argue that this could explain, at least in part, the blurring of boundaries between the role played by online and offline media in COVID times.

In terms of socio-demographic data, we tested age and education as significant predictors for people's tendencies to believe in conspiracies. With respect to age, our results did not support the claim that younger people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination (thus invalidating H5). In contrast to similar research that provided empirical evidence for the tendency of younger people to hold conspiracy beliefs related to COVID-19 [7,27], in our study, age does not appear to play an important role in

this regard. While it would be instructive to further investigate the complex interactions between demographic factors such as age and belief in conspiracy narratives, we argue, based on our findings, that people of all ages are vulnerable to conspiracy theories; therefore, solutions against misinformation should be designed and applied to people of all ages. Media and information literacy courses might be helpful in making people more aware of conspiracy theories and of other forms of misleading/false information circulating online.

Unlike age, education seems to affect Romanians' conspiratorial beliefs about COVID-19. Specifically, as our results show, people with a low level of education are more prone to believe in such theories (H6 validated). Consistent with previous research [27,85], our study provides empirical support for the idea that the more educated citizens are, the less likely they are to embrace conspiracy narratives. This demonstrates the need to design solutions that should include education as a key factor in guiding effective responses to crisis situations of all kinds (and especially health-related ones) [103]. However, it does not mean that people's educational background alone may be able to prevent individuals from trusting conspiracy messages, particularly in today's media landscape, which is far too complex and far too abundant in health-related topics. Our point is that education, seen as a complex of factors, can help equip citizens with the tools to debunk false stories and conspiracies. As many scholars have suggested, education is linked to cognitive sophistication, skepticism, critical thinking abilities, or the sense of control over one's social environment [40,81,84], which all have the potential to raise people's attention to the dangers associated with misleading or conspiratorial information surrounding the pandemic and increase their resistance to the latter.

Finally, one last relevant result of this study (validating H7) shows that a higher frequency of church attendance is associated with a higher tendency to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccines and vaccination. This is in line with previous studies that highlight that higher levels of religiosity correlate positively with people's propensity to give credence to false claims about the virus and its treatment [71,91]. We argue that this result is of major importance given that people are usually very sensitive when it comes to their religious attitudes and behaviors. Additionally, given people's highly interactive behavior, they tend to form small, often close-knit communities around the church, which could facilitate the emergence of "offline echo chambers" (i.e., spaces where people are not often exposed to alternative opinions/ voices). These communities can prove fertile ground for the dissemination and amplification of conspiracy narratives, and recent research [104] has provided evidence regarding certain conspiracy theories circulating among church members. Furthermore, in Romania, there are many priests and clerical figures who explicitly and openly promoted vaccine skepticism and conspiracy theories [105,106]. Against this background, we argue that people should be encouraged and taught to think for themselves, ge<sup>t</sup> information from trusted sources, and avoid taking all the news stories circulating in their small groups for granted (whether family groups, groups of friends, religious groups, etc.). In this respect, the need to increase digital media and information literacy among citizens (mainly among the so-called "digital-natives") is extremely evident and strongly advocated for by specialized institutions and experts (e.g., the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation). Based on our findings, we also support and argue for the need to develop strategies to deeper integrate media literacy into the existing curricula. In fact, there is a strong preoccupation across Europe for increasing media literacy among citizens (especially youths) and for developing strategies to fight false information online. Finland, for instance, topped the ranking of Europe's most media- and digital-literate country [107]. The Finnish governmen<sup>t</sup> took the fight against online disinformation seriously and launched a scaling up project to increase media literacy and reform the national educational system to emphasize critical thinking in K-12 institutions (from kindergarten to high school). The same report [107] shows that, unlike Finland, Romania is among the countries least equipped to resist the post-truth, fake news, and their offshoots. Hence, we believe that teaching media literacy

and educating (a younger) audience to critically evaluate digital content of various kinds is a timely and extremely important effort in the increasingly complex information ecosystem.

Beyond the variables mentioned above and the interaction between them, which outline a rather personalized profile of Romanians' propensity to believe and propagate conspiracy narratives, we argue that there are other factors that could further explain and refine the results of our study. They could be related to what we call the peculiarities of the Romanian citizens and include various aspects such as those we expose below. The population's generalized distrust in authorities—i.e., in government, public institutions, and political leaders—has a long history in Romania and seems to be deepening quite a lot (for a detailed argumentation see, for instance, Radu and Dobrescu, 2019 [108]). The lack of trust in societal institutions leads, in our opinion, to more and more people disregarding both established governmen<sup>t</sup> rules (e.g., public health directives) and established social norms (e.g., adopting socially respectful behavior, i.e., wearing a mask, keeping a safe physical distance, taking a COVID-19 vaccine, etc.). In addition to higher levels of distrust in political bodies and other public structures, Romanians appear to experience a lack of interpersonal trust among themselves, which we sugges<sup>t</sup> may also provide support for the findings presented by the current research. A lack of trust in other people is also widespread, and, we believe, deeply rooted in the communist past of the country, a time when no one could trust anyone. Finally, another circumstance that may support and nuance the results of our research refers to the emergence of extreme political ideas and parties that promote a discourse with nationalistic and xenophobic overtones (see the case of the recently founded AUR Political Party, whose leaders' voices have been strongly represented in the public space, militating against mask wearing and all the other types of restrictions and protective measures aimed at keeping the population safe). Corroborated with citizens' negative perception of domestic political performance in general and the inability of political institutions to provide timely solutions to citizens' demands (especially during the current crisis), this discourse that attempts to speculate on a sense of insecurity and discontent that exists in one part of society could pave the way for a whole series of conspiracy theories related to COVID-19.

The World Health Organization and health authorities around the globe are now working closely with social media platforms to provide citizens with evidence-based information about the current pandemic and to help them understand more about the problematic times they are living in. However, the widespread distribution of factually correct COVID-19-related information is countered by a corresponding amount of conspiratorial and misleading narratives targeting the same hot topic on everyone's agenda and infusing people's minds with lots of rumors, doubts, and conflicting ideas. Certainly, not all the people are equally affected by the current health misinformation and its seemingly uncontrollable virus-like spread in the new digital ecosystem. Still, as our findings show, there are many people that remain vulnerable when confronted with false and conspiracydriven narratives about vaccines and vaccination, and their profile appears to be shaped by various factors such as the perceived usefulness of social media, the perceived incidence of fake information about the virus in the media, education, and religiosity.

As any other social sciences study, this study comes with limitations too. One important limitation is linked to the subjective way some predictor variables (e.g., critical thinking disposition and perceived incidence of fake news) used in this study were measured. Nevertheless, taking into account the main scope of this study, which is to analyze and inform the reader about the profile of the believer in conspiracy theories in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe that self-assessment variables might prove to be useful tools in unveiling people's perceptions regarding different issues in the current media environment.

Learning more about the profile of the believer in conspiracy theories is just one of the important steps that need to be taken to combat COVID-19-related disinformation and limit its complex and deeply negative impact on individuals and society. In this context, we hope that our study can help to advance evidence-based recommendations for key stakeholders (e.g., policymakers, journalists, health professionals, researchers, teachers, etc.) who are in a position to develop or implement measures to address the dangers posed by potentially harmful information circulating as misleading narratives about COVID-19-related topics, discouraging people from complying with restrictive and protective measures.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, D.-A.O.; methodology, R.B. and N.C.; software, R.B. and N.C.; validation, N.C.; formal analysis, R.B. and G.U.; investigation, N.C.; resources, D.-A.O.; data curation, N.C.; writing—original draft preparation, D.-A.O., R.B. and G.U.; writing—review and editing, N.C. and R.B.; visualization, R.B.; supervision, N.C.; project administration, G.U.; funding acquisition, N.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Doctoral School of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, gran<sup>t</sup> name *The effects of fake news as politically biased information in the context of the 2019 Romanian presidency elections*.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (No 2/CE/21.12.2020).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** Data can be made available upon request. Please address the requests to the corresponding author.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
