We examined the role of people’s self-evaluation in predicting their attitudes toward supporters of COVID-19-related conspiracy theories by replicating and extending the findings of a study by Cichocka et al. (2016, Study 3) in two preregistered studies (total N = 1179). Study 1, a direct replication, confirmed that narcissism and self-esteem—two different sources of people’s self-evaluation—differentially predicted their beliefs in a series of well-known conspiracy theories (not related to COVID-19), and served as mutual suppressor variables. Specifically, narcissism was positively related and self-esteem was negatively related to conspiracy beliefs, especially when the respective other predictor was controlled for. Study 2 extended Cichocka’s and our Study 1’s findings by testing the differential role of self-esteem and narcissism in predicting a COVID-19-specific criterion. Specifically, we focused on people’s rejection of supporters of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, a criterion we deem particularly important in curtailing the spread of these theories. Results were generally in line with previous findings, but effects were substantially weaker. As suggested by exploratory analyses, this might be due to the fact that the overall rejection of supporters measure comprises not only items capturing rejection of supporters but also items capturing low beliefs in conspiracy theories. These two distinct components differentially related to self-esteem and narcissism: the differential role of self-esteem and narcissism could only be replicated for the “low belief” subcomponent (thus replicating findings from the original study and from Study 1) but not for the “rejection of supporters” subcomponent. The present work thus contributes to recent research suggesting that low belief in conspiracy theories and the rejection of their supporters might be qualitatively different responses with unique antecedents.

我们通过复制和扩展 Cichocka 等人的研究结果，研究了人们自我评估在预测他们对 COVID-19 相关阴谋论支持者的态度方面的作用。（2016 年，研究 3）在两项预注册研究中（共N = 1179）。直接复制研究 1 证实，自恋和自尊——人们自我评价的两种不同来源——不同地预测了他们对一系列众所周知的阴谋论（与 COVID-19 无关）的信念，并作为相互抑制变量。具体而言，自恋与阴谋信念呈正相关，自尊与阴谋信念呈负相关，尤其是在控制了各自的其他预测因子时。研究 2 通过测试自尊和自恋在预测 COVID-19 特定标准中的不同作用，扩展了 Cichocka 和我们的研究 1 的发现。具体来说，我们关注人们对 COVID-19 阴谋论支持者的拒绝，我们认为这一标准对于遏制这些阴谋论的传播尤为重要。结果与之前的研究结果基本一致，但效果明显较弱。正如探索性分析所​​表明的那样，这可能是因为总体拒绝支持者测量不仅包括反映拒绝支持者的项目，还包括反映对阴谋论的低信念的项目。这两个不同的成分与自尊和自恋有不同的关系：自尊和自恋的不同作用只能复制到“低信念”子成分（因此复制了原始研究和研究 1 的结果），但不能复制“拒绝支持者”子组件。因此，目前的工作有助于最近的研究表明，对阴谋论的低信念和对其支持者的拒绝可能是具有独特前因的质上不同的反应。