Behind Beliefs: Collective Narcissism, Political Orientation, and Belief in Disinformation in the time of War in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has been accompanied by disinformation campaigns, especially from Russian sources. Given the opinion-forming power of such content, exploring factors associated with susceptibility to disinformation is essential. Since disinformation and conspiracy beliefs often overlap, we examined predictors commonly linked to conspiratorial thinking: collective narcissism (CN) and political orientation. Across two studies with demographically diverse Polish samples, we found that collective narcissism was positively related to belief in Russian disinformation and both generic and COVID-related conspiracy theories, while a liberal political orientation was negatively associated with these beliefs. Results suggest that CN's influence may vary for disinformation and COVID conspiracies when accounting for political orientation, with collective narcissism showing a stronger association among individuals with liberal views.