A nationwide representative study in Poland found that intergroup contact, as well as intergroup friendships, were significant predictors of attitudes toward Jews, but they were not significantly related to belief in the Jewish conspiracy [Winiewski, M., Soral, W. and Bilewicz, M. (2015) ‘Conspiracy theories on the map of stereotype content: survey and historical evidence’, in M. Bilewicz, A. Cichocka and W. Soral (eds.) The Psychology of Conspiracy, Abingdon, UK: Routledge, p. 23-41]. To put it more simply, contact with Jewish people did not seem to reduce the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ myth.
– ‘Conspiracy theories and intergroup relations’, in Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories (2020), p. 220
Some argue, however, that authoritarianism predicts different intergroup attitudes than a general conspiracy mentality […]. While authoritarianism predicts prejudice towards less powerful societal groups, conpsiracy mentality can be seen as a distinct political attitude, with a stable ideological belief system that involves prejudicial attitudes towards more powerful groups. As previously discussed, in the process of scapegoating, outgroups are viewed as threatening when they are perceived as highly competent yet pursuing goals that are incompatible with the ingroup. Therefore, scapegoating usually fosters intergroup comparison with powerful outgroups (e.g. with high socio-economic agency […]). Conversely, R.W.A. [right-wing authoritarianism] can foster intergroup comparison with subordinate groups perceived as less powerful […]. For example, an outgroup would be perceived as threatening if they were violating the perceived norms of the ingroup. Imhoff and Bruder [Imhoff, R. and Bruder, M. (2014) ‘Speaking (un-)truth to power: conspiracy mentality as a generalized political attitude’, European Journal of Personality, 28(1): 25-43] argued that antisemitism was associated both with high levels of conspiracy mentality and R.W.A. Conspiracy mentality led to antisemitism through perceptions of Jews as more powerful, whereas R.W.A. led to antisemitism through perceptions of Jews as less powerful.
– Ibid., p. 222
A study performed in Poland following the Smoleńsk air catastrophe shows that the tendency to interpret this event as caused by an anti-Polish Russian conspiracy was prevalent among people who focused their attention on the historical victimisation of their nation (Bilewicz, M., Witkowska, M., Pantazi, M., Gkinopoulos, T. and Klein, O. (2019) ‘Traumatic rift: how conspiracy beliefs undermine cohesion after societal trauma?’, Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 15(1): 82-93). Those who believe in unique ingroup victimhood seem to treat their national history, as they see it, as a universal heuristic that allows them to understand current intergroup relations.
– Ibid., p. 224