Conspiracy beliefs, political conservatism and spirituality could play a similar role in satisfying epistemic, existential and social needs, the expression of which depends on situational and dispositional factors. The aim of the thesis was to empirically examine whether all three of the above variables are correlated and whether the correlations can be statistically accounted for by their common factor. Furthermore, I aimed to examine how well the extracted common factor can be predicted by the measured need for cognitive closure and perceived socio- political control, which can be defined as indicators of epistemic and existential needs. Based on the theoretical background, I developed a structural model and tested its fit on a convenience sample of 329 Slovene-speaking participants. The results showed that the correlations between all three types of beliefs were positive and moderately high, with their common factor explaining more than half of the variance in conspiracy mentality and spirituality and approximately a third of the variance in political conservatism. Both the need for cognitive closure and perceived socio-political control were statistically significant predictors of the common factor, together explaining approximately 12% of its variance. The findings support the assumption of shared dispositional characteristics of conspiracy mentality, political conservatism and spirituality, and offer a foundation for the development of programmes to prevent extremist beliefs and behavior, rebuild trust in science and protect public health. Further research should focus on replicating the findings on a larger and more representative sample as well as improving the model by the inclusion of additional predictors of the extracted common factor.
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