Conspiracy mentality differently shapes interpersonal trust when money or digital privacy is at stake

Abstract

ABSTRACT To believe in conspiracy theories is to suspect that (powerful) others are plotting behind one’s back. Conspiracy beliefs might be therefore an issue of (dis)trust. In this study, we sought to explore whether this association is modulated by the way trust is operationalised and by the specific target to whom trust is directed. In doing so, we used two proxies of trust: (i) money investment within a hypothetical version of the trust game and (ii) the likelihood of disclosing a personal digital information (i.e. password). Then we presented participants with a set of trustees representing different social categories and having different degrees of closeness to the participants. Our results showed that when trust was expressed as money investment, higher levels of conspiracy mentality were associated to less trust towards powerful categories, such as ingroup politicians, scientists, public organisations, pharmaceutical and textile CEOs. Conversely, when trust was expressed as the likelihood of disclosing one’s own password, this association was observed only when the trustee was an ingroup politician. Here, we demonstrated that the negative association between conspiracy mentality and trust is not a uniform phenomenon, rather is subject to the expression of trust and to its specific targets.