Conspiracy Mentality Research Articles

Exploring the Extremes: The Impact of Radical Right-Wing Populism on Conspiracy Beliefs in Austria

(1) Background: Populist radical right-wing parties and politicians have used conspiracy theories to perpetuate the antagonism between an evil elite conspiring against the good and unknowing people. Yet, less is known about whether and to what extent radical right-wing populism at the individual level is associated with different conspiracy beliefs. This analysis explores how the main components of radical right-wing populism—populist, nativist, and authoritarian attitudes—relate to both a general conspiracy mentality and specific conspiracy theories prevalent in political discourse. (2) Methods: Using data from an original 2023 online survey conducted in Austria, a stronghold of the populist radical right, this study includes new questions on immigration, COVID-19, and climate change, as well as a conspiracy mentality scale. (3) Results: The analyses reveal that all the main components are positively associated with different conspiracy beliefs, albeit to varying degrees. Across models, the strongest predictor is populism, followed by nativism and authoritarianism. Nativism varies the most across different conspiracy beliefs and is particularly associated with the belief in conspiracy theories related to immigration and climate change. (4) Conclusions: The results highlight the prevalence of radical right-wing populist attitudes across various conspiracy beliefs, reflecting how populist radical right-wing actors leverage conspiracy theories in their political discourse.

Conspiracy Beliefs and the Perception of Intergroup Inequalities.

Conspiracy beliefs are prevalent among members of disadvantaged groups. Adopting a social identity perspective, we hypothesized that these beliefs would reduce the endorsement of internal attributions for inequalities that could negatively affect the image of disadvantaged ingroups. In Study 1 (n = 1,104), conspiracy mentality was negatively associated with meritocracy beliefs, which attribute success and failure to internal factors. In Studies 2 to 5 (ns = 179, 251, 221, 248), taking the perspective of a person exhibiting a high (vs. low) conspiracy mentality in a fictitious context reduced participants' meritocracy beliefs, internal attributions for a privileged outgroup's situation, and fostered negative attitudes toward the outgroup. However, it did not reduce internal attributions for the situation of a disadvantaged ingroup, nor did it improve attitudes toward the ingroup. Regarding intergroup comparison, conspiracy mentality seems to primarily deteriorate the perception of privileged outgroups rather than improve the perception of disadvantaged ingroups.

Conspiracy beliefs and majority influence

ABSTRACT Conspiracy beliefs (i.e. beliefs in specific conspiracy theories or the more general conspiracy mentality) are associated with a need for uniqueness and lower adherence to social norms. These findings suggest that conspiracy beliefs might be generally associated with less influence by majority opinions – absolutely and compared to minority opinions. In five experiments involving scenarios unrelated to conspiracy theories (overall N = 1669), participants were informed about the majority/minority opinion on a given issue (e.g. the building of a tunnel), afterward indicating their evaluation or voting intentions regarding the issue. We then tested whether the influence of a majority/minority opinion on evaluation or voting intentions is moderated by conspiracy beliefs. Across studies, we find no significant moderation. A meta-analysis confirms no correlation between conspiracy beliefs and susceptibility to majority influence. Taken together, our studies provide no evidence for the assumption that those holding conspiracy beliefs reject majority opinions per se.

Conspiracy mentality in autistic and non-autistic individuals

ABSTRACT Background Belief in conspiracy theories has emerged across times and cultures. While previous accounts attributed conspiracy beliefs to mental health conditions, accumulating research suggests that conspiracy theories are common among the general population. In the present study we examined whether conspiracy mentality – that is, a general predisposition to believe conspiracy theories – differed between a group of autistic adults and a general population sample. Methods This study included an autistic sample (n = 682) and a general population sample (n = 4358). Participants’ conspiracy mentality was measured using the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ). Results A one-way ANCOVA (controlling for participants’ age, gender, educational level, and ethnicity) revealed no difference in conspiracy mentality between an autism and a community sample. Conclusions The current study suggests that being autistic, or having more autistic traits, does not predict conspiracy mentality. These findings underscore that autism does not predispose people to conspiracy theories and suggest that autism is neither a risk factor for, nor a protective factor against, conspiracy mentality.

Connecting the Dots with Causal Attitude Network (CAN): A Psychological Network Approach to Populist Attitudes, Nativism, Conspiracy Mentality and Threat Appraisals

ABSTRACT This methodological paper uses a new conceptualization of attitudes, the Causal Attitude Network (CAN) model, to investigate populism and nativism. The CAN model conceptualizes attitudes as a complex system of interrelated factors and captures different attitude components’ interplay and mutual dependence. Drawing on two previously collected, representative datasets (N 1 = 8046, N 2 = 2030) from 15 European countries, we estimated the networks structure of populist attitudes (PA), nativism, conspiracy mentality, threat appraisals, and demographics. Besides confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and exploratory factor analyses (EFA), our general procedure included the estimation of Mixed Graphical Models (MGMs) with LASSO Regularization and the Extended Bayesian Information Criterion (EBIC), before we analyzed our network models with the Walktrap algorithm and Network Comparison Test (NCT). A cluster analysis based on different algorithms (hierarchical, clara, pam) divided the countries into two clusters, while the main difference between them was how the networks related to perceiving politicians as corrupt elites. To gain a deeper understanding of the PA scale, we investigated it from a network perspective. We found that the PA network of Turkey (a hybrid case of religious-conservative and nationalist-authoritarian) differed the most from all other countries under investigation.

Hotter weather, less of a hoax? Testing the longitudinal association between experience of temperature anomalies and belief in climate change conspiracy theories

While people across the world are experiencing hotter summers, there is still a considerable number of people who believe that climate change is a hoax. It thus raises the question of whether the experience of local temperature anomalies would influence people's beliefs about climate change conspiracy. To address this question, we conducted a two-wave longitudinal study with participants from the U.S. (Study 1) and mainland China (Study 2), respectively. We expect that the experience of temperature anomalies would serve as a cognitive proxy that counteracts the hoax conspiracy narratives and thus would be negatively related to belief in such narratives. We further explored whether this negative association would be related to less perceived psychological distance, stronger negative emotions, and more climate change-related information exposure; and whether it would be weaker among people who tended to interpret things in a conspiracist manner (i.e., conspiracy mentality). In Study 1, our results support the hypothesized links cross-sectionally and longitudinally on the subjective experience of hotter summer, except for climate change-related information exposure. In Study 2, we found only cross-sectional associations between the constructs, except for climate change-related information exposure. Lastly, we found mixed evidence regarding the moderating role of conspiracy mentality between the studies. Our findings provide initial support that climate change conspiracy beliefs are malleable to people's subjective experience of temperature anomalies. The happening of temperature anomalies could be a crucial opportunity for promoting scientific understanding of climate change.

Who is at risk of bias? Examining dispositional differences in motivated science reception.

The motivated reception of science in line with one's preexisting convictions is a well-documented, pervasive phenomenon. In two studies (N = 743), we investigated whether this bias might be stronger in some people than others due to dispositional differences. Building on the assumptions that motivated science reception is driven by perceived threat and suspicion and higher under perceived ambiguity and uncertainty, we focused on traits associated with such perceptions. In particular, we tested the impact of conspiracy mentality and victim sensitivity on motivated science reception (as indicated by ascriptions of researchers' trustworthiness and evidence credibility). In addition, we explored the role of broader personality traits (generalized mistrust and ambiguity intolerance) in this context. None of the investigated dispositions modulated the motivated science reception effect. This demonstrates once again, that motivated science reception is a ubiquitous challenge for the effective dissemination of science and everyone seems to be at risk of it.

COVID-19 and influenza vaccine-hesitancy subgroups.

Health communicators are faced with the challenge that people can hesitate vaccines for different reasons. Our aim was to identify and describe the qualities of distinct COVID-19 and influenza vaccine-hesitancy subgroups to facilitate the development of tailored vaccine-hesitancy communication. In two studies, we used agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis to identify COVID-19 (N = 554) and influenza (N = 539) vaccine-hesitancy subgroups in the general population based on nine vaccine hesitancy-related variables (intent to get vaccinated, perceived vaccine safety, perceived vaccine efficacy, perceived disease threat, perceived vaccination responsibility, perceived vaccination convenience, distrust in authorities, conspiracy mentality, and reliance on anecdotal testimonies). We identified and described six distinct COVID-19 vaccine-hesitancy subgroups (the Vaccination Positive, the Ambivalent, the Fearing Skeptic, the Unconvinced, the Constrained Skeptic, and the Vaccination Opponent), and three influenza vaccine-hesitancy subgroups (the Vaccination Positive, the Complacent, and the Vaccination Opponent), with different levels of hesitancy. We discuss the implications of the results for health communicators. Our results shed light on the (dis)similarities between people who hesitate COVID-19 and influenza vaccines and suggest that there is greater variety in hesitancy concerning COVID-19 vaccinations than influenza vaccinations. These findings can be used to design and test tailored vaccination messages.

Skepticism and physics: epistemic beliefs of Norwegian physics students compared with other student groups

The purpose of this study is to examine how physics students position themselves compared to other student groups on various attitudes and opinions relevant to the tradition of “scientific skepticism”. Previous research has shown physics students identifying and having mindsets in line with the epistemic ideas from this philosophical tradition, promoting disbelief in epistemically unfounded ideas, and skeptical inquiry as a tool for evaluating claims. In this, we employ quantitative constructs testing conspiracy beliefs and supernatural beliefs along with established psychological constructs for social dominance orientation, and the conspiracy mentality questionnaire that have previously been shown to have interconnectedness. After showing several direct comparisons between different student groups, the paper also examines other elements that can influence “scientific skepticism”, like education level, education type, and gender via multivariate regression analysis. The results suggest physics students tend to position themselves to the end of the spectrum on several constructs connected to scientific skepticism, both compared to students from the humanities and social sciences, and students from other STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, and the regression analysis finds being a physics student contributes a statistically significant contribution along the tested dimensions. The paper discusses possible reasons for this and what this tells us about physics students and physics education.

Dezinformacja na temat COVID-19 w mediach społecznościowych a kryzys epistemiczny. Przegląd problemów

The text considers several critical issues related to the role of false information in the COVID-19 pandemic. It mainly focuses on social media, which often resemble echo chambers responsible for disseminating disinformation. In these echo chambers, users close themselves off from arguments and justifications different from their own, often with a strong tendency towards polarization of views and attitudes. A particular case of echo chambers is the conspiracy mentality propagated in social media, promoting conspirational beliefs about COVID-19, which, besides offering an alternative understanding of reality, deepens distrust towards epistemic authorities and methods of producing scientific knowledge. This indicates an epistemic crisis as a consequence of the pandemic, which must be addressed in order to rebuild and protect epistemic trust. The authors conclude that the consequence of this crisis is a regression of cognitive abilities, which may, in a feedback loop, exacerbate the epistemic crisis.

Anti-establishment sentiments: realistic and symbolic threat appraisals predict populist attitudes and conspiracy mentality

ABSTRACT Previous research has found that populist attitudes and conspiracy mentality – here summarised as anti-establishment attitudes – increase when people feel threatened. Two types of intergroup threat have been distinguished, namely realistic threats (pertaining to socio-economic resources, climate, or health), and symbolic threats (pertaining to cultural values). However, there is no agreement on which types of threat and corresponding appraisals would be most important in predicting anti-establishment attitudes. We hypothesise that it is the threat itself, irrespective of its cause, that predicts anti-establishment attitudes. In the current paper, we conducted new (multilevel) regression analyses on previously collected data from four high-powered studies with multiple time points (Study 1) or collected in multiple nations (Studies 2–4). All studies included a populist attitudes scale, a conspiracy mentality scale, and different types of threat and emotion measures, reflecting both realistic and symbolic threats. Across studies, both realistic and symbolic threats positively predicted anti-establishment attitudes. The results support an emotional appraisal approach to anti-establishment attitudes, which highlights the importance of anxiety and feeling threatened regardless of what type of event elicits the threat.

Are conspiracy theory believers drawn to conspiratorial explanations, alternatives explanations, or both?

Individuals differ in their general propensity to believe in conspiracy theories, often referred to as conspiracy mentality. Because prototypical conspiracy theories exhibit a conspiratorial content (i.e., they claim that a conspiracy occurred) and an alternative status (i.e., they are rejected by authorities), it is unclear if conspiracy mentality captures a general tendency to believe in conspiracies, to endorse alternative narratives, or to believe in conspiratorial alternative narratives. To adjudicate between these interpretations, we carried out three experimental studies (Ns = 364, 772, 629) in which we experimentally manipulated the respective statuses (endorsed by authorities vs. rejected by the authorities) of competing conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial explanations for fictitious controversial events. Overall, conspiracy mentality predicted the endorsement of conspiratorial explanations and the rejection of non-conspiratorial explanations. However, these relationships were moderated by the respective statuses of these explanations. When authorities endorsed the conspiratorial explanation and rejected the non-conspiratorial explanation, the relationships were either nullified (in Studies 1 & 3) or attenuated (in study 2). These effects were driven by participants scoring low on the conspiracy mentality measures, who reported a lower endorsement of the conspiratorial explanation when it was rejected by authorities. They also reported a stronger endorsement of the non-conspiratorial explanation when it was presented as endorsed by authorities. By contrast, conspiracy believers' endorsement of the explanations was unaffected by their status. These findings are informative of what conspiracy mentality scales capture and highlight the need to adopt more specific definitions in psychological research on conspiracy theories.

The Relationship Between Conspiracy Mentality, Personality Traits, Stress Coping Strategies and Psychological Well-Being

Conspiracy theories and people’s tendency to believe them have recently attracted a great deal of scientific attention because of the widespread nature of conspiracy beliefs, their potential to influence people’s behaviour and endanger public safety. To understand what leads people to believe in conspiracies, it is important to consider both intrinsic personal factors as well as external, learned factors that are related to the person’s environment. This study aims to explore which psychological factors contribute directly and indirectly to the propensity to believe conspiracy theories. The study involved 173 participants (80.3% women). The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 70 years (M = 33.34; SD = 14.62). The Conspiracy mentality scale was used to measure the subjects’ general tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. The participants’ Big Five personality traits, psychological well-being, and stress coping strategies were also assessed. The results of linear regression and path analysis show that the propensity to believe in conspiracy theories is directly predicted by social well-being, religion and avoidance coping which are used to reduce stress. In addition, conspiracy mentality has been found to be indirectly predicted by personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism, through social well-being and avoidance coping; in addition, path analysis revealed direct associations between the tendency to believe in conspiracy and extraversion. Skepticism (one of conspiracy mentality subscales) is directly predicted by avoidance coping strategy. Extraversion predicts propensity to believe conspiracy theories directly and – together with neuroticism – indirectly through social well-being and avoidance coping.

A comprehensive model for predicting populist attitudes

Populist attitudes are multi-causal, but their determinants are often studied separately, in small groups, or in different samples. This study presents a comprehensive model for the prediction of populist attitudes using a single sample. We use an ideological approach and measure of populist attitudes as anti-elitism, popular sovereignty, and homogeneity, while the differences between the elite and the people are Manichean. Analyzing a sample based on a representative quota for gender, age, education and region of Slovakia (N = 254), it was found that relative deprivation, belief in simple solutions, external political efficacy, trust towards experts, and conspiracy mentality were significant predictors of populist attitudes after controlling for other variables. The effect of education and subjective income faded out after adding variables into the model. The model explained 54% of the variance in populist attitudes. The results are discussed in detail with respect to its limitations and country specifics.

The correlation between conspiracy mentality and vaccine intentions is moderated by social events: Evidence from longitudinal data during COVID-19 pandemic in the UK

Social events may provide important cues that influence the sense of reality, including the perception that conspiracy theories are plausible. Using longitudinal panel data collected in the UK from March 2020 to December 2021, this study aims to identify whether social events influenced the strength of the association between conspiracy mentality and vaccine intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consistent with previous research, the conspiracy mentality was a significant predictor of vaccine intentions across three-time points, but also that conspiracy mentality measured in March 2020 predicted that participants were more hesitant to the vaccines in December 2020. The primary finding was that different social events moderated the strength of the correlation between conspiracy mentality and vaccine intentions within similar participants. Conspiracy mentality became more vital to evaluate COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020, when the vaccination program was about to commence.

Put money where their mouth is? Willingness to pay for online conspiracy theory content

Many studies have examined why people believe in conspiracy theories, yet less is known about why people choose to consume conspiratorial content. This study addresses this gap by examining people's willingness to pay for online conspiracy theory content. Grounded in uses and gratifications theory and the willingness to pay concept, it employs a survey experiment fielded in Japan (n = 1,448) that asks respondents whether they would subscribe to a hypothetical online video channel with a randomly assigned conspiracy theory and a monthly subscription fee (0 to 1,000 JPY/∼9 USD). Results show that while many respondents held varying degrees of belief in the conspiracy theories in question, few were willing to pay for the channel and cost was the main determining factor. The subscription rate would drop from 19 % if the channel was free to 3–5 % if it had a non-zero subscription fee (average 324 JPY/∼3 USD). This study also finds that conspiracy mentality and media diet (the combination of using social media for news and avoiding mainstream media news) are consistent predictors of people's willingness to subscribe to and pay for online conspiracy theory content.

“Just Because It’s a Conspiracy Theory Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Out to Get You”: Differentiating the Correlates of Judgments of Plausible Versus Implausible Conspiracy Theories

Although conspiracy theories exhibit varying degrees of plausibility as explanations for societal events, they are typically considered epistemically problematic. Since normative ascriptions of plausibility are not essential to their definition, we sought to examine whether judgments of (im)plausible conspiracy theories have different psychological underpinnings. In two preregistered studies ( N = 563), the plausibility of fictitious conspiracy theories was operationalized by pretest ratings (Study 1) or by experimentally manipulating supporting information in a belief updating paradigm (Study 2). While the general suspicious mind-set of conspiracy mentality was associated with perceiving greater plausibility in consensually plausible conspiracy theories, this was markedly stronger for implausible conspiracy theories. Cognitive variables were only negatively associated with attributing greater plausibility to conspiracy theories deemed implausible. The results suggest that a general suspicious perspective, along with limited cognitive skills and rational thinking dispositions, is related to biased plausibility judgments of conspiracy theories and the underweighting of information disconfirming them.

Belief in conspiracy theories that differ in evil intentions: Correlations with anger and other traits

The present research extended past correlational research (Harmon-Jones & Szymaniak, 2023) by manipulating the mediator – evil perceptions – in the relationship between trait anger and conspiracy beliefs. This past research revealed that trait anger correlated positively with conspiracy beliefs and with perceiving conspirators to have more evil intentions. Moreover, perceived evil intentions statistically mediated the relationship between trait anger and conspiracy beliefs. The current research first created a questionnaire to manipulate the evil intentions associated with relatively novel and unknown conspiracy theories (Study 1). Then, trait anger and other personality characteristics were measured along with beliefs in the low- and high-evil conspiracy theories (Study 2). Results revealed that trait anger correlated positively with beliefs in both types of conspiracy theories. Moreover, trait anger continued to predict belief in high-evil conspiracy theories when statistically controlling for belief in low-evil conspiracy theories. A general conspiracy mentality yielded similar results. Discussion focuses on how perceiving evil intentions in conspiracy theories may be one explanation for why trait anger relates to conspiracy beliefs.

How perceived coercion polarizes unvaccinated people: The mediating role of conspiracy beliefs.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, different policies were implemented to increase vaccination uptake. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories spread widely, and vaccinated versus unvaccinated people increasingly polarized against each other. This study examined the associations between perceived vaccination coercion, conspiracy beliefs and polarization. We tested the relationship of vaccination status with perceived vaccination coercion, conspiracy beliefs, and polarization, with a total sample size of N = 1202 (n = 400 in China, n = 401 in the US, and n = 401 in the UK), among them n = 603 were vaccinated and n = 599 were unvaccinated. As pre-registered, unvaccinated people perceived more vaccination coercion and endorsed more conspiracy theories. Conspiracy mentality was positively related to perceived coercion. Contrary to our hypotheses, vaccinated people were more polarized toward unvaccinated people than vice versa. Finally, conspiracy beliefs mediated the link between perceived coercion and polarization among unvaccinated people.

Exploring Factors Influencing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal: A Study in Italy during the Vaccine Rollout.

The availability of an effective vaccine against COVID-19 virus marked a crucial moment in the fight against its pandemic spread. Although distribution of the vaccine began in December 2020, high acceptance rates and repeated administrations are needed to achieve widespread immunization, but hesitation toward the vaccine persists to this day. To identify psychological variables and other factors associated with vaccine hesitancy, we conducted a study from August 2021 to October 2022. An Internet-based survey gathered data from 137 Italian adults, exploring attitudes, sociodemographic characteristics, psychological variables, and immunization behavior. The results analysis showed that gender (69.2% of vaccine-adverse people were males), education (years of education was negatively correlated with vaccine hesitancy), and religion (not declaring oneself religious or atheist was more likely to be associated with hesitancy toward the vaccine) were the variables influencing attitudes toward the vaccine. Other psychological variables differentiated people with opposite attitudes toward the vaccine: high scores on the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ) and Core Belief Inventory (CBI) were positively correlated with vaccine hesitancy, indicating that individuals with more pronounced core belief violation, due to the pandemic, tend to express higher levels of vaccine hesitancy. Finally, a linear regression analysis confirmed the role of participants' conspiracy mentality as a valid predictor for vaccine hesitancy.