Lecture 5 | Conspiracy theories

What is a conspiracy theory according to Douglas (2019)?

An attempt to explain the ultimate causes of significant social and political events with claims of secret plots by two or more powerful actors

What is the difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory?

A conspiracy is an actual secret plot that happened, such as Watergate; a conspiracy theory can be true but can also be false

What does it mean that science studies conspiracy theories from an epistemically agnostic perspective?

Researchers study the belief itself without deciding in advance whether the theory is true or false

What are the two types of targets of conspiracy theories?

1. Events, such as 9/11 2. Entities, such as Jewish people or Big Pharma

How did the internet change the spread of information compared with mass media?

Mass media is a power block that checks news; the internet is democratic but has no safeguard for truth and offers a huge quantity of information

What are prosumers in the context of conspiracy theories?

Believers who both consume and produce information about their theories to fill in the blanks

What is ontological insecurity?

Uncertainty about what is real on the internet; conspiracy belief is a way to cope with this general distrust

What are the three reasons people share conspiracy theories?

1. To justify their own world beliefs 2. To cope with a threatening event 3. To gain something, such as views or political power

What language do conspiracy theories use to spread according to Douglas et al. (2015)?

Authoritative, analytical, confident and assured language to counter official explanations, mostly within certain spheres

What did Goertzel (1994) find?

The best predictor of believing a specific conspiracy theory is already believing in another one

What is the monological belief system?

A self-reinforcing network of beliefs in which conspiracy theories support each other, so belief in one predicts belief in others

What distinguishes conspiracy mentality from conspiracy mindset in the lecture?

Mentality is a stable, political explanation; mindset is a flexible, cognitive one that can appear anywhere, at any time

What did Imhoff et al. (2022) find across 26 countries?

Conspiracy mentality is elevated at both political extremes, especially the far right, and correlates with low trust in government

What did Wood et al. (2012) find?

Believers endorse contradictory theories: the more people believed Bin Laden was already dead at the raid, the more they believed he is still alive

Explain why believers can hold contradictory conspiracy theories

What the theories share is rejecting the official account; also, many are only probably and not necessarily exclusive, they fit a monological belief system, and believers make logical errors

What did Miani et al. (2026) find about conspiracy believers' probability judgements?

They assign probabilities to mutually exclusive scenarios that add up to more than 100 percent

What are the six sources of conspiracy belief according to Pilch (2023)?

1. Psychopathological 2. Cognitive 3. Personality 4. Motivational 5. Political 6. Sociocultural

Are conspiracy believers crazy?

No, but psychopathological factors such as narcissism and paranoid thinking do correlate with conspiracy belief

What did Cichocka et al. (2016) find?

Individual narcissism is positively linked to conspiracy belief through paranoid thinking, while self-esteem is negatively linked to paranoia and protects

What is the difference between narcissism and self-esteem?

Narcissism relies on validation and admiration from others; self-esteem is valuing yourself independently of others

What did De Coninck et al. (2024) find about anxiety?

Momentary feelings of threat and anxiety foster conspiracy belief, whereas anxious personality traits have a negative effect

Explain why momentary anxiety and anxious personality relate differently to conspiracy belief

A temporary threat creates a need for explanation and control that conspiracy theories fill; a stable anxious trait does not show this link and is even negatively related

Do Big 5 and HEXACO personality models predict conspiracy beliefs?

No, they do not allow steady predictions

Which personality traits are related to conspiracy belief?

Impulsivity and sensation seeking, and most robustly narcissism and in-group identities

What did Gorska et al. (2023) find?

National narcissism predicted later belief in COVID conspiracy theories over three measurements, while national identification did not

What distinguishes national narcissism from national identification?

National narcissism demands that others recognise the greatness of one's nation; national identification is simply being proud of and liking one's country

What is collective narcissism?

An exaggerated, defensive belief in the greatness of one's in-group, combined with the demand that outsiders recognise it

What is illusory pattern perception?

The tendency to see meaningful patterns or causal links in random or unrelated events

What did Hartmann and Muller (2023) find about pattern perception?

When a pattern exists, believers and non-believers see it equally; when there is none, conspiracy believers see more patterns

Which thinking style is related to conspiracy belief?

Intuitive thinking, including magical thinking and superstition, measured against analytical thinking with the Cognitive Reflection Test

What did van Prooijen (2016) find about education?

Education is one of the strongest predictors of lower conspiracy belief; it trains analytical thinking that resists simple explanations

Can people be trained to believe less in conspiracy theories?

Yes, training people to think less intuitively and slow down their thinking has a positive effect

What did Marchlewska et al. (2017) find about need for closure?

High need for cognitive closure facilitates conspiracy belief, but only for major events without an official explanation; an explanation reduces it

What did Imhoff and Lamberty (2017) test about need for uniqueness?

Whether people high in need for uniqueness believe conspiracy theories more when they are presented as held by a minority rather than by many people

Explain why need for uniqueness fosters conspiracy belief

Conspiracy theories offer exclusive knowledge that the majority lacks, which makes believers feel unique

What is epistemic individualism?

Self-reliance in acquiring knowledge combined with defiance of expertise

What did Tomas et al. (2022) find about epistemic individualism?

Conspiracy mindset was linked mostly to expertise defiance, not self-reliance, and critical thinking dispositions did not predict conspiracy belief

Explain why critical thinking and conspiracy belief can share the same source according to Guillon (2018)

Both stem from epistemic individualism; the danger arises when self-reliance turns into defiance of expertise

Which political factors predict conspiracy belief?

Ideological extremity on both sides, authoritarianism, populism, political powerlessness and institutional distrust

How do political scandals affect conspiracy belief?

A climate of scandals lowers trust in political power and signals turmoil and uncertainty, which increases conspiracy belief (Einstein and Glick, 2013)

How does social media use relate to conspiracy belief?

Higher use increases belief only among people who already have a high conspiracy mentality; social media skepticism lowers it

What is the self-actual gap according to Altay et al. (2023)?

Conspiracy believers overestimate their own critical thinking and information processing abilities

What is egocentric discounting?

Giving more weight to your own judgement than to advice from others

What did Sancar et al. (2026) find?

People generally trust experts more than peers, but less so when they have a high conspiracy mindset, collective narcissism and epistemic individualism

What did Karic et al. (2021) find?

Believing politics hides something leads to political distrust, which reduces self and other protective behaviour during COVID

What are the three take-home messages of the lecture on conspiracy theories?

1. Conspiracy theories are not automatically conspiracies 2. There are many reasons to believe and believers are not crazy 3. Belief has benefits for the individual but mostly harms society

What were the three research questions of Douglas et al. (2019)?

1. Which factors explain conspiracy belief 2. How are conspiracy theories communicated and spread 3. What are their consequences for society

What are the three motives behind conspiracy belief according to Douglas et al. (2019)?

1. Epistemic 2. Existential 3. Social

What are epistemic motives?

The need for understanding, accuracy and subjective certainty about the world

What are existential motives?

The need for safety, control and autonomy; conspiracy theories compensate for powerlessness and anxiety

What are social motives?

The need for a positive image of oneself and one's group, including feeling unique

What is hypersensitive agency detection?

The tendency to perceive human intention in situations where it is absent or very unlikely

Which demographic groups show more conspiracy belief according to Douglas et al. (2019)?

People with lower education, lower income, unemployed people and ethnic minority or disadvantaged groups

Why are conspiracy theories called a tool for political losers?

They help groups that lost power explain their defeat and mobilise followers

What is the U-shaped function between ideology and conspiracy belief?

Conspiracy belief is strongest at both the far left and far right, and stronger on the right due to right-wing authoritarianism

What is motivated reasoning?

Processing new information so that it fits existing beliefs and ideological preferences

How does the internet affect conspiracy thinking according to Douglas et al. (2019)?

It does not necessarily increase conspiracy thinking overall, but strengthens isolated echo chambers and polarised communities

What are the harmful consequences of conspiracy theories according to Douglas et al. (2019)?

Vaccine refusal, science denial, lower political trust and voting intention, and radicalisation and violence

Which interventions work best against conspiracy theories according to Douglas et al. (2019)?

Inoculation with counterarguments in advance and encouraging analytical thinking, which work better than corrections afterwards

What was the method of Pilch et al. (2023)?

A systematic review following PRISMA guidelines of 274 articles (417 studies) from 2018 to 2021, with a narrative synthesis

Why did Pilch et al. (2023) use a narrative synthesis instead of a meta-analysis?

The studies were too heterogeneous in design, measurement instruments and analyses

What is a key methodological limitation of research on conspiracy beliefs according to Pilch et al. (2023)?

Most studies are cross-sectional (71.2 percent) and use WEIRD samples, which limits causal conclusions and generalisability

What distinguishes generic from specific conspiracy belief scales?

Generic scales measure general conspiracy mentality; specific scales measure belief in particular theories such as COVID origins

What is teleological thinking?

The tendency to assume events are purposefully designed or serve an end goal

What are the Dark Triad traits?

1. Narcissism 2. Machiavellianism 3. Psychopathy

How does conspiracy belief affect political participation according to Pilch et al. (2023)?

It lowers legal participation such as voting and raises intentions for illegal political action and violent extremism