New psychology research challenges a popular explanation for why conspiracy theories cluster together
People who believe one conspiracy theory tend to believe others, and many psychologists point to a general suspicious mindset. But a study of nearly 30,000 people suggests that mindset rarely sits at the center.
A recent large-scale analysis across 17 country samples published in the European Journal of Social Psychology challenges the popular notion that a general conspiracy mentality is the underlying cause for the clustering of diverse conspiracy beliefs. While conspiracy mentality and specific conspiracy beliefs are generally distinct, the relationship between the two varies across studies utilizing different conspiracy items and questionnaires.
The distinction between the two concepts emerged from observations that people seldom believe in isolated conspiracy theories and are more likely to endorse contradictory claims, which many psychologists have attributed to a general conspiracy mentality. However, the findings from this analysis suggest that general mentality and specific beliefs do not consistently move together, indicating that the relationship between the two may be more complex than previously thought.
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