Many citizens around the globe believe conspiracy theories. Why are conspiracy theories so appealing? Here, we propose that conspiracy theories elicit intense emotions independent of emotional valence. People therefore find conspiracy theories entertaining that is, narratives that people perceive as interesting, exciting, and attention-grabbingand such entertainment appraisals are positively associated with belief in them. Five studies supported these ideas. Participants were exposed to either a conspiratorial or a non-conspiratorial text about the Notre Dame fire (Study 1) or the death of Jeffrey Epstein (preregistered Study 2). The conspiratorial text elicited stronger entertainment appraisals and intense emotions (independent of emotional valence) than the nonconspiratorial text; moreover, entertainment appraisals mediated the effects of the manipulation on conspiracy beliefs. Study 3 indicated that participants endorsed stronger conspiracy beliefs when an election event was described in an entertaining rather than a boring manner. Subsequent findings revealed that both organisational (Study 4) and societal conspiracy beliefs (Study 5) are positively associated with sensation seekinga trait characterised by a preference for exciting and intense experiences. We conclude that one reason why people believe conspiracy theories is because they find them entertaining.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Populist movements typically endorse a pessimistic view that blames the "elites" for societal problems. Why is this populist worldview so appealing to many citizens? We propose that populism is associated with nostalgia: A bittersweet feeling defined as a sentimental longing for a better past. We tested this idea in three preregistered studies. Study 1 revealed that both personal and collective nostalgia (i.e., referring to either personal memories or a shared national history) were associated with populist attitudes. Moreover, the nostalgia measures mediated a link between collective angst and populist attitudes. Studies 2 and 3, then, were experiments designed to investigate the causal order between nostalgia and populist attitudes. In Study 2, a manipulation of nostalgia could not establish a causal effect on populist attitudes; however, a measure of nostalgia was again correlated to populist attitudes. In Study 3, we tested the reverse causal order by exposing participants to either a populist or pluralist speech. Results revealed that exposure to the populist speech increased both personal and collective nostalgia. In all studies, these effects emerged independent of political orientation. Apparently, feelings of nostalgia are closely associated with populist attitudes and may help explain why citizens find a populist worldview appealing.