The role of system identity threat in conspiracy theory endorsement

Abstract

Conspiracy theories (CTs) about government officials and the institutions they represent are widespread, and span the ideological spectrum. In this study, we test hypotheses suggesting that system identity threat, or a perception that society's fundamental, defining values are under siege due to social change, will predict conspiracy thinking. Across two samples (N = 870, N = 2,702), we found that system identity threat is a strong predictor of a general tendency toward conspiracy thinking and endorsement of both ideological and non‐ideological CTs, even after accounting for numerous covariates. We also found that the relationship between system‐identity threat and conspiracy‐theory endorsement is mediated by conspiracy thinking. These results suggest that conspiracy‐theory endorsement may be a compensatory reaction to perceptions that society's essential character is changing.

The illusion of explanatory depth and endorsement of conspiracy beliefs

“…This illusion of explanatory depth has been examined in a broad range of areas (e.g., Rozenblit & Keil, 2002), but a paucity of research has investigated these processes in political domains (but see Fernbach et al, 2013)-an inherently abstruse yet consequential context (e.g., Conover & Feldman, 1989;Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996;Vitriol, Reifen Tagar, & Federico, 2017;Wilson & Keil, 1998). Conspiratorial beliefs serve as explanations for complex, ambiguous, and threatening political phenomena (e.g., Graeupner & Coman, 2017;Miller, Saunders, & Farhart, 2016;Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009;Swami & Coles, 2010;Uscinski & Parent, 2014;Federico, Williams, Vitriol, 2017). Accordingly, we reasoned that illusions of explanatory depth for political phenomena would be uniquely related to endorsement of conspiratorial beliefs.…”

“…Prior research investigating the psychology of conspiracy beliefs has examined the role of personality characteristics or other individual differences (e.g., Abalakina-Paap, Stephan, Craig, & Gregory, 1999;Swami et al, 2011), political or social disenfranchisement (e.g., Federico, Williams, & Vitriol, 2017;Graeupner & Coman, 2017;Uscinski & Parent, 2014), conspiratorial mindsets (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014), and identity-based motivated-reasoning processes (e.g., Carey, Nyhan, Valentino, & Liu, 2016). These findings point to many dispositional and situational factors that increase endorsement of conspiracy beliefs-including perceived lack of control, heightened need for uniqueness, high individual narcissism coupled with low self-esteem, powerlessness, low political knowledge, interpersonal and political distrust, disagreeableness, paranoid cognitions and sinister attributions, and superstitious ideation-particularly when adopting such perspectives satisfies important psychological and ideological needs for order, certainty, and control (Berinsky, 2012;Cichocka, Marchlewska, Golec de Zavala, & Olechowski, 2016; for a review, see Douglas, Sutton, & Cichocka, 2017;Imhoff & Lamberty, 2017;Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2009;Miller et al, 2016;Lantian, Muller, Nurra, & Douglas, 2017;Sunstein, 2014;Swami & Coles, 2010;Van Prooijen, Krouwel, & Pollet, 2015;).…”

“…Finally, prominent perspectives on the psychology of conspiracy beliefs suggest that endorsements of conspiracy beliefs are motivated by psychological needs for order, structure, and certainty (e.g., Miller et al, 2016) and thereby provide an internally consistent and personally meaningful explanation for complex and threatening social and political events and change (e.g., Federico, Williams, Vitriol, 2017), including undesirable electoral outcomes (Edelson, Alduncin, Kreswon, Sieja, & Uscinski, 2017). The threat associated with having supported a losing candidate can promote conspiracist ideation and lead to increased endorsement of political conspiracies among all supporters of that candidate (e.g., Edelson et al, 2017;Uscinski & Parent, 2014).…”

Belief in conspiracy theories: Basic principles of an emerging research domain

“…Both correlational and experimental studies extensively support the emotional nature of belief in conspiracy theories. For instance, conspiracy beliefs are correlated with trait anxiety (Grzesiak-Feldman, 2013), and are predicted by the perception that society is under threat (Jolley, Douglas, & Sutton, 2018), and that society's fundamental values are changing (Federico, Williams, & Vitriol, 2018). Experimental studies have found that inducing a lack of control increases people's belief in organizational conspiracy theories (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008) and political conspiracy theories (Van Prooijen & Acker, 2015).…”

“…Next, research on the emotional roots of conspiracy belief is restricted to experimentally inducing experiences of threat (e.g., Jolley et al, 2018;Van Prooijen & Acker, 2015;Whitson & Galinsky, 2008) or to measuring threatening or emotional experiences (e.g., Jolley et al, 2018;Federico et al, 2018;Grzesiak-Feldman, 2013). We would advocate more sophisticated methodologies to study emotions, and particularly recommend a physiological approach to understand the relationship between emotions and belief in conspiracy theories.…”