Noises of Conspiracy

THE NOISES OF CONSPIRACY
The Noises of Conspiracy: Psychology of Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories
Academic Abstract
In this review, more than 10 years of research in conspiracy theory beliefs is
summarised. As conspiracy theories have these past years invaded the public domain in the
whole world, a trend which culminated during COVID-19 pandemic, a growing number of
psychologists investigated their antecedents and consequences. In this review, I expose and
discuss the definitions, the rationality, the consequences, the measures, the potential causes,
and some remedies against the proliferation of conspiracy theory beliefs. The potential causes
are classified in five categories. The societal-political category (social inequalities and
political extremism), the social category (intergroup competition), the personal
(psychopathological) category (personality traits, such as paranoia, schizotypy, narcissism,
etc.), the cognitive (irrational) category (cognitive biases and other irrational beliefs), and the
communicational category (communication via Internet and social media, and narrative
appeal).
Keywords. Conspiracy theories, conspiracist ideation, beliefs
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The Noises of Conspiracy: Psychology of Beliefs in Conspiracy Theory
For at least a dozen years, Conspiracy Theories (hereafter CTs) have invaded the
public domain. During the coronavirus pandemic, CTs flourished on the Internet and social
media: the virus had been created in a laboratory and intentionally spread, a vaccine had been
created by Bill Gates in order to kill part of the world population, to put microchips in
humans, 5G was responsible for the pandemics, etc. Brotherton (2013) reported in May 2013
that a Google search with the words "conspiracy theory" resulted in 10 million hits, but the
same research reached 16 700 000 results in January 2022! As has been the case with the
pandemic, every socially important event gives birth to an extraordinary number of various
CTs: life and death of celebrities, natural catastrophes such as earthquakes or tsunamis,
economic crises, terrorist attacks, scientific and technological advances (e.g., 5G, vaccines,
GMOs, satellites, electronic chips, climate change, CERN particles collider, "chemtrails"),
political organisations or meetings (e.g., UNO, WTO, IMF, Bilderberg group), secret groups
such as freemasons, accidents (e.g., bridge collapse at Genoa, fires, such as the Notre-Dame
fire in Paris, plane crashes), alien "visitations", etc. CTs are both very ancient (e.g., the
satanic/Jewish conspiracy against Christianity) and very recent (every contemporary event or
technology is accompanied by CTs), which indicates that CTs are very good memetic
products in the "marketplace of ideas" (Dawkins, 1976; Sperber, 1985).
Definition of CTs
What is a conspiracy theory? According to Keeley (1999), conspiracy theories are
defined as explanations of historical events in terms of the significant causal agency of a
relatively small group of people acting in secret. The intentions of the conspirators are
malevolent, and they moreover actively try to cover up their bad actions. CTs often contradict
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an official explanation (the one the conspirators want the rest of the population to believe) and
often relates entities that have no obvious relation (e.g., 5G and the coronavirus). Last, but not
least, CTs rely on "errant data", seemingly odd details in the official version of the events.
This last point is very important, as CTs have also been defined as an "unverified claim of
conspiracy which is not the most plausible account of an event or situation" (Brotherton,
2013), or "unproven, often rather fanciful alternatives to mainstream accounts" (Allison &
Zelikow, 1999, as cited in Douglas & Sutton, 2011, p. 544), or even "false beliefs" (Swami, et
al., 2014). Moreover, CTs are not only explanations of events, they may be defined as serious
accusations of conspiracy (the alleged conspirators are accused of killing or harming people
for their selfish interest) with insufficient proof (i.e., errant data; Wagner-Egger, 2021a; van
Prooijen, 2021). For a complete definition, I propose that CTs are serious accusations of
conspiracy (secret actions by a small group of powerful people for malevolent purpose) with
insufficient proof (i.e., errant data, apparent anomalies in the official account of the events).
Whereas some scholars simply state that "not all conspiracies are crackpot theories:
some have ultimately been verified, such as the Watergate conspiracy of the 1970s" (Douglas
& Sutton, 2011, p. 544), a closer look tends to show that "real conspiracies", or better "proven
conspiracies" are not simply conspiracy theories that turned out to be true (Wagner-Egger et
al., 2019). There is a fundamental methodological distinction to draw, following the French
sociologist Boltanski (2012). As Dieguez (2018) wrote, no conspiracy theorist has ever
managed to prove a conspiracy in his or her life. Only real inquiries about conspiracies
conducted by professional inquirers (i.e., investigative journalists, attorneys, lawyers, etc.)
have provided positive proof of a conspiracy (i.e. confessions, official documents, etc.),
whereas conspiracy theorists only accumulate errant data about the official version of the
events (e.g., apparent anomalies about the official version of the events, for example, about
the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York in 2001, the way buildings collapsed, the fact that
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identity cards of the terrorists were found, etc.; Keeley, 1999). All proven conspiracies — the
Watergate scandal in 1973; the Tobacco conspiracy of the main firms to hide the lethal effect
of nicotine (see, e.g., Proctor, 2012); MKUltra, a secret program of mental manipulation by
the CIA; Tuskeegee experiments, the use of poor black people to test a medicine without
consent, etc. — have been discovered without any CT, except eventually in the mind of the
journalists that conducted the inquiry. But in this case, it was not only a belief, but a
hypothesis to corroborate or not with empirical proofs.
As we developed recently, however, the critical viewpoint about CTs seems to us to be
more rationally grounded than a more tolerant viewpoint (e.g., Basham & Dentith, 2016;
Harambam & Aupers, 2015; Stojanov & Halberstadt, 2019) for several rational reasons
(Wagner-Egger et al., 2019). First, at the statistical level, most CTs are false. Let us take into
consideration the numerous CTs about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
According to former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, no less than 42 groups,
82 assassins, and 214 people have been accused in the various conspiracy theories (Patterson,
2018). For the sake of argument, let us say that there are 50 different conspiracy theories,
what is certainly even below reality. There are only two epistemic possibilities. Either the
official version is true, and the fifty conspiracy theories are false, or one conspiracy is true,
and the forty-nine others plus the official version are false. Here is the formula to calculate the
exact rate (k = the number of incompatible CTs):
k−1
1+
k
P ( CT false )=
2
In the JFK case, the probability that any given CT is false is 0.99 (99%). As we can
see, even if doubts about the official version increase the prior probability of (all) CTs, most
CTs are certainly false. It must also be stressed that CTs are much more frequent than proven
conspiracies: Peter Knight’s (2002) Encyclopaedia of "Conspiracy Theories in American
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History" is two volumes long at almost 1000 pages each, whereas only tens — or hundreds, to
be large — of proven conspiracies may be found (even if we count some successful
conspiracies that were never discovered). This is quite sensible, as conspiracies can only be
effective in democracies by being rare. In authoritarian regimes by contrast, it is easier for
dictators to hide their immoral actions from the population, because they control the justice
system, journalists, etc.). In such contexts, the ratio between offical truth and lies could of
course be reversed.
What may help to distinguish "proven conspiracies" from CTs at the epistemological
level — when considering the religious method of CT believers, by contrast to the scientific
method — is precisely the reliance on errant data. According to science philosopher Imre
Lakatos, every theory is always surrounded by an "ocean of anomalies" (Lakatos, 1978), but
contrary to a strict Popperian point of view (Popper, 1973), the theory will not be abandoned
when facing the first conflicting result (if so, all scientific theories would be too easily
abandoned). Ad hoc hypotheses, measurement errors, etc., may explain conflicting results.
Instead, the theory will be refuted (or, better, abandoned, because no theory can be
definitively refuted) in Lakatos' sense only when these anomalies become numerous and so
apparent that the scientific field enters a revolutionary state (Kuhn, 1962), and then only when
a new "research program" appears and explains all that explains the ancient theory, but also
adds some new hypotheses, some of which have to be corroborated in Popper's sense (i.e., not
having been refuted through some experimental tests). In simple terms, to be considered as
false, or to be disconfirmed, an old theory or hypothesis must be replaced by a new and better
one. For example, according to its creationist contradictors, the neo-Darwinian theory does
not explain certain particular adaptations (such as the apparently "too adapted" mimicry of
certain insects, the complex adaptations of the tardigrades, the very complex cycle of the liver
fluke, etc.) very well. From this normal state of scientific theories (the theory is not fully
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specified and may explain these apparent "errant data" in the future if it is really not the case
today), the bias of creationists is to claim that the theory is false. But neo-Darwinism explains
so many phenomena in natural sciences, that it cannot be abandoned due to only rare, even
confirmed conflicting cases. It will only be abandoned if a new theory explains the thousands
of cases explained by neo-Darwinian theory, plus the conflicting cases. Note that historical
revisionists also use this same epistemological strategy (focusing on errant data to suggest that
the official version is not true and that a conspiracy tries to conceal the truth; Shermer, 1997).
Then, to refute the official version, a conspiracy theory cannot only raise – even
legitimate – doubts about the official version; it must specify how, why, when, and from
whom the conspiracy occurred. Conspiracy theorists should not only try to find negative clues
or apparent "proofs" against the official version on the Internet but positive clues or proofs in
favour of the conspiracy hypothesis. This is what is called in science and the judicial system
the "burden of proof": the stronger the theory/accusation, the higher the level of proof needed.
A second scientific and judicial principle also holds here. When no proof is available,
the simplest hypothesis must be held. In science, this is called Occam's razor (Jefferys &
Berger, 1992). For example, in statistics, you must select the most parsimonious model that
equally explains the data. In palaeoanthropology, researchers keep the hypothesis of the
simplest evolutionary paths between species, which they only complexify when they discover
fossils that do not fit with the simplest model (Tassy, 2016). What is remarkable is that
similar principles hold in the judicial system, with the presumption of innocence and the
burden of proof. Accusing without proof is very serious and is simply defamation. As a
simple illustration, you cannot accuse your neighbour of a crime just based on your own
observation of errant data (light in the night, noises, etc.): this would be slander, and never be
accepted by a court as proofs (even if it is true that your neighbour is doing prohibited acts!).
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It could only be the first step to a real and professional inquiry into the apparently strange acts
of your neighbour.
Moreover, given that for every event, one would find apparent errant data (errors from
the police, inconsistent witnesses, etc.), one could believe thousands of CTs based on errant
data, and the irony is that when a proven conspiracy is discovered, CT believer could (and
probably will) say "I knew it" and "I was right". But to be right for the wrong reasons still
equates to being wrong. This is the case, for example, when one of the multiple predictions by
astrologists turns out to be "true": this is not a confirmation of astrology, but that of the law of
large numbers.
We are thus left with two possibilities about the definition of CTs. On the one hand,
we define CTs as explanations invoking a conspiracy, without keeping errant data in the
definition, and then consider some rare CTs as true and the majority as false (Basham &
Dentith, 2016; Douglas & Sutton, 2011; Sternisko et al., 2020). But this solution has the
disadvantage of implying that conspiracy theorists and CT believers may be useful, that every
CT could be true and must be taken on its own merits, and blurs the fundamental
methodological flaw of CTs — believing it with insufficient proof, and without inquiring.
This is a problem because many scholars have underlined the dangers of belief in CTs, as we
will summarise below. On the other hand, and what we advocate for here, is to define CTs
based on errant data, therefore distinguishing them methodologically from proper inquiries,
which can prove (or disprove) conspiracies, and then dismiss the rationality of CTs based on
our statistical and epistemological arguments. This has the great advantage of encouraging the
informed and professional criticism of our democratic systems (i.e., inquiries), while
denouncing the numerous negative side-effects of spreading insufficiently justified CTs
among the population. This has the additional merit of justifying the negative connotation of
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CTs (Lantian et al., 2018; Nera et al., 2020), which would be hard if ever impossible to "half-
rehabilitate" by saying that some of them are useful and/or true.
Rationality of CTs
Given this distinction, we argued that CTs are irrational, contrary to inquiries
(Wagner-Egger et al., 2019). We could qualify the former as a religion of conspiracy (i.e.,
beliefs in conspiracies without sufficient proof), and the latter as a science of conspiracy
(inquiries which will or will not bring proof of conspiracy for validation in a court; Wagner-
Egger, 2021b). The fourth merit of our stance is that criticism of CTs does not mean blind
adhesion to every official version (as we are often wrongly accused of), and thus is not an
ideological tool for increasing the power of authorities. On the contrary, criticizing CTs (the
irrational "religion of conspiracy") as well as promoting and politically encouraging counter-
powers (the rational "science of conspiracy") helps to improve and strengthen social critique
(Boltanski, 2012). In short, for example, bringing and condemning former French president
Nicolas Sarkozy in front of a court is a far more efficient social critique than accusing all
politicians of being corrupt and/or Satanist paedophiles, based on "proofs" found on
alternative websites.
CTs may be qualified as irrational for multiple reasons. We saw statistical and
epistemological arguments (Occam's razor and the burden of proof, beliefs based on errant
data instead of inquiries offering, or not, direct proof of the alleged conspiracy) of
irrationality. As we will see below, numerous empirical studies have shown that cognitive
biases, irrational and potentially dangerous beliefs, such as pseudoscience, creationism,
antisemitism, racism, and even revisionism, are related to conspiracy beliefs. Moreover,
research has shown that CT beliefs are associated with negative and slightly pathological
personality traits, and negative social consequences, which still do not argue in favour of the
rationality of CTs.
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Contrary to this rational analysis, some social psychologists have proposed that CTs
may not be irrational (Salvador Casara et al., 2022):
These results have important implications. First, those who are prone to believe
in conspiracy theories are sometimes viewed as driven by irrationality – a vision
that is indeed supported by vast literature about the negative consequences of
conspiracy beliefs. Other findings show that conspiracy beliefs are associated
with dispositional constructs that are prodromal of mental diseases, such as
schizotypy and delusional thinking. However, factors that trigger conspiracy
beliefs are not always irrational and they may be driven by anomia-prompted
socio-structural perceptions about societies, such as economic inequality. (p. 40)
Similarly, Harambam and Aupers (2015) advocated that:
Some scholars point to the (potential) rationality of conspiracy theories because
conspiracies do, in fact, exist or they emphasize that “the postmodern tendency to
put ‘the real’ in quotation marks has undermined the pathologization of paranoia”.
A paranoid habitus is, from this perspective, a “tactical”, “necessary”,
“reasonable”, “logical”, and “understandable” response to the complexities and
uncertainties of (post)modern society. (p. 467)
In our view, these efforts are somewhat sterile because of their problematic definition of
rationality. In the cognitive psychology of reasoning, rationality is defined as thinking, acting,
speaking, reasoning or taking a decision in conformity with a normative (scientific) theory.
For example, reasoning will be defined as rational if it follows the rules of formal logic or
probability theory (e.g., Evans & Over, 1996; Stanovich et al., 2016). Interestingly,
psychologists have proposed other forms of rationality. They called this scientific rationality
rationality2, to distinguish it from rationality1, which would be primary, and defined as
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thinking, acting, speaking, reasoning or taking a decision in a manner that is generally reliable
and efficient in the attainment of goals (Evans & Over, 1996). Other psychologists have
advocated for an evolutionary rationality1, which would be defined in turn as thinking, acting,
speaking, reasoning or taking a decision that would be optimally adaptive to an environment
(Anderson, 1991). Similarly, social psychologists in turn proposed a rationality 0, which would
indicate that rationality1 and rationality2 are social norms embedded in social contexts and
cultures (Wagner-Egger, 2011), etc.
Johnson-Laird (1997) rightly criticised this profusion of rationalities with the expression
rationality101! It seems to me that contrary to rationality 2, the other types of rationality are
reasons (or causes) for why people think and act (to fulfill one's goals, to survive).
Rationality2 is moreover the only rationality that is related to scientific truth, which is the
fundamental meaning of rationality. Science is the sole human way of thinking to have
produced tangible knowledge, to have allowed humans to reach some truth about their
surrounding world. It has been so miraculous – imagine a chimpanzee working in the CERN
at Geneva and discovering the secrets of the infinitely small, or a group of gorillas exploring
travelling to Mars – that considering the law of evolution we did not invent or even choose or
the fulfillment of personal goals as equivalent to these inconceivable scientific discoveries,
seems to me nearly insulting.
As, among others, Harambam and Aupers (2015) and Salvador Casara et al. (2022)
argue, it is of course obvious that CTs may be understandably held in some social milieux,
such as in economically disadvantaged ones (see below for a full picture). This does not
render CTs rational from a scientific point of view, but points out that CTs may be
understandable (albeit irrational) responses to difficult living conditions. This is not a form of
"pathologisation" of some alternative discourse (as claim for example Basham, 2017; Basham
& Dentith, 2016), this is simply an evaluative stance, as is commonly done at school and in
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every occupation in society. As well as intelligence may have multiple facets (i.e., not only
logico-mathematical or linguistic), individuals who are labelled as irrational may of course
have other remarkable abilities (e.g., practical intelligence, etc.). Moreover, such an
evaluative or normative view is common in natural and social sciences; nobody would argue
that diseases, wars, racism, slavery, pollution, etc. are desirable issues. This is simply the
same with populism and conspiracism.
For these reasons, I would advocate keeping the term rationality to underline the
specificity and exceptional nature of scientific thought, and not refer to other types of
rationalities to mean that behaviour and thinking may be explained by social, evolutionary or
motivational reasons. Scientific rationality is not a cause of behaviour, it is a conscious aim
and effort to orientate one's behaviour and mind toward less biased reasoning (see Stanovich
et al., 2016). Social, evolutionary or motivational explanations may also be seen as functions:
the functions of some beliefs may be to heighten social cohesion in a group, to fulfill personal
motivations, to identify scapegoats or even to serve the spread of one’s genes (for an
evolutionary analysis of CT beliefs, see van Prooijen & van Vugt, 2018). It seems to me a
better option than discussing various forms of rationality and stressing that the most important
one — regarding the search for truth — is scientific rationality (rationality2).
The main reason why scholars may be justified to criticise CTs is, besides rationality
per se, their negative social consequences. Some moderate beliefs, or beliefs that do not
threaten democracy, should of course not be heavily criticised, such as the old beliefs in the
effects of the full moon on human beings (e.g., Wagner-Egger & Joris, 2004). But CTs and
fake news could well be one of the most important challenges for the future of democratic
societies (Harari, 2018).
The negative consequences of CT beliefs
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Keeley (1999) noted that the high degree of scepticism in CTs reaches nihilism about
others' motivations and social institutions. Contrary to the methodical doubt of scientists,
which decreases with the accumulation of data, the irrational and uncontrolled doubt of CTs
leads to deep paranoia. Nowadays, people seem to have lost confidence in politics, science
and journalism, which has become a huge concern for democracy (Harari, 2018). Populist
leaders, such as Donald Trump in the USA or Jair Bolsonaro in Brasil, have partly been
elected thanks to CTs and fake news (and their irresponsible politics have been justified in the
same way; see Castanho Silva, et al., 2017, for the relation between CTs and populism).
Byford (2011) documented the fact that CTs have always been one of the building blocks of
discriminatory, populist and anti-democratic politics and oppressive regimes, with an extreme
example being the Nazis in Germany. Racism, antisemitism, and more broadly prejudice
against minorities are related to CTs (Jolley et al., 2020; Nera et al., 2021; Swami, 2012;
Uenal, 2016a, 2016b; Wagner-Egger & Bangerter, 2007). Bronner (2015) highlighted the
presence of CTs in the process of Islamist radicalisation, by the reliance on a purported
worldwide americano-zionist CT (see also Mashuri & Zaduqisti, 2014a, 2014b, 2015;
Mashuri et al., 2016). Most religious sects also entertain the idea that the outside world
conspires against the elected members of the sect (e.g., Festinger et al., 1956).
Research on CTs about epidemics (e.g., Herek & Capitanio, 1994; Wagner-Egger et
al., 2011) show that people holding CTs will display riskier behaviours, such as not using
condoms (Bogart & Bird, 2003; Bogart & Thorburn, 2005), or not letting their children be
vaccinated (Jolley & Douglas, 2014). CTs about climate change could decrease ecological
intentions to reduce one's carbon footprint (Jolley & Douglas, 2012). More generally,
conspiracist beliefs are related to distrust of science (Lewandowsky et al., 2013; van der
Linden, 2015). Extreme irrational beliefs such as creationism (Wagner-Egger, et al., 2018),
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and revisionism (Shermer, 1997) may be seen as CTs against the official scientific or
historical accounts.
At the level of interpersonal attitudes, beliefs in CTs tend to diminish prosocial
behaviour such as charity (van der Linden, 2015), certainly because as we will see below, CT
adherence is related to distrust of people in general. Likewise, satisfaction and engagement in
a job are negatively correlated with CT beliefs in the business context, (Douglas & Leite,
2017). CTs seem to also turn individuals away from political action (Butler et al., 1995; Jolley
& Douglas, 2012), probably due to feelings of anomia which go with CT beliefs, as we will
document later, and, instead, lead to political non-normative actions such as violence (Adam-
Troian, Baidada et al., 2019; Imhoff et al., 2021; Lamberty & Leiser, 2019), and even to
engage in crime in everyday life (Jolley et al., 2019). Finally, CTs about mass shootings, and
Holocaust denial, which both accuse survivors of being actors and actresses, may be seen as
the summits of human cynicism.
The issue of post-truth (e.g., McIntyre, 2018) spread by alternative websites leads a
significant part of the population of democracies having an inappropriate worldview, fuelled
by partisan fake news and distrust of every official truth. We saw this very worrying move
culminating in the attack of the Capitol in the USA, but nowadays, irrational doubts about
votes are flourishing in every democratic country (as votes are secret, they will be the target
of accusations of conspiracy with insufficient proof, as in the alleged massive fraud in the US
election). This is the case even in Switzerland where the democratic process is probably the
most direct in the world (the Swiss people have voted twice about measures against COVID-
19 since the beginning of the pandemic).
In sum, the list of negative social consequences of holding CT beliefs is long, which
adds to the unwarranted character of such beliefs. This strengthens our proposal to wholly
consider CTs as irrational, and distinguish them from rational professional inquiries. In our
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line of thinking, the only "useful" CTs — or CTs that could be proven true, or rational CTs —
are the "conspiracy hypotheses" held by professional inquirers, which are investigated jointly
with the hypothesis of "no conspiracy". In our sense, all CTs shared by non-professionals on
the Internet may be dismissed as irrational and unwarranted, because they fuel anti-
democratic, post-truth tendencies and exaggerated distrust. These accusations are moreover
useless even if they are ultimately true, because as we said making accusations without
sufficient proof will never be successful in a court, and worse, could be punished by a
counter-accusation of slander and defamation.
The measures of CT beliefs
CT beliefs go from light surprise in the face of unaccounted-for data (errant data), to a
delusional and paranoid view of the whole world dominated by hidden forces. To measure
adhesion to CT beliefs, psychologists have developed various scales. The first idea has been
to propose various existing CTs (such as the belief that JFK was not assassinated by a lone
gunman, but by an organised conspiracy, or that Diana's death was not an accident, but rather
an assassination by the secret services) and ask to what extent people agree with these
statements on Likert scales (Douglas & Sutton, 2008; Goertzel, 1994; Belief in Conspiracy
Theories Inventory, Swami et al., 2010; Wagner-Egger & Bangerter, 2007). As most CT
beliefs are correlated, a few items may be sufficient (from 4 items as in Dieguez et al., 2015,
Wagner-Egger et al., 2018, to a dozen as in Goertzel, 1994, Swami et al., 2010, 2011, 2012).
So-called "generic" scales appeared later, such as the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale
(Brotherton et al., 2013, 15 items) and the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (Bruder et al.,
2013, 5 items). The items of these scales do not refer to any existing CT but governments and
politicians in general (e.g., "The government is involved in the murder of innocent citizens
and/or well-known public figures, and keeps this a secret", or "There are secret organisations
that greatly influence political decisions"). A short single-item scale has been developed,
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which requires judging adhesion to the affirmation "I think that the official version of the
events given by the authorities very often hides the truth" on a Likert scale, after an
introductory paragraph stating that "Some political and social events are debated (for
example, 09/11 attacks, the death of Lady Diana, the assassination of John F. Kennedy). It is
suggested that the "official version" of these events could be an attempt to hide the truth to the
public. This "official version" could mask the fact that these events have been planned and
secretly prepared by a covert alliance of powerful individuals or organisations (for example,
secret services or government). What do you think?" (Lantian et al., 2016). Psychometric
comparisons have been performed for these scales. The BCTI seems to have the best
psychometric properties (Swami et al., 2017), and the GCBS also seems to be reliable
(Drinkwater et al., 2020). But this is a very technical viewpoint, robust results have been
replicated using various scales (see e.g., Dieguez et al., 2015; Wagner-Egger et al., 2018; for
slight differences, see Wagner-Egger et al., 2022).
Finally, some research has investigated fictitious CTs, such as about the Red Bull
energy drink (with some affirmations such as "The official inventor of Red Bull, Dietrich
Mateschitz, pays 10 million Euros each year to keep food controllers quiet"; Swami et al.,
2011), which are highly correlated with existing CTs. Other studies have investigated
fictitious scenarios close to real cases, such as the death or injury of a president during a
speech in an unknown country (McCauley & Jacques, 1979), or an apparent interpersonal
conspiracy about a boss and colleagues in a firm (Whitson & Galinski, 2008), but these
scenarios might not be or are only weakly related to CT scales (Dieguez et al., 2015).
The empirical results about CT beliefs in psychology
The conspiracy mentality
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The first characteristic found in almost every study is that CT beliefs are embedded in
a conspiracy mentality (Moscovici, 1987), or a monological belief system (Goertzel, 1994). It
seems rational to think that, if a government, for example, disguises a false flag attack against
its population and takes many other similar immoral actions, other governments will do the
same. All studies that measure adhesion to more than one CT report significant positive
correlations between CTs (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Brotherton et al., 2013; Bruder et al.,
2013; Crocker et al., 1999; Dagnall et al., 2015; Dieguez et al., 2015; Douglas & Sutton,
2011; Goertzel, 1994; Lantian et al., 2016; Leiser et al., 2017; Mancosu et al., 2017; Stieger et
al., 2013; Swami et al., 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013; van Prooijen & Acker, 2015; Wagner-Egger
& Bangerter, 2007; Wagner-Egger et al., 2018; Wood et al., 2012; etc.). Other methods reach
the same conclusion: Wood and Douglas (2013) analysed online discussions about the 9/11
terrorist attacks in New York and found that believers in the CT (false flag attack made by the
CIA) made more positive references to other CTs than nonbelievers. From a representative
sample in France, it was calculated from the correlations that, on average, people who
believed in one CT were 2.71 times more likely to believe in another CT than nonbelievers
(Dieguez & Wagner-Egger, 2021).
This tendency to endorse various CTs is another argument in favour of the irrationality
of CTs. Real conspiracies are rare — if they were not, they would become inefficient —, and
thus the probability to be wrong is positively related to the number of CTs endorsed. At a
delusional level, a "mega-conspiracy" describes the tendency to consider all CTs as the
expression of the same overall conspiracy, for example, the Reptilian Illuminati who take
human form and spread desolation among humankind (Campion-Vincent, 2005).
Conspiracy mentality is of course a statistical tendency. We found in a representative
sample in France that about 44% of the sample said they believed in 1-4 CTs (out of 10), 33%
believed in 5-10 CTs, and thus only 23% did not believe in any CT (Dieguez & Wagner-
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Egger, 2021). The JFK and "Big Pharma" (the idea that the big pharmaceutical companies and
the medical authorities hide the truth about the toxicity of vaccines) conspiracies are less
"monological" CTs because they are endorsed by people who believe in few CTs (1-4),
whereas the flat earth CT (contrary to what we have always been told at school, the earth is
flat and not round) is the most "monological": people who believe in this extreme CT tend to
believe in all others. With revisionism and creationism, it may be considered as the final step
of authorities and science denial (Dieguez & Wagner-Egger, 2021). In the same way, one may
consider the monological mentality to be the final step of an epistemic or spiritual journey
(Franks et al., 2017). These authors qualitatively explored the conspiracy mentality, with
semi-structured interviews, observations and media analysis. They described an ascending
typology of believers in CTs, similar to an initiatory journey in a sect. The first step is some
conventional questioning of political orthodoxies. The second step is constituted by
dissatisfaction with the status quo and a sense that there is more at play in the world than
appears to be the case to ordinary observers. The third step occurs with increasing concern
with the deceptive nature of official narratives and a lack of trust in authority, which results in
adherence to some CTs but not all. The fourth type uses the monological conspiratorial
worldview as a default frame of reference, in which supernormal agency in specific areas is
ascribed to normal actors, which has been referred to as the "quasi-religious" characteristic of
CTs (Franks et al., 2013). Finally, the fifth step views the whole of reality as an illusion, as
the science-fiction movie "The Matrix" thematised, directed by supernatural agents such as
aliens (this is another summit of CTs). In this journey, the hostility and mockery of
nonbelievers will tend to radicalise the believers, who will think that they know more than the
hostile majority, viewed as a herd of sheep. This is the first step of a sect-like hold on them,
by taking them away from normal social networks. Then, some people confess a real
conversion or spiritual awakening, often following a traumatic personal experience (disease,
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grief, a traumatic event such as the 9/11 attacks, etc.), as in paranormal beliefs (e.g., Irwin,
2009).
Some research has found (correlated) subdimensions of the conspiracy mentality.
Following some commentators who underlined the function of scapegoating of CTs
(Moscovici, 1987), Campion-Vincent (2005) distinguished Evil elites CTs (accusing the
powerful) from Evil others CTs (accusing minorities or national outgroups). A couple of
studies empirically corroborated such a dichotomy (Wagner-Egger & Bangerter, 2007, in
Switzerland; Nera et al., 2021, in Belgium). Similarly, Grzesiak-Feldman and Irzycka (2009)
identified conspiracy stereotypes in Poland, which consist of conspiracy accusations of
outgroups (Germans, Russians, Jews, etc.) against the ingroup at the international level, by
Polish people. In their analysis of conspiracist letters sent to the New York Times and the
Chicago Tribune between the years 1897 and 2010, Uscinski and Parent (2014) concluded the
existence of domestic CTs (accusing the US government and agencies) and foreign CTs
(accusing other countries, such as Germany, Japan, USSR, etc. of conspiring against the
USA).
In more detail, Brotherton et al. (2013) created 5 subdimensions in their GCBS:
conspiracies from the government, about extra-terrestrials, about well-being (viruses,
technology, etc.), control of information, and mega-conspiracies, but the 5 subdimensions are
not always found (e.g., Swami et al. 2017).
In sum, it can be said that there are two main related subdimensions of CTs. The first
one is on a vertical axis of power in society and accuses elites of conspiring against the
idealised "people". The second is on a more horizontal axis that levels accusations at
outgroups (minorities or not), particularly in times of war. Interestingly, these two dimensions
are also found in the study of populism (e.g., Staerklé & Green, 2018). The vertical dimension
was well illustrated during the Yellow Vests social protest movement in France in 2019-2020.
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The members of the Yellow Vests often accused the government or elites of conspiracies, as
was measured in a representative survey (Wagner-Egger et al., 2022). But the reverse may be
also, albeit more rarely, found: on some occasions, President Macron accused the Yellow
Vests as being fueled on the Internet by the Russian secret services. The horizontal dimension
explains why CTs are related to racism: accusing outgroups and minorities of conspiration is a
facet of prejudice (it is even a convenient "weapon" against enemy groups, as a conspiracy is
by definition hidden, such an accusation may be made even in the total absence of proof).
Indeed, classical predictors of racism and discrimination such as Right-Wing
Authoritarianism or Paranoia, have been found to predict adhesion to these outgroup CTs
(Grzesiak-Feldman & Ejsmont, 2008; Grzesiak-Feldman & Irzycka, 2009; Nera et al., 2021;
Uenal, 2016a, 2016b; Wagner-Egger & Bangerter, 2007).
Now let us turn to the five categories of psychological and social variables that could
predict beliefs in CTs. These five categories may be grouped into three families: socio-
political factors (with societal-political and social subdimensions), psychological factors (with
the personal and cognitive subdimensions), and communicational factors.
1) The societal-political dimension
One of the most common and strongest correlated of beliefs in CTs is related to the
sociological concept of anomia. In his classical research about the social causes of suicide, the
French sociologist Durkheim (1897) called anomia an individual uneasiness caused by the
social decline of religious values or a lack in social norms and laws, and the correlative rise of
an individualistic society. More recently, sociologists characterised this state of discomfort as
individual feelings of loss of control, distrust towards experts and authorities (Parish, 2001).
The economic and political globalisation (with supranational entities such as the European
Union, the UNO, the World Bank, the World Trade Union, the World Health Organization,
etc.) renders the functioning of the world more opaque and puzzling to the average citizen,
19
who may feel that he cannot anymore influence anything via political actions.
Interdependence of countries, the growth of administrations, episodes such as the 2008
economic crisis or the pandemics may fuel the idea that the world is more and more difficult
to understand and control.
In European Union surveys, anomia is classically measured by (a) a distrust toward
political authorities, (b) the feeling that one's situation is getting worse and (c) the feeling of a
lack of control of one's environment. More recently, some studies defined anomia as the
feelings of meaninglessness, powerlessness, normlessness and self-estrangement (e.g.,
Mahfud & Adam-Troian, 2021; Smith & Bohm, 2008). Numerous studies found correlations
between these various feelings of anomia and beliefs in CTs (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999;
Brotherton et al. 2013; Bruder et al. 2013; Goertzel, 1994; Green & Douglas, 2018; Imhoff &
Bruder, 2014; Imhoff et al., 2018; Leman & Cinnirella, 2007; Moulding et al., 2016; Swami,
2012; Swami et al., 2010, 2011, 2012; Swami & Furnham, 2012; Wagner-Egger & Bangerter,
2007; Wagner-Egger et al., 2022; Wood et al., 2012). Nonetheless, the particular
subdimensions of anomia have never been systematically compared, but the most recurrent
subdimension is relative to distrust of politicians (and a related cynical view of politics). We
may still mention the study by Jolley and Douglas (2012) showing that adherence to CTs was
related to a rejection of political action through feelings of political powerlessness. An
additional clue was recently found in a vast comparative study of thousands of people coming
from dozens of countries that individualism was positively related to beliefs in CTs (Adam-
Troian et al., 2020). This result gives credence to the idea that anomia is related to
individualistic cultures and their lack of strong social norms (Durkheim, 1897).
At the objective level, numerous studies indicated that, overall, a lower educational
level is related to CT adhesion (Davis et al., 2018; Douglas et al., 2015; Garrett & Weeks,
2017; Goertzel, 1994; Green & Douglas, 2018; Herek & Capitanio, 1994; Mancosu et al.,
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2017; Oliver & Wood, 2014a; Radnitz & Underwood, 2015; Stempel et al., 2007; Swami,
Furnham et al., 2016; Uscinski & Parent, 2014; van Prooijen, 2017; van Prooijen et al., 2015;
van Prooijen, Staman, & Krouwel, 2018; Wagner-Egger et al., 2022). Van Prooijen (2017)
showed that this effect of education on CT beliefs operated through a lower sense of control
in one's life, and other cognitive factors (intuitive thinking and preference for simple solutions
for complex social problems). Some research pointed at a negative correlation between
socioeconomic level (salary, or subjective economic level) and CT beliefs (Davies et al.,
2018; Freeman & Bentall, 2017; Radnitz & Underwood, 2015; Uscinski & Parent, 2014;
Uscinski & Olivella, 2018; van Prooijen, 2017; Wagner-Egger et al., 2022). Age is also often
negatively related to conspiracist ideation, indicating that generally younger people tend to
believe more in CTs (Galliford & Furnham, 2017; Hornsey et al., 2018; Stempel et al., 2007;
Swami, 2012; Swami, Furnham et al., 2016; Wagner-Egger et al., 2022).
Very recently, a study showed that economic precarity (subjective perception of own
economic difficulty) is directly and indirectly associated with lower trust in authorities and
higher belief in CTs, even when income, self-reported SES and education are controlled for
(Adam-Troian et al., 2022). Another very recent study assessed the impact of economic
inequality on conspiracy beliefs. Salvador Casara et al. (2022) found that, at the correlational
level, both objective and perceived economic inequalities were associated with greater
conspiracy beliefs. Moreover, the latter increased when participants were presented with an
imaginary country that suffered from more economic inequality compared to a less unequal
imaginary country.
In cross-country analyses, Drochon (2018), Cordonier et al. (2021) and Imhoff et al.
(2022) also found that conspiracism was related to economic inequality as measured by the
Gini coefficient, poverty (GDP), corruption and unemployment rate, but a lower democratic
21
and development index (as measured by the Economist Democracy and Human Development
Indexes).
Some studies indicated that belonging to a discriminated against minority group
increased the average endorsement of CTs (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Davis et al., 2018;
Goertzel, 1994; van Prooijen, Staman, & Krouwel, 2018). This may be explained by several
not mutually exclusive reasons. The first one is that some minorities suffered from real
conspiracies, such as the black community who was the victim of the Tuskegee Syphilis
experiment (e.g., Jones, 1993). A second explanation could be that belonging to a minority
group would increase feelings of anomia, which in turn would increase belief in CTs. This is
what Goertzel (1994) showed in his study where Afro-Americans and Hispano-Americans
displayed higher levels of anomia, CT beliefs, and lower trust (towards their family,
neighbours, and the police). This finding has been corroborated by Abalakina-Paap et al.
(1999) and van Prooijen, Staman, and Krouwel (2018). Other studies similarly indicated that
the Afro-American community in the USA tended to strongly endorse CTs about the AIDS
epidemics (e.g., Bogart & Bird, 2003; Bogart & Thorburn, 2005) certainly because of the two
reasons cited above and because of their higher exposure to the virus, due in turn to their
lower social status. Crocker et al. (1999) also reported that anti-Black CTs — such as the idea
that the government prevents immigration of Black people to reduce their number — were
logically higher among their Black respondents, and were related to the tendency to blame the
system for personal negative outcomes (system blame). According to the results of van
Prooijen, Staman, and Krouwel (2018), feelings of both personal and group-based
deprivation, directly related to anomia, independently contribute to CT beliefs. Similarly,
Davis et al. (2018) showed that CT endorsement is related to the tendency to accuse the
"system" and to feel socially devalued compared to other individuals. Graeupner and Coman
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(2017) showed that social exclusion in life (correlations) and in a laboratory setting
(experimental inducement) increased paranormal and conspiracist beliefs.
Invernizzi and Mohamed (2020) tried to explore causality with an experimental
method. They compared the effect of exposure to a CT unrelated to the US political system
(about the burning of Notre-Dame Cathedral in France) relative to the effect of an entertaining
placebo video of similar length (about reasons why humans cannot ride zebras). Next, their
US participants were randomly assigned to read an article describing either scandals or
achievements of the Trump administration. Results showed that exposure to a CT
significantly decreased trust in political institutions, especially in the achievement condition
(because in the scandal condition, trust was already low).
Other studies tried, conversely, to experimentally induce feelings related to anomia,
such as lack of control or uncertainty and observed their effect on CT adherence. Previous
work suggested beliefs (religion, traditional values, etc.) may function in restoring one’s sense
of control (e.g., Whitson et al., 2015). Whitson and Galinsky (2008) showed in a series of 8
studies that putting participants in an experimental condition where they lacked a sense of
control (e.g., by asking them to remember a past situation they had experienced in which they
had no control over the situation, vs. a past situation they had experienced in which they had
control over the situation) increased the perceptions of patterns and relations, and in a
particular study, belief in an interpersonal CT described above. More recently, Whitson et al.
(2019) induced a lack of control by manipulating regulatory focus. Regulatory focus theory
(Higgins, 1998) identifies two contrasting motivational concerns that affect how people frame
and pursue their goals. A promotion focus relates to attaining growth and advancement
through the pursuit of hopes and aspirations, whereas a prevention focus deals with
maintaining security through the fulfilment of duties and obligations. Whitson et al. (2018)
showed that the induction of a promotion focus (compared to a prevention focus and a
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baseline condition) reduced conspiratorial beliefs, because of an elevated sense of personal
control. Van Prooijen and Acker (2015) extended Whitson and Galinsky's (2008)
methodology by adding a control condition and socio-political CTs instead of an interpersonal
CT and also found that lack of control was associated with higher CT beliefs. However, in a
series of six recent studies, Stojanov et al. (2020) did not replicate the causal effect of lack of
control, but found a correlational association: the more people hold conspiracist beliefs, the
less they reported feeling control over their lives. Other researchers raised concerns about p-
hacking in the original 2008 study (Francis et al., 2014; van Elk & Lodder, 2018). Therefore,
further studies, and then meta-analyses, are needed about this particular issue.
Using the same autobiographical method, van Prooijen and Jostmann (2013) observed
that reporting a feeling of uncertainty also heightened CT beliefs, but only when the potential
conspirators (an oil company or an African political leader) were depicted as immoral.
Likewise, Whitson et al. (2015) showed that inducing positive and negative emotions related
to uncertainty (e.g., worry, surprise) increased adhesion to an interpersonal CT, contrary to
positive and negative emotions not related to uncertainty (e.g., disgust, happiness).
Not only do anomia and social exclusion foster CT endorsement, but in turn a
rejection of legal or official political action, in favour of a preference for violent and radical
political action. In a large study in four different countries, Adam-Troian, Bonetto et al.
(2019) showed that anomia was a predictor of violent political extremism, independent of
political affiliation. It was also observed in the social protest movement of the Yellow Vests
in France that the feeling of loss of importance (to live everyday situations where one is
ashamed, humiliated, or mocked) increased the propensity to engage in radical, illegal and
violent actions (Mahfud & Adam-Troian, 2021). Similarly, Imhoff et al. (2021) and Lamberty
and Leiser (2019) showed in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that a conspiracist
24
mentality diminished the propensity to engage in normative political actions but increased
support for nonnormative political actions (e.g., use of violence in demonstrations, etc.).
An indirect link between CTs and anomia may be drawn by the finding that people
from extreme political positions (far-left, and even more far-right) adhere more to CT beliefs.
Several studies reported significant linear correlations between Right-Wing Authoritarianism
(defined as submissiveness to the authorities perceived as legitimate, a general aggressiveness
directed against deviants and outgroups, and a high degree of adherence to the traditions; cf.
Altemeyer & Altemeyer, 1996) and/or right-wing auto-positioning and adhesion to CTs
(Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Bruder et al., 2013; Dieguez et al., 2015; Douglas et al., 2015;
Dyrendal et al., 2021; Featherstone et al., 2009 ; Galliford & Furnham, 2017; Grzesiak-
Feldman & Irzycka, 2009; Hart & Graether, 2018; Hornsey et al., 2018; Imhoff & Bruder,
2014; Imhoff et al., 2018; Lamberty & Leiser, 2019; Nera et al., 2020; Oliver & Wood,
2014a; Ståhl & van Prooijen, 2018; Swami et al., 2012; van der Linden, 2015; Wagner-Egger
et al., 2022). In a series of four studies, van Prooijen et al. (2015) showed both a linear trend
(more CT beliefs on the right side) and a curvilinear trend (more CT beliefs on the two
extremes). The largest study on the topic was conducted by Imhoff et al. (2022), who
investigated large samples from 26 countries. In most of them, they reported significant linear
and curvilinear trends, resulting in an asymmetrical U-shape (leaning to the right).
Interestingly, this pattern had previously been found in meta-analyses about dogmatism and
political position (Jost et al., 2003).
In this section, we reviewed the evidence of a societal origin of CT beliefs. People in
the margins of society, members of disadvantaged groups, from low socio-economic and
educational status, political extremes and suffering from anomia tend to rely on non-rational
beliefs that elite groups conspire against them, which could give them a sense of control
through the designation of a scapegoat, and cause their suffering. Uscinski and Parent (2014)
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expressed that by saying that "Conspiracy Theories are for losers", losers not in a pejorative
sense, but in the sense of losers of globalisation, which will foster feelings of anomia, and/or
of our economical neo-liberal system, which could obviously foster feelings of revenge and
political violence. As irrational as they may be, as we will see further, CTs would then
partially be a tool for powerless people to fight and regain power from the powerful people,
an irrational discourse of (potential or at least symbolic) revenge. Studies by Lamberty and
Leiser (2019), and Imhoff et al. (2021) showing that CT endorsement is related to non-
normative political violence could suggest such an interpretation. Authors like Imhoff and
Bruder (2014) proposed that conspiracism would constitute a new political attitude, distinct
from those identified in political ideology (such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Altemeyer
& Altemeyer, 1996, or Social Dominance Orientation, Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). They showed
that a conspiracy mentality was a predictor of anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism, as well
as anti-semitism. In another study about the Fukushima nuclear accident, the conspiracy
mentality was related to an explanation of the accident as being intentional and more
engagement in anti-nuclear movements.
2) The social dimension
At a more horizontal level compared to the vertical socio-political dimension, CTs are
also used in intergroup relations. We saw that CTs may accuse not only the authorities or
government, but also outgroups or minorities, notably in times of war, and/or for genocide
purposes (Bilewicz et al., 2019; Jolley et al., 2020; Nera et al., 2021; Petrović, et al., 2019;
Uscinski & Parent, 2014; Wagner-Egger & Bangerter, 2007). We still noted that predictors of
minority CTs are similar to predictors of racism and prejudice (Right-Wing Authoritarianism,
Paranoia, Social Dominance Orientation; Bruder et al., 2013; Green & Douglas, 2018;
Grzesiak-Feldman & Ejsmont, 2008; Grzesiak-Feldman & Irzycka, 2009; Lamberty & Leiser,
2019; Nera et al., 2021; Uenal, 2016a, 2016b; Wagner-Egger & Bangerter, 2007). A recent
26
and large comparative study including about forty countries and thousands of respondents
showed that conspiracism level was related to the cultural value of masculinity, which is very
close to a measure of sexism (Adam-Troian et al., 2020).
This being said, it is not surprising that the degree of ingroup identification, or social
identity, is proportional to the adherence to CTs accusing outgroups (Grzesiak-Feldman &
Kaminska-Feldman, 2005). Mashuri & Zaduqisti, 2014a, 2014b, 2015; Mashuri et al., 2016).
Cichocka and colleagues (2016) observed that collective narcissism, defined as an
exaggeratedly positive view of the ingroup, coupled with the feeling that outgroups do not
appreciate the ingroup, was a robust predictor of the beliefs that these outgroups are
conspiring against the ingroup. Congruently, Adam-Troian et al. (2020) showed that the
country and individual levels of collectivism were related to the degree of CT acceptance, and
other recent research indicated a relation between collectivism and outgroup vigilance (i.e.,
the tendency to attribute negative intentions to outgroups; Liu et al., 2019). The function of
scapegoating of CTs, which accuses minority groups such as the Jews, allows ingroup
cohesion to be reinforced (Moscovici, 1987). Conspiracy mentality is related to a "conflict
ethos" (Petrović et al., 2019), a stronger feeling of ingroup suffering and outgroup hostility
(Bilewicz et al., 2019).
The use of CTs as a tool to dismiss political rivals may be interpreted as a form of
motivated cognition, which serves not only to enhance social identity but also to favour
political ideology (e.g., Duran et al., 2017; Edelson et al., 2017). Imhoff et al. (2022), for
example, found that members of political parties that had lost previous elections have a higher
propensity to believe in CTs.
Another psychosocial mechanism seems to work in CT beliefs. According to
Hofstadter (1965), the enemy of the paranoid individual seems to be a projection of the self.
Indeed, Douglas and Sutton (2011) experimentally found that the more they were willing to
27
participate in real conspiracies, the more they believe in CTs. Finally, when participants are
exposed to the errant data described by CTs, their belief in them increases. Douglas and
Sutton (2008) demonstrated this effect about Princess Diana's CT. Butler et al. (1995) found
that viewing the movie JFK by Oliver Stone, which defended the CT, increased beliefs in the
CT, measured before and after viewing the film (but Nera et al., 2018, did not find the same
result with the series X-Files in Belgium). Banas and Miller (2013) also found that exposure
to the conspiracist documentary Loose change significantly increased adherence to the CT
about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York in 2001. These results also illustrate the
appealing social-cognitive nature of CTs.
3) The personal (psychopathological) dimension
At the political level, some scholars identified a far right-wing paranoid style
(Hofstadter, 1965), which attributes a delusional power to some groups (freemasons,
communists, Jesuits, Jacobins, etc.). Many other authors related paranoia to beliefs in CTs
(e.g., Groh, 1987; Hellinger, 2003; Knight, 2002; Melley, 2000; Pipes, 1997; Poulat, 1992;
Stewart, 1999). At the empirical level, numerous studies have certified a correlation between
CT beliefs and "normal" paranoia (i.e., paranoid thoughts, such as beliefs that external forces
or people are trying to influence one's behaviour or thinking, that people, in general, are
against oneself, that some people refer to, talk about or watch oneself, feelings of resentment,
bitterness, etc.) or schizotypy (i.e., non-clinical schizophrenia), (Barron et al., 2014, 2018;
Brotherton et al., 2013; Brotherton & Eser, 2015; Bruder, et al., 2013; Cichocka et al., 2016;
Dagnall et al., 2015; Darwin et al., 2011; Dyrendal et al., 2021; Freeman & Bentall, 2017;
Grzesiak-Feldman & Ejsmont, 2008; Hart & Graether, 2018; Swami et al., 2013; Swami,
Weis et al., 2016; van der Tempel & Alcock, 2015; Wagner-Egger & Bangerter, 2007). The
often-used paranoia scale by Fenigstein & Vanable (1992) includes subscales measuring the
extent to which people think that people or external forces are trying to influence one’s
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behaviour/control one’s thinking, that people are against oneself, belief that people talk about,
refer to, or watch oneself, suspicion or mistrust of others’ motives, feelings of resentment or
bitterness. Schizotypy is characterised by interpersonal suspiciousness, social anxiety and
isolation, eccentric ideas and perceptions, as well as magical thinking (Dagnall et al., 2015;
Hart & Graether, 2018). A meta-analysis of a dozen studies was performed by Imhoff
and Lamberty (2018), who found a moderate but robust association between CT beliefs and
paranoia (r = .36). The two concepts have thus partly different correlates: CTs are more
related to a political view of the world (e.g., elites considered as evil, distrust of institutions,
loss of socio-political control) whereas paranoia operates at a more interpersonal level
(generalised distrust of others, loss of cognitive and interpersonal control).
Related to the negative view of others, Machiavellianism, defined as the willingness to
exploit others for personal gain has been measured and associated with CT beliefs (Douglas &
Sutton, 2011; March & Springer, 2019). Psychopathy (i.e., antisocial behaviour, impaired
empathy, egotistical traits) has also been associated with CT beliefs (March & Springer,
2019).
Research thus shows that the "Dark Triad" of psychopathological traits (narcissism,
psychopathy and Machiavellianism), and even the "Dark Tetrad" (along with sadism, the
tendency to derive pleasure from everyday acts of cruelty) are correlated with general CTs
(Bowes et al., 2020; March & Springer, 2019; Nowak et al., 2020) and COVID-19-related
CTs (Kay, 2020). To complete the picture, COVID-19 CT believers in eight nations were
found to be more selfish, showing greater concerns about one's safety, and lower concerns
about the safety of close others (Hornsey et al., 2021).
Another psychopathological correlate of adhesion to CTs is anxiety. Periods of
collective anxiety such as wars or pandemics are conducive to CTs (e.g., Bangerter et al.,
2020; Uscinski & Parent, 2014; van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017). Van Prooijen and Douglas
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(2017) also pointed out that CTs are particularly prevalent in times of crisis. According to
Taguieff (2013), modern periods of crisis are particularly liable to be explained in terms of
conspiracies, because CTs provide a simple and unique answer to complex and disturbing
phenomena. For example, CTs help us to build interpretations of some important social events
such as flu epidemics, by identifying stereotypical characters such as The Good, The Bad, and
the Victims of such a social drama (Wagner-Egger et al., 2011).
Personal anxiety has been found to be positively linked to conspiracy (Green &
Douglas, 2018; Grzesiak-Feldman, 2007, 2013; Swami, Furnham, et al., 2016), such as death
anxiety (Newheiser et al., 2011; but not in Imhoff & Bruder, 2014). This relationship may
have roots in childhood, as Green & Douglas (2018) observed that an anxious, but not
avoidant, attachment style is correlated with conspiratorial beliefs. Note that Leone et al.
(2018) found that an avoidant attachment style, but not an anxious attachment style, is related
to CT beliefs. Whatever the exact association, which will have both studies show that insecure
attachment styles, which are related to anxiety, are related to conspiracist ideation.
From a social psychology viewpoint, some research has shown that a situational or
contextual anxiety period (pre-exams for students) had the effect of increasing conspiratorial
beliefs (Grzesiak-Feldman, 2013). Radnitz and Underwood (2015) demonstrated, on the other
hand, that anxiety-inducing priming (writing a paragraph on the effects of the 2008 economic
crisis on oneself) and a higher number of victims of this same crisis tended to increase
conspiracy interpretations of an ambiguous situation (such as a mysterious deadly epidemic).
At a rather more personal level but still related to the social world, individual levels of worry
toward social and environmental issues (pollution, terrorism, economic globalisation, etc.;
Wagner-Egger & Bangerter, 2007), feelings of insecurity (as measured by the Belief in a
Dangerous World scale: Hart & Graether, 2018; Leiser et al., 2017), or having experienced
stressful life events (Swami, Furnham, et al., 2016) are also related to stronger CT adherence.
30
One final facet of personality linked to conspiracy theories (CT) is self-esteem. Some
studies have proven CT beliefs to be associated with lower self-esteem (Abalakina-Paap et al.,
1999; Cichocka et al., 2016; Crocker et al., 1999; Galliford & Furnham, 2017; Stieger et al.,
2013; Swami et al., 2011; Swami & Furnham, 2012). Moreover, a higher need for uniqueness
has been measured among CT adherents (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2017; Lantian et al., 2017),
which could represent one way to compensate for lower self-esteem. Narcissism (i.e., an
exaggerated self-perception) has been found to be positively linked to CT belief (Bowes et al.,
2020; Cichocka et al., 2016; Kay, 2021), and negatively to self-esteem (Cichocka et al.,
2016). As my colleague Sebastian Dieguez put it, CTs are "You Are The Hero Theories", in
the sense that their adherents feel like being true whistle-blowers, people with greater insight
than the "sheep herd" of the "sleepy" population, who is manipulated by the "System".
Conspiracy theorists are actually "Sunday whistleblowers", who, as we saw above,
"investigate" apparent internet-based inconsistencies in certain official versions (errant data),
while real whistleblowers, investigative journalists, prosecutors, etc., take up a single cause
for years and carry out real investigations, which may or may not end up in court, depending
on the gathered evidence. Most significantly in this regard, Bowes et al. (2020) found a
negative correlation between CT adhesion and humility!
To conclude this section dedicated to the psychopathological dimension, it appears
clear that CT adherents suffer from an overall pessimistic, notably paranoid and anxious,
perception of the world. However, according to some commentators, the world is safer than
ever: Steven Pinker (2011) recently statistically demonstrated that, despite terrorism or
modern conflicts, we are living in the least violent and most peaceful era in the history of
mankind. Philosopher Michel Serres (2017) goes further, stating that, in addition to a violence
decline, there is a reduced threat of diseases, a lower work drudgery, and a correlative hygiene
rise, life expectancy, etc. Nonetheless, there is paradoxically a concomitant increase in the
31
feeling of insecurity in many countries (e.g., Roché, 1993, in France), partly caused by media
coverage of negative events, such as accidents, disasters, murders, and terrorist attacks. As it
is traditionally said, the media do not talk about trains that are on time but far more about
delays and accidents (and that appears even more true when it comes to the internet). Of
course, this is not only a media bias, but it is partly because humans are more interested in
such news, probably for evolutionary reasons (e.g., Green & Phillips, 2004).
There is perhaps a more objective reason for this feeling of insecurity: taking a more
global look at the evolution of our post-industrial societies, the sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992)
noted in the mid-1980s the advent of a “risk society”, not only at a technological level but
also at a social level. According to him, the danger in our western societies is no longer only
externally represented by the figure of the Other (the devil, the Jews, the communists, etc.),
but also internally, intimately linked to the development of technoscience, which is becoming
more powerful but at the same time more dangerous. The globalisation of risks – nuclear
accidents or pandemics against which there are no barriers, or even global warming, for
example, which for the first time in our history, are threats to mankind’s existence – places
our post-modern societies in an atmosphere of fear, as industrial society was characterised by
misery. More recently, our era has been characterised as the “age of anxiety” (Parish &
Parker, 2001; Twenge, 2000): ecological disasters, the decline in biodiversity, terrorism,
economic crises such as the 2008 crisis, the increasing complexity of societies leading to the
proliferation of subcultures, the increased speed of travel and information flows, large-scale
migration, fast social change, the risks associated with new sciences and technologies such as
genetics, robotics or even Big Data, economic globalisation or insecurity surrounding the
labour market are all possible causes for this contemporary social anxiety.
4) The cognitive (irrational) dimension
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The fact that scientific and educational development has done little to reduce the
success of irrational beliefs of all kinds is a paradox of our (post-)modern societies (Irwin,
2009). While some statistics websites have been able to calculate that 5,000 scientific papers a
day were published in the world in 2015 (this is constantly increasing: 800,000 were
published in 2002, about 1.8 million in 2015), non-scientific beliefs do not seem to diminish,
as shown, for example, in the recent 2015 survey commissioned in France by Science & Vie
magazine: more than two-thirds of French people believe in at least one paranormal
phenomenon, such as sensing ghosts or predicting the future, and tens of thousands of them
claim to have experienced such a phenomenon 1. Similarly, Parish (2001) points out that in
post-modern, New Age societies, paranormal phenomena beliefs are far from vanishing
despite the scientific community’s scepticism, as Gallup polls in the United States constantly
reveal. Very old beliefs such as the effect of the full moon on humans still exist today, while
science has only proven gravitational effects on the tides, the earth's crust, and some animal
cycles (Wagner-Egger & Joris, 2004). Stressful periods like the coronavirus pandemic
demonstrate a surge of weird beliefs of all kinds, from conspiratorial, pseudoscientific, to
even paranormal (e.g., astrologists were highly requested, pseudoscientific gurus gained an
audience on the Internet, religious sects such as the Raelians organised seminars to recruit,
etc.).
While traditional religions are declining, a new form of post-Christian religiosity,
known as “New Age”, emerged during the 1980s (e.g., Taguieff, 2005). More and more
people declare a “spirituality” differing from traditional religions, which is becoming more
important than the belief in a god itself. Taguieff (2005) shows the relations between
paranormal and conspiracist beliefs, which can be observed on the shelves of New Age
libraries, full of conspiracy books. This relationship is also psychological: esotericism and
conspiracism share a fascination for the occult (secret and strangeness), as well as the
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interpretation of coincidences through meaning (correlation, and causation) instead of chance.
According to many authors, the search for signs and connections is one of CTs believers’
activities, to whom "nothing is as it seems" (Barkun, 2003), "everything is connected"
(Stewart, 1999), and "nothing happens by accident" (Barkun, 2003). These are known
elements of magical thinking (Moscovici, 1992). According to this line of reasoning, CT
adherence should go hand in hand with beliefs in other unproven phenomena. Taguieff (2015)
adds to the previous three principles: "everything that happens is the result of hidden
intentions or wills" (which can be illustrated by the usual question of CT believers: "who
benefits from the crime?") and "everything that is officially held to be true must be subjected
to a ruthless critical review". We will see below that psychology research empirically tested
and validated some of these assumptions.
Numerous studies have indeed found a statistical link between various paranormal,
magical or esoteric beliefs (astrology, telepathy, homoeopathy, miracles, lucky charms, alien
visits, etc.) and CT beliefs (Adam-Troian, Caroti et al., 2019; Barron et al., 2018; Bensley et
al., 2020; Brotherton et al., 2013; Brotherton & French, 2014; Bruder et al., 2013; Darwin et
al., 2011; Dieguez et al., 2015; Drinkwater et al., 2012; Dyrendal et al., 2021; Galliford &
Furnham, 2017; Lantian et al., 2016; Lobato et al., 2014; Newheiser et al., 2011; Rizeq et al.,
2021; Ståhl & van Prooijen, 2018; Stieger et al., 2013; Swami et al., 2011, 2013; Wagner-
Egger & Bangerter, 2007; Wagner-Egger et al., 2018; Wagner-Egger et al., 2022; van Elk,
2015; van der Wal et al., 2018).
Given the fact that schizotypy scales include magical-type beliefs, these findings are
highly consistent with those described above. Three research works have also noted that
adherence to CTs was related to greater acceptance of alternative medicines (Lamberty &
Imhoff, 2018; Oliver & Wood, 2014b; Pennycook et al., 2015). A range of anti-science
attitudes have also been constantly found to be correlated with CT beliefs (Lewandowsky et
34
al., 2013; Lobato et al., 2014; Marques et al., 2021; Rizeq et al., 2021; van der Linden, 2015;
Wagner-Egger et al., 2018).
At the cognitive level, CT believers’ irrationality has been underlined by the
relationship between several reasoning biases and conspiracy beliefs. The first was outlined as
the proportionality bias (or heuristics, “important event - important cause”; McCauley &
Jacques, 1979; Leman & Cinnirella, 2007; van Prooijen & van Dijk, 2014), which describes
the fact that in our everyday naive or intuitive thinking, an important event cannot have a
benign cause (which is of course often false). This bias is apparent in the numerous CTs about
the death of celebrities: it is probably difficult to conceive that such important people could
have died from such a stupid cause as an accident or bad luck, like the average person. Leman
and Cinnirella (2007) submitted one out of four scenarios inspired by the death of John F.
Kennedy in Dallas, which described the president of an unknown country going up to a
podium to make his speech and being shot at that moment. In the four scenarios, the president
is either (1) killed or (2) only wounded, or (3) missed by the bullets, or (4) missed but dies of
a heart attack. The authors ask to what extent participants think the shooter is a mad killer
who acted alone or is part of a plot aiming to assassinate the president. The scenario
describing the most important event (the president is shot and dies) is found to be more often
interpreted as the result of a conspiracy than the other scenarios (the order of the
conspiratorial interpretation of the four scenarios is 1>4>2>3), while there is no objective
reason as to why this should be the case. This bias is interestingly not related to CT adherence
level, which means that anyone can be the victim of such a bias.
A second cognitive bias that has been associated with conspiracy thinking is the
conjunction fallacy, describing the case in which a joint event (e.g., "Linda is a bank
employee and a feminist") is incorrectly judged to be more likely to occur than its
corresponding disjoint events (e.g., "Linda is a bank employee" and "Linda is a feminist"),
35
based on a description of Linda that matches both statements (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983).
This tendency would fit with the general idea that CT believers would have a cognitive
tendency to establish links where there are none ("everything is linked", Stewart, 1999), like
in magical thinking (Moscovici, 1992). Several studies indeed showed that the more
participants adhere to CTs, the more they will make a conjunction error, either in neutral
scenarios such as Linda's one or in scenarios including coincidences of events that could
suggest a paranormal or conspiracist interpretation (Brotherton & French, 2014; Dagnall et
al., 2017; Drinkwater et al., 2018; Moulding et al., 2016). Besides, van der Wal et al. (2018)
showed that CT believers tended to make more causal connections between co-occurring
events. Hence, humans misinterpret coincidences by thinking that they are more probable than
they are, and may deceptively infer causation from these exaggerated correlations.
A third cognitive bias observed among CT believers, as well as among religious or
paranormal beliefs, is the intentionality bias, i.e., a tendency to see human intentions where
there are presumably none (but instead, chance, fatality, or accident). Such a tendency has
been observed in several cases of anthropomorphism (the tendency to anthropomorphise
objects, animals, etc., i.e., to attribute mental states to them, e.g., "To what extent does a tree
have a mind of its own?"; Brotherton & French, 2015; Douglas et al, 2015; Imhoff & Bruder,
2014; van der Tempel & Alcock, 2015) and teleological thinking scales (attributing purpose
to natural elements, e.g., "Bats hunt mosquitoes to control overpopulation"; Wagner-Egger et
al., 2018). Douglas et al. (2015) noticed the same association using a classical psychology
task, Heider and Simmel's short film showing moving geometric figures, which can evoke
living beings. Participants were asked to describe what happened during the movie and to
what extent they thought the geometrical forms were conscious. Results have shown that the
more participants perceived intentions during the film, the more they adhered to CTs.
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Some research has suggested the existence of a fourth cognitive bias related to CT
endorsement, namely the detection bias (or pattern perception). The tendency to perceive
patterns, or “illusory structures” (e.g., shapes in clouds or smoke, shapes of faces in the
environment, etc.) has been proved to be related to beliefs (van Prooijen, Douglas, & De
Inocencio, 2018). The previously mentioned Whitson and Galinski (2008) study showed
indeed that the experimental induction of loss of control does not only increase some
conspiratorial or paranoid beliefs but also increases illusory pattern perception and
superstitious beliefs (such as touching wood for good luck). Van Prooijen, Douglas, and De
Inocencio (2018) showed that perceiving shapes in modern abstract paintings (Jackson
Pollock) was related to conspiratorial beliefs. They also showed in two studies that, according
to the CT principle stating that “nothing happens by chance”, conspiracy believers tend to
judge coin toss sequences (heads or tails) as less random than others. Nonetheless, this result
was not replicated (or to a lesser extent) in several other studies (Adam-Troian, Caroti et al.,
2019; Dagnall et al., 2017; Dieguez et al., 2015; Drinkwater et al., 2018; van der Wal et al.,
2018; Wagner-Egger et al, 2018): according to some of that research, it appears that pattern
perception is more related to paranormal beliefs, and conjunction bias is more associated with
CT beliefs (Dagnall et al., 2017; Drinkwater et al., 2018). Thus, it appears that the exact
principle for CTs would be: “no coincidence happens by chance”.
Jumping to conclusions (JTC) is a fifth cognitive bias that has been observed to relate
to CT beliefs (Kuhn et al., 2021; Moulding et al., 2016; Pytlik et al., 2020). This bias is, as its
name indicates, the tendency to make conclusions too early. It is usually measured by a
probabilistic task, in which participants are informed that two fish species (orange and
bluefish) are located in two ponds (A and B) in reversed ratio, 60 orange and 40 bluefish in
pond A and 40 orange and 60 bluefish in pond B. The subjects are sequentially presented with
one fish from one pond, without knowing which pond the fish come from. After each fish that
37
is presented, the subjects are asked if they are ready to decide from which pond the fish is
drawn. A decision after one or two fish is considered to be a JTC-bias. Note that this tendency
in CT believers echoes our rational analysis of CTs in terms of religion of conspiracy, i.e.,
believing without sufficient proof.
One last classic cognitive bias that has often been identified in conspiracist thinking is
the confirmation bias. It describes the tendency to favour the search and the recall in memory
of pieces of information that are consistent with our pre-existing beliefs, to evaluate such
pieces of information as more solid than information that contradicts our views, and finally to
try confirming instead of infirming our hypotheses (e.g., Nickerson, 1998). According to
Hofstadter (1965), paranoid individuals hold on to a few pieces of evidence and inflexibly
defend them to prevent their theory from being disproved. This category of person evades any
evidence that contradicts their theory, explaining it as further evidence of the conspiracy
(false evidence invented by the conspirators), or even accusing the person trying to reason
with them of being part of the conspiracy: this may be seen as the ultimate confirmation bias,
to be found in the most extreme ideologies. We may also mention the religious
fundamentalists claiming that dinosaur fossils are fakes placed by the devil to make humans
doubt biblical Genesis, and the deeply paranoid individuals who would interpret any counter-
argument or opponent (even a doctor trying to help) as part of the plot against them. At this
point, the belief becomes completely immune to disconfirmation.
McHoskey (1995) presented in his study two texts of equal length to his student
participants, who either did or did not previously believe in the Kennedy assassination CT.
One text gave details against the theory of a lone gunman (the official version OV), with the
other giving elements in favour of this thesis, in a random order. Results showed that both
groups demonstrated biased assimilation of new information according to their pre-existing
attitudes, by judging the information that was in line with their initial opinion as more
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trustworthy than the competing information. This tendency was more pronounced the more
participants held an extreme initial opinion on either side. These first results indicated the
prevalence of confirmation bias, independent of holding conspiracist or official opinions. But
a second result was that the most conspiratorial individuals from the sample increased their
CT belief more after reading both texts than non-conspiratorial participants increased their
OV belief, indicating a slightly stronger confirmation bias among them. This study thirdly
also showed the cognitive appeal of conspiracy theories, as subjects with no prior opinion
leaned towards the CT rather than towards the OV after reading the two texts.
One final cognitive bias related to a conspiracy mentality can be called cognitive
asymmetry: it refers to the fifth CT principle proposed by Taguieff (2015): "Everything that is
officially held to be true must be subjected to a ruthless critical review" (see also Wagner-
Egger, 2021a). If you take a conversation with, for example, a convinced 9/11 conspiracist,
you will rapidly notice that he or she is focused in a paranoid way on all the seemingly bizarre
elements (errant data) from the OV, but will by contrast show an almost religious faith in the
conspiracy theory or theories (with beliefs firmly based on only errant data, confirmation bias,
etc.). To be more rational, one would, on the contrary, have to be as critical — if not more,
according to what has been said concerning the epistemological aspect of CTs — of the CT as
the OV. In case of a purported conspiracy, how did the facts unfold, how many people knew
about it, why did none of the conspirators ever confess, etc.? Grimes (2016) estimated, using
mathematical models based on existing conspiracies and the required amount of time it took
for them to be discovered, depending on the estimated number of people who should be aware
of the plot, that a conspiracy involving more than a thousand people (as with the 9/11
conspiracy, for example) had no chance of remaining secret. Keeley (1999) also noted,
concerning the Oklahoma City bombing, that the initial CT involved the BATF (Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms), but then spread to the FBI which investigated the case,
39
some journalists, other federal agencies, etc. This inflation caused this CT to become less and
less credible. Chomsky noted, for example, in his critique of the 9/11 CTs that if the Bush
administration did organise the attacks, it would have blamed Iraq which was planned to be
invaded, and not Bin Laden and the Saudis 3. Recently, Grimes (2021) similarly demonstrated
the unviability of COVID-19 CTs, because of the very large number of people who should
have been involved in the conspiracy (and the high chances of leaks). At the empirical
research level, Wood and Douglas (2013) noted in their qualitative analysis of online
discussions on news websites about the 9/11 attacks that conspiracists tended to argue against
the OV, but not so much in favour of the CT. Another interesting phenomenon also related to
cognitive asymmetry is the observation that retired engineers are especially over-represented
amongst “alter science” advocates (e.g., Oreskes & Conway, 2010). One hypothesis that
would be possible to extract from these cases is that the engineers’ problem-solving approach
will lead them to focus on the erratic data in the OV and ignore other broader elements that
allow a more rational judgement of the situation. Moreover, the fact that many of these people
are retired may also indicate boredom, and and an excess of available time (cf. Brotherton &
Eser, 2015, and van Prooijen et al. 2022, on CTs as a cure for boredom).
This cognitive asymmetry could also be an instance of motivated cognition: CTs may
be motivated not to miss potential conspiracies (false negatives, or misses, in the signal
detection theory), whereas critics of CTs on the contrary spot the dangers of suspecting non-
existent plots (false positives, or false alarms) we listed above.
More globally, a hypothesis in cognitive psychology is that cognitive biases would be
related to intuitive thinking, a fast mode of thinking, which we can call intuition, and is
activated without much cognitive effort and without taking into account all the parameters of
the situation. This so-called System 1 is opposed to System 2, a slower, effortful mode of
thinking, which is at the centre of logical and analytical thinking (Stanovich & West, 2000;
40
Kahneman, 2012). A simple illustration of how these two systems of thinking differ can be
measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005): "A bat and ball cost $1.10 in
total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?" The intuitive
answer is €10, but the correct analytical answer is $0.05. Numerous studies have shown that
the tendency towards intuitive thinking (opposed to analytical thinking) is positively linked to
CT beliefs (Barron et al., 2018; Garrett & Weeks, 2017; Pytlik et al., 2020; Stieger et al.,
2013; Ståhl & van Prooijen, 2018; Swami et al., 2011, 2014; Swami & Furnham, 2012; van
Prooijen, 2017; Wagner-Egger et al. 2018). Activating analytical thinking (through exposure
to terms like "analysis", "weighting", "rational", etc.) seemingly has the effect of lowering CT
beliefs (Swami et al., 2014). Convergently, as a higher intelligence quotient (IQ) is related to
greater resistance to cognitive biases (cf. e.g., Evans & Stanovich, 2013), it is not surprising to
observe negative correlations between IQ and adhesion to CTs (Stieger et al., 2013; Swami et
al., 2011; Swami & Furnham, 2012). Additionally, the core reasoning in CTs, the fact that
errant data suggest that there is a conspiracy behind the apparent events, illustrates well the
intervention of intuitive thinking, which relies on a few favourable cases or coincidences to
draw abusive conclusions. During each cold weather episode, Donald Trump and other less
famous climate sceptics ironically referred to the alleged global warming, and abusively and
naively claim that these events alone invalidated years of scientific work. The actual exact
scientific reasoning – a rise in average temperatures, inducing the production of all kinds of
extreme events – is less easy to observe and comprehend at the individual level of intuition.
Ultimately, intuitive thinking (System 1, cognitive biases) is thought to have an
evolutionary origin (Evans & Stanovich, 2013; Kahneman, 2012). As humans have lived for
hundreds of thousands of years as hunter-gatherers, their brains have probably evolved to
make quick survival-oriented decisions, which may be false most of the time, but allow them
to survive on rare occasions. Imagine a hunter-gatherer, for example, hearing the sound of a
41
breaking branch behind him. A quick flight response, caused by the interpretation of a causal
co-occurrence, with an intentionality bias and a "broken branch = predator" conjunction bias,
would be selected by evolution even though this interpretation is wrong most of the time (the
branches may have cracked because of the wind, a friendly conspecific, a harmless animal,
etc.). The reproductive success of such an intuitive strategy will be higher than that of an
individual analytically trying to question the cause of the noise (Alcock, 1995).
The strongest irrationality forms among CT believers were found in a study conducted
by Wood et al. (2012), which showed simultaneous adherence to seemingly contradictory
CTs. In their research, these authors showed that the CTs "Bin Laden was already dead at the
time of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan" and "Bin Laden is still alive in a U.S. secret
prison" were correlated. Nevertheless, this study has been criticised. In cases of uncertainty,
incompatible hypotheses can be jointly postulated (I have lost my keys, they are either in my
coat at work or at home; Basham, 2017), but moreover, the correlation could be due to more
people refusing these two propositions. Thus, while Wood et al.’s (2012) study could not
demonstrate a clear contradiction, Irwin et al. (2015) found that those who were most
committed to CTs also demonstrated a greater tendency to doublethink, in a non-CT context.
Their inconsistent beliefs scale measuring doublethink includes pairs of items containing
statements that are not fully compatible with each other (e.g. "We still exist in an immaterial
form after our death" and "Brain damage can cause harm to intelligence as well as to many
cognitive and perceptual abilities"). Overall, the higher the level of conspiracy, the higher the
adherence to the incompatible items of the pairs.
To conclude this section about the irrational and cognitive roots of conspiracism, we
can note that, according to Taguieff (2015), conspiracism is a paradoxical form of re-
enchantment of the world, a new religion of Good against Evil. According to the often-quoted
citation by G.K. Chesterton: "When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter
42
believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything". Franks et al. (2013)
defined conspiracy mentality as a "quasi-religious mentality" because, just as with religions, it
transforms non-specific fears such as existential fear – or the different types of anxiety
outlined above – into fears focused on a culprit, a scapegoat, such as a religious ritual
attributing the cause of ills to an evil principle. Some empirical research has indeed shown
that a more Manichean worldview (Good versus Evil) is linked to stronger adherence to CTs
(Green & Douglas, 2018; Oliver & Wood, 2014a), as is the case for religious fundamentalism
(Garrett & Weeks, 2017) and creationism (Wagner-Egger et al., 2018). Nonetheless, “regular”
religious beliefs are not always directly related to conspiracy: some research found a
correlation (Lahrach & Furnham, 2017; Oliver & Wood, 2014a; van der Wal et al., 2018) and
other research did not (or only weak correlations; Green & Douglas, 2018; Freeman &
Bentall, 2017; Hart & Graether, 2018). But such an association between religious and
conspiracist beliefs could at least be indirect, as religiosity is related to paranormal beliefs
(Irwin, 1993; Lindeman & Aarnio, 2006), and both show a negative relationship with
analytical thinking (Pennycook et al., 2012), as do CT beliefs.
More directly, extreme conspiracy may be seen as a form of "spiritual quest", similar
to a sectarian journey (Franks et al., 2017). The coronavirus pandemic very clearly showed
that CT believers describe themselves as "enlightened", and holding the "Truth”, in contrast to
the "sheep herd" of common people lying in obscurity (let us also note the metaphorical
character of sheeps and ewes in the Bible).
In addition to this world re-enchantment by some kind of secular religion — the
conspiracy religion —, the rise of a "post-truth era" has been evoked in our post-modern
societies for a few years. As often reminded, the Oxford Dictionary declared this neologism to
be the word of the year in 2016 and defined it as "relating to or denoting circumstances in
which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotions
43
and personal belief" (Pennycook & Rand, 2019). The example of fake news’ political use, as
Donald Trump was, for example, fond of, is part of this blurring between truth and
misinformation (Lewandowsky et al., 2017). Another way of blurring this boundary is what
philosopher Harry Frankfurt has defined as bullshitting, which is not considered lying, but
rather an indifference to the truth (Frankfurt, 2005). In recent years, pseudo-profound bullshit,
a particular category of bullshit which consists of attributing deep meaning to hollow or
meaningless statements (for example, the tweets of Deepak Chopra, a New Age guru, such as
"You become what you see", or some phrases created by online bullshit generators such as
"Hidden meaning transforms unsurpassed abstract beauty"), has been studied by
psychologists. The tendency to perceive depth within such statements is weakly but
significantly associated with CT belief, as well as being negatively associated with analytical
thinking (Hart & Graether, 2018; Pennycook et al., 2015).
5) The communicational (narrative) dimension
Some studies have attempted to investigate the effects of communicating conspiracy
statements, showing again some kind of intuitive thinking style that humans display when
reading pieces of information. Some research found that affirming and denying implausible
conspiracy statements in newspaper headlines can increase their perceived plausibility
(Gruenfeld & Wyer, 1992; Wagner-Egger & Gygax, 2018). Asserting a very implausible
statement (e.g., “Macron is an alcoholic”) provides semantic information which will increase
the belief that French President Macron is an alcoholic indeed, but denying an implausible
statement (e.g., “Macron is not an alcoholic”) will have the same effect of increasing the
denied belief (thus that he is an alcoholic). This is because the assertion provides no
knowledge at the semantic level (we think that it is true because no information has ever
suggested he is an alcoholic), and for that precise reason may pragmatically lead people to
focus on the reasons for denying something that is known to be true. Similarly, denying a very
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plausible statement will provide semantic information (e.g., “Macron is not faithful to his
wife”) and will lower the belief that Macron is faithful to his wife. But to assert a very
plausible statement (e.g., “Macron is faithful to his wife”) might lead to the same questioning
at a pragmatic level (why are they affirming what seems obvious? Is it to cover the fact that it
is false?). According to this research, asserting and dismissing an implausible statement will
therefore increase belief in this statement, and doing so with a very plausible one will
conversely decrease belief in that same statement (although the results do not fully support
such hypotheses). So, a newspaper headline saying that “The CIA did not organise the 9/11
attacks” could have the paradoxical effect of reinforcing the belief that the CIA was indeed
responsible for the attacks. Note that both studies found more empirical confirmation for an
increase in the belief by affirming and denying an informative statement than for a decrease in
the belief by affirming and denying an uninformative statement.
Béna and colleagues (2019) have shown that the more people hear about particular
CTs, the more they will adhere to them, according to the truth effect (i.e., repeated exposure to
information increases the tendency to judge it to be true; e.g., Newman et al., 2020).
Another element illustrates the communicational importance of CTs. It has been found
that the level of conspiracy was related to individuals' boredom proneness (Brotherton &
Eser, 2015; van Prooijen et al., 2022). Moreover, conspiratorial content elicited stronger
entertainment appraisals and intense emotions. Participants also endorsed more CT beliefs
when an election event was described in an entertaining rather than a boring manner (van
Prooijen et al., 2022).
The narrative appeal of CTs is high. No other scenario seems more interesting than
having a hero discovering slowly, step by step, that the whole environment around him/her
has been faked by powerful people to dominate or enrich oneself, as in the well-known
movies "The Matrix" and "The Truman Show". It is similar to a fascinating and extraordinary
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police inquiry, in which the most basic perception is manipulated. A large number of
successful movies and TV series are based on a scenario of paranormal and conspiracist
elements (Da Vinci Code, Game of Thrones, The Labyrinth, The Lord of the Rings, Harry
Potter, etc). This narrative dimension has been underlined in a study conducted by Raab et al.
(2013). They observed that their participants mixed OV-related sentences, mild conspiratorial
items (the authorities knew about the attacks and let it happen), and sometimes strongly
conspiratorial items (the authorities organised a false-flag attack) when asked to choose from
a list of these three categories of sentences to qualify the September 11 attacks in New York.
In sum, participants were not conspiracy fanatics but used conspiratorial elements to make a
good narrative out of the events.
It would be impossible to complete an overview of CT adherence predictors without
mentioning, at the level of communication, the importance of the rise of the Internet and
social media from the 2000s, especially about the propagation of misinformation online,
including fake news, rumours, or CTs. First of all, research has shown that individuals who
adhere to CTs about vaccines get more of their information from social networks than others
(Featherstone et al., 2019). Similarly, Wagner-Egger et al. (2022) observed that beliefs in
various CTs were related to primarily using social networks as a source of information
(instead of turning to traditional media, such as newspapers or TV news). The Internet may
even be seen as one of the main causes of the emergence of fake news and CTs as a serious
societal problem, as our society and psychology did not change as radically as our access to
information these last two decades. Indeed, the Internet has radically altered the "information
market" (Bronner, 2015) structure through a deregulation process. While knowledge was
found in books and libraries, universities, or from specialists’ discourses, the Internet initially
promised a democratic, free, and unlimited access to a huge amount of information. This was
and still is of course incredibly useful and positive. But at a quick rate, this promise has been
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drowned by a flood of disinformation. Not only reliable knowledge becomes universal but
also and even more so the access to uncontrolled knowledge production. Nowadays, anyone
could write anything on the Internet, whereas previous publishing houses or universities
filtered this information. As the famous writer Umberto Eco severely illustrated:
"Social networks have given a voice to idiot legions who used to speak only when at
the bar, after a glass of wine, and did not cause harm to the community. They were
immediately silenced, while they are given today the same freedom of speech and space as a
Nobel Prize winner would have. This is the invasion of fools" (Nicoletti, 2015, common
translation).
While this assertion may appear at first sight shocking and elitist, it is in reality not the
case. Anyone can be a specialist in a specific field (and not in most other fields). This is a
simple consequence of the social division of labour in complex societies. This implies that
everyone should be careful – on the Internet, and elsewhere – as soon as he or she talks
outside of his or her field of expertise. This is far from the case, as was easy to observe during
the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Such a profusion of misinformation on the Internet, which is facilitated by the greater
visibility of non-specialists compared to specialists (since in any field, there are statistically
more non-specialists than specialists), is further emphasised by several other factors: (1)
amplified cognitive biases, (2) the most cognitively "demagogic" explanations will have more
success, and (3) some characteristics of the Internet’s functioning and social networks
reinforce misinformation spreading (the "bullshit asymmetry" principle, the transparency
paradox, the "argumentative mille-feuille", indefinite information storage, etc). One of the
effects induced by the Internet’s emergence as a vehicle for information is that the classic
cognitive biases, some of which we have discussed before, are reinforced online (Bronner,
2015). Algorithms accentuate the confirmation bias, by proposing information based on
47
previous searches. This bias is also emphasised by users' "likes", which will favour
interactions with people who tend to have the same opinions, and will lead the algorithms to
give again more information of the same type. This creates bubble filters and echo chambers,
where confirmatory information will be more available, in addition to the existing cognitive
confirmation biases. If one types "Lady Diana" without using the term "conspiracy", only a
few conspiracist websites will appear, but if one types "Lady Diana conspiracy", their number
will rapidly grow and become the majority (note that this was valid a few years ago before the
main Internet Companies decided to counteract the over-diffusion of misinformation by
regulating their content). Mocanu et al. (2015) showed that Facebook users who interact with
conspiratorial news sources from "alternative" websites also tended to more often share
proven false claims.
Similarly, while surfing on the Internet in their leisure time, people will tend to use far
more intuitive, non-analytical thinking modes. For example, lots of people share articles on
social media having read only the title. They will also tend to share strong emotional content,
particularly striking cases, images or videos, instead of verified information (Bronner, 2015).
The second effect of electronic modes of communication, related to the first one, is
that the most "cognitively demagogic" explanations (the ones favoured by our cognitive
biases, such as the intentionality bias, conjunction bias, etc.) will be over-represented online.
For example, a Google search about supernatural themes such as the existence of the Loch
Ness monster or psychokinesis (to move objects by thought) showed that websites favouring
the existence of these unproven phenomena outnumbered scientific sites (Bronner, 2015). As
paranormal and conspiracy scenarios are good narrative "products" on the "marketplace" of
information, it is not a surprise that they are very present on the Internet. Similarly, a
cognitive anthropologist would say that the informational environment of the Internet will
48
select paranormal and conspiracy scenarios, as they are very transmissible memes due to our
cognitive biases (Dawkins, 1976; Sperber, 1985).
Some studies have been able to quantify the over-representation of cognitive
demagogy online. Allgaier (2019) demonstrated that YouTube videos about global warming
do not mirror the scientific consensus about its human origin (which is 95-98% in the
scientific community, e.g., Anderegg et al., 2010), as only 2-5% of the videos found
expressed the scientific view, against 54% supporting the denialist opinion. Similarly,
Petersen et al. (2019) noticed that while climate deniers had a proportional audience in the
mainstream media compared to the actual proportion among scientists, that audience rose to
49% in "alternative" media websites.
Other features of the Internet’s functioning may be seen as responsible for spreading
false information. The principle of bullshit asymmetry (or "Brandolini's law") states that it
takes much more time and energy to rebut false beliefs or information than to produce it.
Lewandowsky et al. (2012) listed all the difficulties misinformation correction has been
facing, both in media and in individual beliefs.
Remedies against the proliferation of CTs
As we saw that CTs (i.e., the religion of conspiracy, but not the science of conspiracy)
may have highly negative consequences on the whole of society, and present a serious risk for
democracy itself, we may propose some ways of counteracting the prevalence of these
unfounded beliefs. As we propose that potential causes may be classified broadly into three
categories (socio-political, psychological and communicational factors), remedies will be
found at these three levels.
At the communicational level, big internet companies such as Youtube or Facebook
have been trying to regulate their content for a few years. This is of course not easy, and some
49
errors (false positive and false negative) will occur. But it is a good way of diminishing the
exaggerated diffusion of misinformation, and this is not censorship because this content may
be posted elsewhere on the Internet. Lewandowsky et al. (2017) proposed a list of measures to
fight misinformation online, such as the creation of NGOs which could devise a system of
judgement about the credibility of the websites, the elaboration of charters of good
journalistic conduct in the media and blogs, fact-checking, etc.
At the psychological level, Orosz et al. (2016) showed that debunking (i.e.,
demonstrating that the conspiracist arguments are false) and ridiculing the CT (with humour)
diminished adhesion to this CT. Techniques of cognitive inoculation have also been
experimentally tested (e.g., McGuire, 1961). The relation to the vaccine is of course only
symbolic, as it consists of providing some warnings (the "vaccine") before exposure to
conspiracist arguments. Two modes of inoculations against CTs were tested by Banas and
Miller (2013) before the screening of part of a documentary about the 9/11 CT ("Loose
change"). The first one was based on logic (focusing on problems of method and logic, the
non-respect of Occam's razor, errant data vs. direct confessions, etc.), and the second was
based on facts (focusing on factual errors in the documentary). The reverse effect of a "meta-
inoculation" (to precede the inoculation by a counter-inoculation message, for example, a
warning that some people could abusively alienate the participants from ideas judged
dangerous or alternative) has also been tested, to see if the inoculation could be rendered
ineffective in some cases. Results showed that, besides the cognitive seduction of the
documentary we evoke above (in the control condition, the 40-minute excerpt of the
documentary increased adherence to the CT by 25% (1.5 points on a 7-point Likert scale).
Inoculation techniques notably decreased this appeal, especially the inoculation based on
facts, or even cancelled the persuasive power of the documentary. As expected, meta-
inoculation significantly diminished the effect of inoculation but did not cancel it. This could
50
suggest that people believing firmly in CTs could no longer be "immunised" against the
appeal of CTs4.
Another very simple technique has been proposed by Bonetto et al. (2018). In a series
of four studies, they primed resistance to persuasion from CTs by asking participants their
degree of agreement with 12 affirmations as "In general, I do not change my mind after a
discussion". This simple manipulation led to a small but significant decrease in conspiracy
beliefs.
As it is now attempted in a lot of schools, colleges, etc., teaching critical thinking may
be a good solution at the individual level. Lantian et al. (2021) found a negative correlation
between CT beliefs and an argumentative task (understanding, identifying the good and bad
arguments, identifying other explanations, avoiding generalisation, circular reasoning, etc.),
meaning that contrary to their claims and self-image, CT believers have fewer critical ability
than others. Nonetheless, critical thinking abilities are very diverse (epistemic virtues,
rhetorical fallacies, cognitive biases, etc.), and empirical research will be needed to evaluate
the quality of these efforts.
Finally, at the socio-political level, three of the principal factors associated with CTs
could be tackled, namely social inequalities, anomia, and anxiety. Of course, societal changes
are far more difficult and take longer to set up than communicational and psychological
remedies, but they are probably even more important.
As social and economic inequalities have been related to CT beliefs in several studies,
and as they are also related to populism, racism, and other social problems, the reduction of
these inequalities will be a crucial challenge for democratic societies (e.g., Piketty, 2020).
Note that this movement began as tax havens slowly disappear, and as some US billionaires
ask to pay more taxes. Lewandowsky et al. (2017) remind us that since the 1960s, low and
51
middle salaries have mostly stagnated, contrary to higher salaries. For example, 1% of the
highest earners have benefited from 85% of the increase in salaries between 2009 and 2013.
As we brutally learned nowadays that due to global warming and pollution, ressources are no
more infinite, as it could have appeared until the recent past, the future of human societies
will bear the challenge to share these ressources with more fairness.
Anomia, which consists mainly, as we saw, of feelings of deprivation of political
control, could certainly be fought with more direct democratic tools (initiative and referendum
rights). In Switzerland, we voted two times in 2021 about the COVID-19 laws, which at least
moderated the hysteria of Corona sceptics about an alleged "sanitary dictatorship".
Finally, social anxiety due to some social changes could be tackled by timely
delineated precautionary principles about new technologies. As the rhythm of innovation
increases, it could certainly be useful to let independent scientists evaluate the benefits and
risks of new technology during a fixed period, and at the end of this probation period, a
decision could be made.
Conclusion
In this review, we classified the potential causes of conspiracism in three families
(socio-political, psychological and communicational) and five categories. The societal-
political dimension referred to society as a hierarchy of power, the powerful being most often
accused by the powerless of conspiracies without sufficient proof (but we saw that sometimes,
more rarely, the reverse could occur). The social dimension described the intergroup dynamic
of CTs, which may be rallied to accuse any enemy at low cost (as we defined CTs as serious
accusations without sufficient proof) because, as Francis Bacon (1623) wrote, "Hurl your
calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick". The personal (psychopathological) dimension
merged the various personality traits empirically associated with CT beliefs (paranoia,
52
schizotypy, narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, anxiety, selfishness, etc.). The
cognitive (irrational) dimension summarised the various cognitive biases related to CT beliefs
(proportionality, intentionality, detection, jumping to conclusion biases, and conjunction
fallacy), and the more general idea that intuitive, non-analytic thinking is related to beliefs in
general, and in CTs in particular. It also describes that irrational beliefs (pseudoscientific,
magical, paranormal, etc.) are often associated with a general permeability to unfounded
beliefs. Finally, the communicational dimension explains the contemporary success of CTs to
the rise of the Internet and social media, and because CTs are from a narrative point of view
nice stories to believe in and socially share.
Previous reviews of the growing literature about CT beliefs have recently been
published. Douglas et al. (2017) proposed classifying the psychological factors that drive the
popularity of conspiracy theories into three classes. Epistemic motives express the fact that CT
beliefs provide explanations for complex social events. Existential motives refer to the need
for people to feel safe and secure in their environment and to exert control over it. Social
motives evoke the need to belong and to maintain a positive image of the self and the ingroup,
collective narcissism, etc. Van Prooijen and Douglas (2018) listed four main characteristics of
CT beliefs. They are consequential (i.e., they have a strong impact on important life
dimensions such as health, interpersonal relationships, and safety), universal (i.e., they are not
restricted to specific times or cultures), emotional (i.e., they are related to intuitive thinking,
anxiety, etc.), and social (i.e., they imply interpersonal and intergroup processes, such as
paranoia, social identity, etc.). Douglas et al. (2019) added to the epistemic, existential and
social motives, demographic, political, ideological and motivated reasoning factors. Of
course, these classifications are not incompatible with ours, they are only partially different
classifications of the same reality of existing research on CT beliefs.
53
In our view, future CT research should explore more diverse emotional factors such as
anger, sadness, moral outrage, etc., which may also explain the endorsement of the most
irrational beliefs in CTs. Additionally, CT research could test in cooccurrence the numerous
potential causes of beliefs to compare their predictive power, because the reported factors in
this review were mostly studied in isolation. For example, it may be that some of the
psychopathological traits observed to be related to CT beliefs can be explained, fully or
partially, by people's low social status.
This multilevel approach would also gain the advantage of rendering obsolete the
"social critique" of CT research in psychology (Basham, 2017; Basham & Dentith, 2016;
Harambam & Aupers, 2015; Räikkä & Basham, 2018; Salvador Casara et al., 2022), which
argues more or less softly against an alleged "pathologisation" of CT beliefs in psychology.
Contrary to their claims, this "pathologisation" is not a matter of opinion and ideology, but of
empirical research, which showed (and could not have shown) that some pathological
psychological traits are associated with beliefs in CTs. Similarly, CTs should not be, for
ideological reasons, labelled as "reasonable" or "logical" (Marcus, 1999, Melley, 2000, as
cited in Harambam & Aupers, 2015). This is again an empirical question, whose answers
indicated that CTs are mainly irrational and intuitive. The fact that CT beliefs have an
important social origin, as we thoroughly saw in this review, do not contradict the fact that
they could not at the same time have cognitive and/or personal origins. Of course, an inverse
ideological stance would be to deny the social causes of conspiracism and to accuse only the
Internet and/or cognitive biases. A centre-right politician said once to us in a videoconference
that the socio-political cause of CT beliefs was, according to him — as a perfect nonspecialist,
of course —, "not the problem". This would be a problematic psychologisation of
conspiracism, because it is based on the ideology which considers society to be fair and
legitimate (Jost, 2020), and wants to solve a partly social problem such as CT beliefs only
54
with critical thinking teaching and the regulation of the Internet. These reverse anathemas are
for us reminiscent of prescientific theological quarrels or psychoanalytical antagonist schools
of thought. Their litigations have to be solved a posteriori by empirical research, and not a
priori by ideological preferences.
Besides comparing the various levels of explanation, experimental studies will be
necessary to explore the real causality, as most published studies remain correlational. In the
same vein, longitudinal studies could inquire about how exactly the conspiracist mentality
develops (Franks et al., 2017), in the interplay between cognitive and social factors. For
example, Liekefett et al. (2022) showed in two longitudinal studies with different time
intervals (two weeks and four months) that CT beliefs did not reduce the negative experience
of anxiety, uncertainty aversion and threat, but sometimes even reinforced them (as they
found in one of the two studies). Moreover, both studies found that increases in conspiracy
beliefs predicted even further increases in conspiracy beliefs at the next measurement wave,
which illustrates again the "epistemic or spiritual journey" (Franks et al., 2017), the sectary
path, or even the slippery slope of CTs. After experimental and longitudinal studies, it will
become possible to draw and test theoretical models. The development of such a research
program is certainly essential nowadays, as CTs and more broadly human irrationality,
currently and perhaps even more so in the future, pose problems to democratic countries in
general.
Finally, we criticised epistemologically and empirically CTs and other types of beliefs.
But this is restricted to the huge and arrogant epistemic pretensions of beliefs to hold the truth,
whereas only centuries of modest scientific research could pretend to it. But first, we would
not fight against moderate beliefs, or harmless beliefs such as beliefs about the effect of the
full moon on humans (Wagner-Egger & Joris, 2004), but only beliefs that pose a threat to our
vivre-ensemble and democracy (as extreme religious beliefs, sects, etc.). Second, beliefs have
55
a lot of useful functions (which as we argued does not render them rational, but functional)
other than the epistemic functions of knowledge and truth, which is the function of scientific
methods. They have other epistemic functions, such as finding simple explanations to
uncertain or complex events, giving meaning to random events, and psychological functions,
such as regaining an illusory sense of control on events by having a ready-made explanation
or mastering anxiety by having identified a scapegoat (the alleged conspirators). Beliefs also
have social functions, such as collective reassurance in anxious times, strengthening cohesion
in groups sharing CTs, social proof by knowing more people sharing the same ideas, the
possibility to take collective political actions, etc. CTs also have narrative functions, as they
are extremely appealing stories to discover and share. In that sense, they are probably the
best-fitting mythology of our post-modern times.
56
Footnotes
1
https://www.planetoscope.com/entreprises/2026‐publications‐d‐articles‐scientifiques‐dans‐
le‐monde.html; https://www.science‐et‐vie.com/science‐et‐culture/les‐francais‐et‐le‐
paranormal‐sondage‐exclusif‐sv‐harris‐interactive‐6078 retrieved 11 January 2022.
2
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/06/fact-check-1964-lincoln-kennedy-
comparisons-only-partly-accurate/5311926002/ retrieved 11 January 2022.
3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b_nI6DlZP0 retrieved 11 January 2022.
4
Note that the medical metaphor (inoculation, vaccine, etc.) could suggest that some beliefs,
such as CTs, could be social diseases (like the "pandemic" of misinformation during COVID-
19 pandemic), which has alarmed philosophers defending CTs (e.g., Basham, 2017; Basham
& Dentith, 2016; Räikkä & Basham, 2018). But when some beliefs become dangerous for
democracy, such as religious extremism or CTs, we think that it is not undeserved to use the
medical metaphor (but for people allergic to it, they may replace medical terms with
"undesirable" or "dangerous" beliefs, "inoculation" by "avoiding undesirable beliefs", etc.,
which will not change anything in our arguments). It is true that as the medical metaphor has
been used in tyrannic political regimes to "reeducate" or "suppress" opponents; let us say here
that we do not consider CT beliefs as a mental disease to be cured by drugs and
hospitalisations, but as a socio-political syndrome, such as racism or religious radicalisation,
as personality traits such as right-wing authoritarianism, which at their extreme levels pose
threats to open societies and democracies. In addition, it is not only ironic, but also revealing,
that some of the busters of the medical metaphor used a medical metaphor when affirming the
existence of "healthy conspiracy theorizing" (Dentith, 2018), and asking for "healthy
democracy" (Basham, 2016).
57
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THE NOISES OF CONSPIRACY

The Noises of Conspiracy: Psychology of Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories

In this review, more than 10 years of research in conspiracy theory beliefs is

political extremism), the social category (intergroup competition), the personal

(psychopathological) category (personality traits, such as paranoia, schizotypy, narcissism,

Keywords. Conspiracy theories, conspiracist ideation, beliefs

The Noises of Conspiracy: Psychology of Beliefs in Conspiracy Theory

products in the "marketplace of ideas" (Dawkins, 1976; Sperber, 1985).

What is a conspiracy theory? According to Keeley (1999), conspiracy theories are

defined as explanations of historical events in terms of the significant causal agency of a

conducted by professional inquirers (i.e., investigative journalists, attorneys, lawyers, etc.)

hypothesis to corroborate or not with empirical proofs.

As we developed recently, however, the critical viewpoint about CTs seems to us to be

exact rate (k = the number of incompatible CTs):

conspiracies: Peter Knight’s (2002) Encyclopaedia of "Conspiracy Theories in American

be large — of proven conspiracies may be found (even if we count some successful

effective in democracies by being rare. In authoritarian regimes by contrast, it is easier for

denouncing the numerous negative side-effects of spreading insufficiently justified CTs

rehabilitate" by saying that some of them are useful and/or true.

irrational "religion of conspiracy") as well as promoting and politically encouraging counter-

politicians of being corrupt and/or Satanist paedophiles, based on "proofs" found on

biases, irrational and potentially dangerous beliefs, such as pseudoscience, creationism,

may not be irrational (Salvador Casara et al., 2022):

in conspiracy theories are sometimes viewed as driven by irrationality – a vision

that is indeed supported by vast literature about the negative consequences of

with dispositional constructs that are prodromal of mental diseases, such as

schizotypy and delusional thinking. However, factors that trigger conspiracy

socio-structural perceptions about societies, such as economic inequality. (p. 40)

Similarly, Harambam and Aupers (2015) advocated that:

Some scholars point to the (potential) rationality of conspiracy theories because

A paranoid habitus is, from this perspective, a “tactical”, “necessary”,

“reasonable”, “logical”, and “understandable” response to the complexities and

uncertainties of (post)modern society. (p. 467)

rationality. In the cognitive psychology of reasoning, rationality is defined as thinking, acting,

speaking, reasoning or taking a decision in conformity with a normative (scientific) theory.

rationality2, to distinguish it from rationality1, which would be primary, and defined as

speaking, reasoning or taking a decision that would be optimally adaptive to an environment

cultures (Wagner-Egger, 2011), etc.

the fulfillment of personal goals as equivalent to these inconceivable scientific discoveries,

seems to me nearly insulting.

logico-mathematical or linguistic), individuals who are labelled as irrational may of course

same with populism and conspiracism.

motivational reasons. Scientific rationality is not a cause of behaviour, it is a conscious aim

one — regarding the search for truth — is scientific rationality (rationality2).

societies (Harari, 2018).

The negative consequences of CT beliefs

presence of CTs in the process of Islamist radicalisation, by the reliance on a purported

At the level of interpersonal attitudes, beliefs in CTs tend to diminish prosocial

adherence is related to distrust of people in general. Likewise, satisfaction and engagement in

the summits of human cynicism.

significant part of the population of democracies having an inappropriate worldview, fuelled

19 since the beginning of the pandemic).

counter-accusation of slander and defamation.

The measures of CT beliefs

secretly prepared by a covert alliance of powerful individuals or organisations (for example,

slight differences, see Wagner-Egger et al., 2022).

speech in an unknown country (McCauley & Jacques, 1979), or an apparent interpersonal

The empirical results about CT beliefs in psychology

The conspiracy mentality

a conspiracy mentality (Moscovici, 1987), or a monological belief system (Goertzel, 1994). It