The DOI matches its Crossref record; 96 of the 96 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
“I Know Things They Don’t Know!”: The Role of Need for Uniqueness in Belief in Conspiracy Theories
Open accessAbstract
Abstract. In the current research, we investigated whether belief in conspiracy theories satisfies people’s need for uniqueness. We found that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories was associated with the feeling of possessing scarce information about the situations explained by the conspiracy theories (Study 1) and higher need for uniqueness (Study 2). Further two studies using two different manipulations of need for uniqueness (Studies 3 and 4) showed that people in a high need for uniqueness condition displayed higher conspiracy belief than people in a low need for uniqueness condition. This conclusion is strengthened by a small-scale meta-analysis. These studies suggest that conspiracy theories may serve people’s desire to be unique, highlighting a motivational underpinning of conspiracy belief.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“conspiracy beliefs are higher when people want to (1) feel good about themselves and the groups they belong to [31,32,21]”
From The dark side of social movements: social identity, non-conformity, and the lure of conspiracy theories (2020) · cites this paper as [32]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“studies found that stronger uniqueness needs were linked to stronger conspiracy theory beliefs [31,32,36].”
From The dark side of social movements: social identity, non-conformity, and the lure of conspiracy theories (2020) · cites this paper as [32]
In the citing paper
“all conspiracy theories assert to know of secret information [32]”
From The dark side of social movements: social identity, non-conformity, and the lure of conspiracy theories (2020) · cites this paper as [32]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses
Higgins, J. P. T., Thompson, S. G., Deeks, J. J., & Altman, D. G. (2003) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7414.557 · Cited by 63,139
Lakoff, G. P., & Johnson, M. L. (2003) · University of Chicago Press eBooks · doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226470993.001.0001 · Cited by 25,466
Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.98.2.224 · Cited by 21,995
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2009) · doi:10.1002/9780470743386 · Cited by 14,225
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2021) · doi:10.1002/9781119558378 · Cited by 9,799
Cohen, J. (1992) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037//0033-2909.112.1.155 · Cited by 8,771
The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time
Brewer, M. B. (1991) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167291175001 · Cited by 5,107
The New Statistics: Why and How
Cumming, G. (2014) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797613504966 · Cited by 3,200
Self and Collective: Cognition and Social Context
Turner, J. C., Oakes, P. J., Haslam, S. A., & McGarty, C. (1994) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167294205002 · Cited by 2,364
Consumers' Need for Uniqueness: Scale Development and Validation
Tian, K. T., Bearden, W. O., & Hunter, G. L. (2001) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/321947 · Cited by 1,791
Research works printed but not linked: 7
- 10.2466/17.04/PR0.113x17z0 · DOI
- 10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.155 · DOI · Paper page
- Lantian, A. (2015). Rôle fonctionnel de l’adhésion aux théories du complot : un moyen de distinction ? [The functional role of believing in conspiracy theories: A way to distinguish ourselves from others?] (Doctoral dissertation, Université Grenoble Alpes). Retrieved from https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01251554/document
- 10.1177/1094428106296636 · DOI
- Schwarzer G., 2007, R News, 7, 40
- Simmons J. P., 2012, Dialogue: The Official Newsletter of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 26, 4
- Wagner-Egger P., 2007, Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, 20, 31
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Understanding Conspiracy Theories
Douglas, K. M., Uscinski, J. E., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C. S., & Deravi, F. (2019) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12568 · Cited by 1,511
Imhoff, R., & Lamberty, P. (2020) · Social Psychological and Personality Science · doi:10.1177/1948550620934692 · Cited by 722
“This is relevant, as endorsement of conspiracy beliefs has been associated with an increased need for uniqueness in both correlational and experimental studies (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2017; Lantian et al., 2017).”
BackgroundDouglas, K. M. (2021) · Group Processes & Intergroup Relations · doi:10.1177/1368430220982068 · Cited by 404
“For instance, people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories if they need to feel unique compared to others (Lantian et al., 2017), feel a need to belong (Graeupner & Coman, 2017), or feel that their group is underappreciated (Cichocka et al., 2016) or under threat (Jolley et al., 2018).”
BackgroundBiddlestone, M., Green, R., & Douglas, K. M. (2020) · British Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1111/bjso.12397 · Cited by 330
“For example, the need for uniqueness, which is argued to be a central feature of individualism (e.g., Cai et al., 2018;Wang, Fan, & Ouyang, 2017), consistently predicts conspiracy beliefs (Hart & Graether, 2018; Lantian et al., 2017).”
BackgroundDouglas, K. M., & Sutton, R. M. (2022) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-032420-031329 · Cited by 376
Metadata
- Authors
- Lantian, A., Muller, D., Nurra, C., & Douglas, K. M.
- Affiliations
- Université Paris Nanterre (FR)
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France
- Université Grenoble Alpes (FR)
- University of Kent (GB)
- Venue
- Social Psychology
- Publisher
- Hogrefe Publishing Group
- Published
- 2017-07
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 160-173
- ISSN
- 1864-9335 (ISSN-L)
- 2151-2590
- OpenAlex
- W2735482984
- Cited by
- 176
- References
- 96
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 10
- FWCI
- 24.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- Kent Academic Repository (University of Kent) (submittedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Keywords
- conspiracy theories, need for uniqueness, conspiracy beliefs
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
