Does it take one to know one? Endorsement of conspiracy theories is influenced by personal willingness to conspire
Open accessAbstract
We advance a new account of why people endorse conspiracy theories, arguing that individuals use the social-cognitive tool of projection when making social judgements about others. In two studies, we found that individuals were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories if they thought they would be willing, personally, to participate in the alleged conspiracies. Study 1 established an association between conspiracy beliefs and personal willingness to conspire, which fully mediated a relationship between Machiavellianism and conspiracy beliefs. In Study 2, participants primed with their own morality were less inclined than controls to endorse conspiracy theories - a finding fully mediated by personal willingness to conspire. These results suggest that some people think 'they conspired' because they think 'I would conspire'.
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Belief in one conspiracy theory predicts belief in other, unrelated conspiracy theories.
“A common research finding is that belief in one conspiracy theory predicts belief in other, unrelated conspiracy theories.”
From Connecting the dots: illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural (2018) · cites this paper as Douglas & Sutton, 2011
Endorsement of conspiracy theories is associated with people's own willingness to engage in a conspiracy themselves when deemed necessary.
“endorsement of conspiracy theories is also associated with people's own willingness to engage in a conspiracy themselves when deemed necessary [46]”
From The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science (2013) · cites this paper as [46]
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Tam, K., & Chan, H. (2023) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102129 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
The History of Conspiracy Theory Research
Bütter, M., & Knight, P. (2018) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190844073.003.0002 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
The generic conspiracist beliefs scale – 5: A short-form measure of conspiracist ideation
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Empowerment as a Tool to Reduce Belief in Conspiracy Theories
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The Psychology of AIDS Denialism
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- Authors
- Douglas, K. M., & Sutton, R. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Kent (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Douglas, Karen M.
- Venue
- British Journal of Social Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2011-04-12
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 544-552
- ISSN
- 0144-6665 (ISSN-L)
- 2044-8309
- OpenAlex
- W1928059346
- Cited by
- 261
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 42 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 19.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- British Journal of Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Kent Academic Repository (University of Kent) (acceptedVersion)
- 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, projection, Machiavellianism, social cognition, moral self
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Cooperative Behavior, Female, United Kingdom, Humans, Machiavellianism, Male, Models, Theoretical, Power, Psychological, Young Adult
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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.
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