What Drives Conspiratorial Beliefs? The Role of Informational Cues and Predispositions
Abstract
Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? This study breaks from much previous research and attempts to explain conspiratorial beliefs with traditional theories of opinion formation. Specifically, we focus on the reception of informational cues given a set of predispositions (political and conspiratorial). We begin with observational survey data to show that there exists a unique predisposition that drives individuals to one degree or another to believe in conspiracy theories. This predisposition appears orthogonal to partisanship and predicts political behaviors including voter participation. Then a national survey experiment is used to test the effect of an informational cue on belief in a conspiracy theory while accounting for both conspiratorial predispositions and partisanship. Our results provide an explanation for individual-level heterogeneity in the holding of conspiratorial beliefs and also indicate the conditions under which information can drive conspiratorial beliefs.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
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?
Extreme and entrenched attitude positions are associated with conspiracy beliefs.
“On one hand, extreme and entrenched attitude positions are associated with conspiracy beliefs, suggesting that they may help people defend beliefs from disconfirmation (Uscinski, Klofstad, & Atkinson, 2016).”
From The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories (2017) · cites this paper as Uscinski, Klofstad, & Atkinson, 2016
Cites
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
Zaller, J. R. (1992) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511818691 · Cited by 7,785 · see citing works
Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing
Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., Seifert, C. M., Schwarz, N., & Cook, J. (2012) · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · doi:10.1177/1529100612451018 · Cited by 2,920 · see citing works
The Effects of Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories on Vaccination Intentions
Jolley, D., & Douglas, K. M. (2014) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0089177 · Cited by 1,232 · see citing works
A postmodern Pandora's box: anti-vaccination misinformation on the internet
Kata, A. (2010) · Vaccine · doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2009.12.022 · Cited by 1,208 · see citing works
Goertzel, T. (1994) · Political Psychology · doi:10.2307/3791630 · Cited by 1,094 · see citing works
Conspiracy theories: Causes and cures
Sunstein, C. R., & Vermeule, A. (2009) · Journal of Political Philosophy · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9760.2008.00325.x · Cited by 1,050 · see citing works
Bruder, M., Haffke, P., Neave, N., Nouripanah, N., & Imhoff, R. (2013) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00225 · Cited by 1,049 · cited 3× · see citing works
“In accord with previous findings (e.g., Bruder et al. 2013), we expect that if our measure of conspiratorial predispositions is valid, those higher on the conspiratorial predispositions measure will identify more groups.”
BackgroundResultSpeaking (Un–)Truth to Power: Conspiracy Mentality as A Generalised Political Attitude
Imhoff, R., & Bruder, M. (2014) · European Journal of Personality · doi:10.1002/per.1930 · Cited by 831 · see citing works
The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science
Lewandowsky, S., Gignac, G. E., & Oberauer, K. (2013) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075637 · Cited by 693 · see citing works
Jolley, D., & Douglas, K. M. (2014) · British Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1111/bjop.12018 · Cited by 685 · see citing works
Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories
Wood, M. J., Douglas, K. M., & Sutton, R. M. (2012) · Social Psychological and Personality Science · doi:10.1177/1948550611434786 · Cited by 660 · see citing works
Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, G. E. (2013) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797612457686 · Cited by 638 · see citing works
Abalakina‐Paap, M., Stephan, W. G., Craig, T., & Gregory, W. L. (1999) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/0162-895x.00160 · Cited by 589 · see citing works
Keeley, B. L. (1999) · The Journal of Philosophy · doi:10.2307/2564659 · Cited by 581 · see citing works
Hajnal, Z. L., & Lee, T. (2011) · doi:10.1515/9781400838776 · Cited by 308 · see citing works
The Effect of High-Anxiety Situations on Conspiracy Thinking
Grzesiak-Feldman, M. (2013) · Current Psychology · doi:10.1007/s12144-013-9165-6 · Cited by 287 · see citing works
Do I Think BLS Data are BS? The Consequences of Conspiracy Theories
Einstein, K. L., & Glick, D. M. (2015) · Political Behavior · doi:10.1007/s11109-014-9287-z · Cited by 277 · see citing works
Douglas, K. M., & Sutton, R. M. (2011) · British Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8309.2010.02018.x · Cited by 261 · see citing works
Banas, J. A., & Miller, G. (2013) · Human Communication Research · doi:10.1111/hcre.12000 · Cited by 233 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Such studies show that popular movies (Butler, Koopman, and Zimbardo 1995; Mulligan and Habel 2013), documentary films (Banas and Miller 2013), news reports, and other forms of information (Bost and Prunier 2013; Raab et al. 2013; Stempel, Hargrove, and Stempel 2007; Swami et al. 2013) can drive…”
BackgroundButler, L. D., Koopman, C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1995) · Political Psychology · doi:10.2307/3791831 · Cited by 199 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Such studies show that popular movies (Butler, Koopman, and Zimbardo 1995; Mulligan and Habel 2013), documentary films (Banas and Miller 2013), news reports, and other forms of information (Bost and Prunier 2013; Raab et al. 2013; Stempel, Hargrove, and Stempel 2007; Swami et al. 2013) can drive…”
Background
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election
Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.31.2.211 · Cited by 6,767 · see citing works
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 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Psychology of Conspiracy Theories
Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017) · Current Directions in Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0963721417718261 · Cited by 1,316 · see citing works
The Nature and Origins of Misperceptions: Understanding False and Unsupported Beliefs About Politics
Flynn, D. J., Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. (2017) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12394 · Cited by 1,183 · see citing works
An overview of online fake news: Characterization, detection, and discussion
Zhang, X., & Ghorbani, A. A. (2020) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2019.03.004 · Cited by 997 · see citing works
Science audiences, misinformation, and fake news
Scheufele, D. A., & Krause, N. M. (2019) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1805871115 · Cited by 878 · see citing works
Zimmermann, F., & Kohring, M. (2020) · Political Communication · doi:10.1080/10584609.2019.1686095 · Cited by 227 · see citing works
Collective Narcissism: Political Consequences of Investing Self‐Worth in the Ingroup’s Image
Golec de Zavala, A., Dyduch‐Hazar, K., & Lantos, D. (2019) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12569 · Cited by 200 · see citing works
“Findings (Golec de Zavala & Federico, 2018a) also indicate that apart from being associated with a belief in hostile conspiracies of particular outgroups, collective narcissism is linked to conspiratorial thinking in more general terms, an essentially content-free tendency to believe that secretive “them” conspire aga…”
The effect of conspiratorial thinking and motivated reasoning on belief in election fraud
Edelson, J., Alduncin, A., Krewson, C., Sieja, J. A., & Uscinski, J. E. (2017) · Political Research Quarterly · doi:10.1177/1065912917721061 · Cited by 198 · see citing works
“I Know Things They Don’t Know!”: The Role of Need for Uniqueness in Belief in Conspiracy Theories
Lantian, A., Muller, D., Nurra, C., & Douglas, K. M. (2017) · Social Psychology · doi:10.1027/1864-9335/a000306 · Cited by 176 · see citing works
Epistemic beliefs’ role in promoting misperceptions and conspiracist ideation
Garrett, R. K., & Weeks, B. E. (2017) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184733 · Cited by 167 · see citing works
Golec de Zavala, A., & Federico, C. M. (2018) · European Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1002/ejsp.2496 · Cited by 136 · see citing works
Carey, J. M., Guess, A. M., Loewen, P. J., Merkley, E., Nyhan, B., Phillips, J. B., & Reifler, J. (2022) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-021-01278-3 · Cited by 118 · see citing works
Are conspiracy theories harmless?
Douglas, K. M. (2021) · The Spanish Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1017/sjp.2021.10 · Cited by 92 · see citing works
“For example, Uscinski et al. (2016) included the word “conspiracy” in a survey about media coverage during the 2012 U.S. presidential election.”
BackgroundInformational cues, partisan-motivated reasoning, and the manipulation of conspiracy beliefs
Enders, A. M., & Smallpage, S. M. (2019) · Political Communication · doi:10.1080/10584609.2018.1493006 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
'The Government Spies Using Our Webcams': The Language of Conspiracy Theories in Online Discussions
Samory, M., & Mitra, T. (2018) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3274421 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
- Authors
- Uscinski, J. E., Klofstad, C., & Atkinson, M. D.
- Affiliations
- University of Miami (US)
- Miami University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Uscinski, Joseph E.
- Venue
- Political Research Quarterly
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2016-01-13
- Volume
- 69
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 57-71
- ISSN
- 1065-9129 (ISSN-L)
- 1938-274X
- OpenAlex
- W2337241778
- Cited by
- 478
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 44 · 2023: 52 · 2022: 89 · 2021: 60 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 64 · 2018: 54 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 128.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Political Research Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Keywords
- conspiracy beliefs, conspiracy theories, informational cues, opinion formation, partisanship, electoral participation, political behavior, individual heterogeneity, belief formation
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
