The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories

The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories Karen M. Douglas Robbie M. Sutton Aleksandra Cichocka

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The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories 2017 Current Directions in Psychological Science 10.1177/0963721417718261 douglas2017-the-psychology-of-conspiracy-theor douglas2017-the-psychology-of-conspiracy-theor.txt, the project's staged copy 7534c003cde5881547d35e660da16a9e80212059 cc-by social-psychology

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0 spans located by searching the stored text for the quote's exact words, allowing any whitespace between them belief in conspiracy theories, and whether the motives that attract people to them are satisfied by them Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what psychological factors drive conspiracy belief, and what its consequences are for the believer Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a three-motive organising schema - epistemic, existential, social - and the finding that the literature answers the drivers far better than the consequences Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. critique Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conspiracy belief as motivated social cognition that may thwart the very motives it answers Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. review review Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. because the theory posits that conspirators use stealth and disinformation, any evidence against it can be read as part of the cover-up - including the debunker immunity to disconfirmation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. disconfirming evidence is recast as the product of a conspiracy, so a cherished belief survives contact with the evidence against it belief protection by reattribution Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. attributing negative outcomes to powerful others lets the self and in-group stay competent and moral while explaining their disadvantage compensatory blame Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the literature answers what drives conspiracy belief far more thoroughly than what it does to the believer Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the experimental samples are undergraduates and survey panellists who are neither threatened nor inclined to endorse conspiracy theories - not the population the claim is about Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conspiracy theories sometimes turn out to be true, and have brought real elite misconduct to light Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. fair tests require controlled longitudinal work on disadvantaged and threatened populations, which has not been done Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the epistemic / existential / social motive taxonomy, carried from system-justification theory into the study of conspiracy belief Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. normative standards of causal explanation from the philosophy of science, used to characterise what conspiracy theories are Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. evidence from the population the claim is about - people whose psychological needs are chronically or experimentally threatened eliminates: rival readings of the needs-to-conspiracy link - and the paper's point is that the existing samples CANNOT eliminate them, because the people studied are not the threatened population the claim is about · outcome: absent-stated-about-other Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. an experimental baseline for the control manipulation, against which conspiracy belief was compared eliminates: a level of conspiracy belief being read as heightened when nothing establishes what the ordinary level is · outcome: held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. whether exposure to conspiracy theories helps rather than harms - tested directly rather than assumed from the correlational pattern eliminates: a correlation between powerlessness and conspiracy belief being read as conspiracy theories SERVING the need - the experiment tests the direction the correlation cannot · outcome: failed Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. whether the trust effect is specific to the institutions a given theory names eliminates: a fall in institutional trust that is about the institution the theory names rather than about institutions · outcome: held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conspiracy theories conspiracy theories Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. epistemic epistemic Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. existential existential Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. social social Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. system-justification theory system-justification theory Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. cheater detection cheater detection Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. collective narcissism collective narcissism Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. anomie anomie Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. motivated social cognition motivated social cognition Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 'conspiracy theory' = an explanation of an important event by secret plots of powerful and malevolent groups Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. its three defining attributes are SPECULATIVE, COMPLEX and RESISTANT TO FALSIFICATION - properties of the explanation's form, not its content Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. each attribute is the negation of a normative standard for causal explanation - empirically warranted, parsimonious, falsifiable Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the three-motive taxonomy is called 'a useful HEURISTIC', borrowed from system-justification theory rather than derived Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 'more appealing than satisfying' - the paper's own summary of the gap between what draws people and what they get Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. claim_type: mechanism a second reading DIFFERING from the recorded value. Recorded: critique — note: A BLIND second reading by the project on 2026-08-25: the record's own claim type/method/phenomenon were not looked at until every value here was written and substring-verified. Not applied - a person decides. Sampling frame: the 504 staged records carrying no alternatives block, so this never re-measures the 202. All 11 records with 130+ tags were taken as a census and 19 more spread one per discipline across 22 disciplines - the dense non-neuroscience cell is the one the 202 do not contain (inside them, 94-100% of the densest bands are neuroscience; among these 11, one is)., Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. method: review a second reading DIFFERING from the recorded value. Recorded: review — note: A BLIND second reading by the project on 2026-08-25: the record's own claim type/method/phenomenon were not looked at until every value here was written and substring-verified. Not applied - a person decides. Sampling frame: the 504 staged records carrying no alternatives block, so this never re-measures the 202. All 11 records with 130+ tags were taken as a census and 19 more spread one per discipline across 22 disciplines - the dense non-neuroscience cell is the one the 202 do not contain (inside them, 94-100% of the densest bands are neuroscience; among these 11, one is)., Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. phenomenon: the epistemic, existential and social motives that draw people to conspiracy theories a second reading DIFFERING from the recorded value. Recorded: conspiracy belief as motivated social cognition that may thwart the very motives it answers — note: A BLIND second reading by the project on 2026-08-25: the record's own claim type/method/phenomenon were not looked at until every value here was written and substring-verified. Not applied - a person decides. Sampling frame: the 504 staged records carrying no alternatives block, so this never re-measures the 202. All 11 records with 130+ tags were taken as a census and 19 more spread one per discipline across 22 disciplines - the dense non-neuroscience cell is the one the 202 do not contain (inside them, 94-100% of the densest bands are neuroscience; among these 11, one is)., Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. qualifies → early theories holding that conspiracy belief gives compensatory satisfaction when needs are threatened note: the attraction is confirmed and the compensation is not - people turn to them when threatened, and are left less in control Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → system-justification theory, from which the three-motive taxonomy is taken Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. distinguishes-from → the normative standards of causal explanation used in science note: the definition of the object of study is stated as the negation of those standards Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conspiracy theories —is-a→ motivated social cognition conspiracy theories motivated social cognition strength of the relation: 0.85 · note: offered as a possibility rather than asserted - 'might be seen as an ironic or self-defeating manifestation' Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but conspiracy theories 'might be seen as' a manifestation of motivated social cognition; hedged. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conspiracy theories —causes→ anomie conspiracy theories anomie direction on the measure: increases · strength of the relation: 0.85 · direction on the measure (stated by the tagger, no quotation): increases · note: the paper states this as plausible and bidirectional - 'not only a symptom but also a cause' Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but it is 'plausible' that conspiracy theories cause anomie; hedged. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. collective narcissism —causes→ conspiracy theories collective narcissism conspiracy theories status: ASSOCIATIONAL, IN A REVIEW OF SURVEY FINDINGS: 'conspiracy belief is associated with narcissism ... Conspiracy belief is also predicted by collective narcissism'. 'Associated with' and 'predicted by' are the paper's own verbs, and the edge type is stronger than either. · direction on the measure: increases · strength of the relation: 0.85 · direction on the measure (stated by the tagger, no quotation): increases Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but the span writes 'conspiracy belief', not 'conspiracy theories' (named in the previous sentence). Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Conspiracy belief appears to stem from epistemic, existential and social motives; research has yet to show it serves them. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. exposure suppresses the sense of autonomy and control and reduces willingness to vote or engage in party politics Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. exposure decreases trust in governmental institutions even when the theory is unrelated to them Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conspiracy belief correlates with lower analytic thinking, lower education, and perceiving agency where there is none Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conspiracy theories conspiracy theories Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. collective narcissism collective narcissism Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. anomie anomie Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. correlational association between conspiracy belief and analytic thinking correlational association between conspiracy belief and analytic thinking Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conspiracy belief conspiracy belief Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. narcissism narcissism Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.

The full text of this article is not redistributable, so it is not included here. The evidence sentences are withheld with it; the tag layer and its grounding status remain. The article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417718261.