Is Belief in Conspiracy Theories Pathological? A Survey Experiment on the Cognitive Roots of Extreme Suspicion

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 47, Issue 1, 2017, Pages 113-129

  Radnitz, Scott ^a   Underwood, Patrick ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85006284618     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123414000556     Document Type: Review

References (75)

1. Aaronovitch, David. 2010. Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History. New York: Riverhead Books.
2. Abalakina-Paap, Marina, Walter G. Stephan, Traci Craig, and W. Larry Gregory. 1999. Beliefs in Conspiracies. Political Psychology 20 (3):637-47.
3. Adorno, Theodor W., Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford. 1950. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harpers.
4. Atran, Scott. 2004. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5. Barabas, Jason, and Jennifer Jerit. 2010. Are Survey Experiments Externally Valid? American Political Science Review 104 (2):226-42.
6. Bartels, Larry M. 2002. Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions. Political Behavior 24 (2):117-50.
7. Bentall, Richard P., Peter Kinderman, and Sue Kaney. 1994. The Self, Attributional Processes and Abnormal Beliefs: Towards a Model of Persecutory Delusions. Behaviour Research and Therapy 32 (3):331-41.
8. Berinsky, Adam. 2010. Poll shows false Obama beliefs a function of partisanship. Huffington Post. Available from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-berinsky/poll-shows-false-obama-be-b-714503.html, accessed 24 November 2013.
9. Brader, Ted. 2005. Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters by Appealing to Emotions. American Journal of Political Science 49 (2):388-405.
10. Brotherton, Robert, Christopher C. French, and Alan D. Pickering. 2013. Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale. Frontiers in Psychology 4:1-15.
11. Bruder, Martin, Peter Haffke, Nick Neave, Nina Nouripanah, and Roland Imhoff. 2013. Measuring Individual Differences in Generic Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories across Cultures: Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology 4 (279).
12. Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman. 2007. Framing Public Opinion in Competitive Democracies. American Political Science Review 101 (4):637-55.
13. Conover, Pamela Johnston, and Stanley Feldman. 1986. Emotional Reactions to the Economy: I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore. American Journal of Political Science 30 (1):50-78.
14. -. 1989. Candidate Perception in an Ambiguous World: Campaigns, Cues, and Inference Processes. American Journal of Political Science 33 (4):912-40.
15. Conspiracy Theory Poll Results. 2013. Public Policy Polling. Available from http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/04/conspiracy-theory-poll-results-.html, accessed 24 November 2013.
16. Cook, Timothy E., and Paul Gronke. 2005. The Skeptical American: Revisiting the Meanings of Trust in Government and Confidence in Institutions. Journal of Politics 67 (3):784-803.
17. Dean, Jodi. 2000. Theorizing Conspiracy Theory. Theory & Event 4 (3).
18. Douglas, Karen M., and Robbie M. Sutton. 2008. The Hidden Impact of Conspiracy Theories: Perceived and Actual Influence of Theories Surrounding the Death of Princess Diana. Journal of Social Psychology 148 (2):210-22.
19. Douglas, Tom. 1995. Scapegoats: Transferring Blame. New York: Routledge.
20. Drezner, Daniel. 2010. The Paranoid Style in World Politics. The Spectator, 8 May.
21. Einstein, Katherine Levine, and David M. Glick. 2014. Do I Think BLS Data are BS? The Consequences of Conspiracy Theories. Working paper, available at http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kleinstein/files/einstein-glick-bls.pdf.
22. Feldman, Stanley, and Karen Stenner. 1997. Perceived Threat and Authoritarianism. Political Psychology 4 (18):741-70.
23. Fenster, Mark. 1991. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
24. Fiske, Susan T., and Shelley E. Taylor. 1991. Social Cognition, 2nd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.
25. Gaines, Brian J., James H. Kuklinski, Paul J. Quirk, Buddy Peyton, and Jay Verkuilen. 2007. Same Facts, Different Interpretations: Partisan Motivation and Opinion on Iraq. Journal of Politics 69 (4):957-74.
26. Gigerenzer, Gerd. 2007. Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. New York: Penguin.
27. Goertzel, Ted. 1994. Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Political Psychology 15 (4):731-42.
28. Hidell, Al, and Joan D'Arc, eds. 2004. The New Conspiracy Reader. New York: Citadel Press.
29. Hofstadter, Richard. 1964. The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Harper's, November: 77-86.
30. Huckfeldt, R. Robert. 1995. Citizens, Politics and Social Communication: Information and Influence in an Election Campaign. New York: Cambridge University Press.
31. Huddy, Leonie, Stanley Feldman, Charles Taber, and Gallya Lahav. 2005. Threat, Anxiety, and Support of Antiterrorism Policies. American Journal of Political Science 49 (3):593-608.
32. Imai, Kosuke, Gary King, and Olivia Lau. 2009. Zelig: Everyone's Statistical Software. Available at http://gking.harvard.edu/zelig
33. Imhoff, Roland, and Martin Bruder. 2014. Speaking (Un-)Truth to Power: Conspiracy Mentality as a Generalised Political Attitude. European Journal of Personality 28 (1):25-43.
34. Klonoff, Elizabeth A., and Hope Landrine. 1999. Do Blacks Believe that HIV/AIDS is a Government Conspiracy against Them? Preventive Medicine 28 (5):451-7.
35. Kogut, Tehila, and Ilana Ritov. 2005. The 'Identified Victim' Effect: An Identified Group, or Just a Single Individual? Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 18 (3):157-67.
36. Lau, Richard R., and David P. Redlawsk. 2001. Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision Making. American Journal of Political Science 45 (4):951-71.
37. Leman, Patrick J., and Marco Cinnirella. 2007. A Major Event has a Major Cause: Evidence for the Role of Heuristics in Reasoning about Conspiracy Theories. Social Psychological Review 9:18-28.
38. Lerner, Jennifer S., and Dacher Keltner. 2001. Fear, Anger, and Risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 (1):146-59.
39. Levi, Margaret. 1989. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley: University of California Press.
40. -. 1997. Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
41. Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber. 2005. The Automaticity of Affect for Political Leaders, Groups, and Issues: An Experimental Test of the Hot Cognition Hypothesis. Political Psychology 26 (3):455-82.
42. Malhotra, Neil, and Alexander G. Kuo. 2008. Attributing Blame: The Public's Response to Hurricane Katrina. Journal of Politics 70 (1):120-35.
43. Marcus, George E., W. Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen. 2000. Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
44. Marcus, George E., John L. Sullivan, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, and Daniel Stevens. 2005. The Emotional Foundation of Political Cognition: The Impact of Extrinsic Anxiety on the Formation of Political Tolerance Judgments. Political Psychology 26 (6):949-63.
45. Melley, Timothy. 2000. Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
46. Mutz, Diana C. 2011. Population-Based Survey Experiments. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
47. Nyhan, Brendan, and Jason Reifler. 2010. When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions. Political Behavior 32 (2):303-30.
48. Parker, Christopher S., and Matt A. Barreto. 2013. Change They Can't Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
49. Parsons, Sharon, William Simmons, Frankie Shinhoster, and John Kilburn. 1999. A Test of the Grapevine: An Empirical Examination of Conspiracy Theories among African Americans. Sociological Spectrum 19 (2):201-22.
50. Pew Research Center. 2010. The People and Their Government: Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor. Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. 18 April.
51. Pipes, Daniel. 1997. Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From. New York: Simon & Schuster.
52. Prooijen, Jan Willem, and Nils B. Jostmann. 2013. Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Influence of Uncertainty and Perceived Morality. European Journal of Social Psychology 43 (1):109-15.
53. Redlawsk, David P. 2002. Hot Cognition or Cool Consideration? Testing the Effects of Motivated Reasoning on Political Decision Making. Journal of Politics 64 (4):1021-44.
54. Robins, Robert Sidwar. 1997. Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
55. Rosenberg, Morris R. 1965. Society and Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
56. Ross, Michael W., E. James Essien, and Isabel Torres. 2006. Conspiracy Beliefs about the Origin of HIV/AIDS in Four Racial/Ethnic Groups. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 41 (3):342-4.
57. Small, Deborah A., Jennifer S. Lerner, and Baruch Fischhoff. 2006. Emotion Priming and Attributions for Terrorism: Americans' Reactions in a National Field Experiment. Political Psychology 27 (2): 289-98.
58. Small, Deborah A., and George Loewenstein. 2003. Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 26:5-16.
59. -. 2005. The Devil You Know: The Effects of Identifiability on Punishment. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 18 (5):311-18.
60. Stinson, Danu Anthony, Christine Logel, Mark P. Zanna, John G. Holmes, Jessica J. Cameron, Joanne V. Wood, and Steven J. Spencer. 2008. The Cost of Lower Self-Esteem: Testing a Self-and-Social-Bonds Model of Health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94 (3):412-28.
61. Sullivan, Daniel, Mark J. Landau, and Zachary K. Rothschild. 2010. An Existential Function of Enemyship: Evidence that People Attribute Influence of Personal and Political Enemies to Compensate for Threats to Control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98 (3):434-49.
62. Sullivan, John L., and John E. Transue. 1999. The Psychological Underpinnings of Democracy: A Selective Review of Research on Political Tolerance, Interpersonal Trust, and Social Capital. Annual Review of Psychology 50 (1):625-50.
63. Swami, Viren. 2012. Social Psychological Origins of Conspiracy Theories: The Case of the Jewish Conspiracy Theory in Malaysia. Frontiers in Psychology 3 doi: 10.3389.
64. Swami, Viren, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, and Adrian Furnham. 2010. Unanswered Questions: A Preliminary Investigation of Personality and Individual Difference Predictors of 9/11 Conspiracist Beliefs. Applied Cognitive Psychology 24 (6):749-61.
65. Swami, Viren, and Rebecca Coles. 2010. The Truth is Out There: Belief in Conspiracy Theories. The Psychologist 23 (7):560-3.
66. Swami, Viren, Rebecca Coles, Stefan Stieger, Jakob Pietschnig, Adrian Furnham, Sherry Rehim, and Martin Voracek. 2011. Conspiracist Ideation in Britain and Austria: Evidence of a Monological Belief System and Associations between Individual Psychological Differences and Real World and Fictitious Conspiracy Theories. British Journal of Psychology 102 (3):443-63.
67. Taber, Charles S., and Milton Lodge. 2006. Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs. American Journal of Political Science 50 (3):755-69.
68. Turner, Patricia A. 1993. I Heard It through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
69. Uscinski, Joseph E., and Joseph M. Parent. 2014. American Conspiracy Theories. New York: Oxford University Press.
70. Valentino, Nicholas A., Vincent L. Hutchings, Antoine J. Banks, and Anne K. Davis. 2008. Is a Worried Citizen a Good Citizen? Emotions, Political Information Seeking, and Learning via the Internet. Political Psychology 29 (2):247-73.
71. Vedantam, Shankar. 2014. More Americans than You Might Think Believe in Conspiracy Theories. npr.org, 4 June. Available from http://www.npr.org/2014/06/04/318733298/more-americans-than-youmight-think-believe-in-conspiracy-theories, accessed 23 June 2014.
72. Weiner, Bernard. 1995. Judgments of Responsibility: A Foundation for a Theory of Social Conduct. New York: Guilford Press.
73. Whitson, Jennifer A., and Adam D. Galinsky. 2008. Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception. Science 322 (5898):115-17.
74. Wood, Michael J., Karen M. Douglas, and Robbie M. Sutton. 2011. Dead and Alive Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories. Social Psychological and Personality Science 3 (6):767-73.
75. Zaller, John R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.