Given the potential political and social significance of conspiracy beliefs, a substantial and growing body of work examines the individual-level correlates of belief in conspiracy theories and general conspiratorial predispositions. However, although we know much about the psychological antecedents of conspiracy endorsement, we know less about the individual-level political causes of these prevalent and consequential beliefs. Our work draws from the extant literature to posit that endorsement of conspiracy theories is a motivated process that serves both ideological and psychological needs. In doing so, we develop a theory that identifies a particular type of person-one who is both highly knowledgeable about politics and lacking in trust-who is most susceptible to ideologically motivated conspiracy endorsement. Further, we demonstrate that the moderators of belief in conspiracy theories are strikingly different for conservatives and liberals. Contrary to the popular conception that conspiracy theorists are a small group of tinfoil hat-wearing men who spend most of their time in bunkers, conspiracy theories (CTs) are not solely the domain of extremists and paranoids. They cut across demographics and political attitudes (e.g., Goertzel 1994) and are common in countries across the globe (e.g., Byford and Billig 2001;Zonis and Joseph 1994). They are also pervasive: Oliver and Wood (2014, 953) report that across recent nationally representative surveys, "over half Joanne M. Miller is Associate Professor of Despite the consistent evidence regarding the psychological needs that conspiracy endorsement satisfies, as Uscinski and Parent (2014, 11) rightly note, this explanation

We have yet to know the ultimate global impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic. However, we do know that delays, denials and misinformation about COVID-19 have exacerbated its spread and slowed pandemic response, particularly in the U.S. (e.g., Abutaleb et al., 2020).

In recent weeks, several academic and journalistic outlets have documented widespread misinformation about the origins and potential treatment for COVID-19. This misinformation could have important public health consequences if misinformed people are less likely to heed the advice of public health experts. While some have anecdotally tied the prevalence of misinformation to misleading or inaccurate media coverage of the pandemic in its early stages, few have rigorously tested this claim empirically. In this paper, we report the results of an automated content analysis showing that right-leaning news outlets (e.g., Fox News, Breitbart) were more than 2.5 times more likely than mainstream outlets to discuss COVID-19 misinformation during the early stages of the U.S. pandemic response. In a nationally representative survey (N = 8,914) conducted from 3/10-3/16, we then show that people who consumed more right-leaning news during this timeframe were more than twice as likely to endorse COVID-related misinformation. Alarmingly, survey data further suggest that misinformation endorsement has negative public health consequences, as misinformed people are more likely to believe that the CDC is exaggerating COVID-related health risks.

In this article, we evaluate gender differences in COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs. We find that women are significantly less likely than men to endorse COVID-19 conspiracy theories and that this gender difference cuts across party lines. Our analysis suggests that this gender gap is partially explained by two dispositional factors: learned helplessness and conspiratorial thinking. Our findings qualify past work on the antecedents of conspiracy theory beliefs, which does not uncover robust and significant gender differences. The results highlight the need for work in this area to better theorize about the significance of gender.

A sizable literature tracing back to Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style (1964) argues that Republicans and conservatives are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than Democrats and liberals. However, the evidence for this proposition is mixed. Since conspiracy theory beliefs are associated with dangerous orientations and behaviors, it is imperative that social scientists better understand the connection between conspiracy theories and political orientations. Employing 20 surveys of Americans from 2012 to 2021 (total n = 37,776), as well as surveys of 20 additional countries spanning six continents (total n = 26,416), we undertake an expansive investigation of the asymmetry thesis. First, we examine the relationship between beliefs in 52 conspiracy theories and both partisanship and ideology in the U.S.; this analysis is buttressed by an examination of beliefs in 11 conspiracy theories across 20 more countries. In our second test, we hold constant the content of the conspiracy theories investigated—manipulating only the partisanship of the theorized villains—to decipher whether those on the left or right are more likely to accuse political out-groups of conspiring. Finally, we inspect correlations between political orientations and the general predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories over the span of a decade. In no instance do we observe systematic evidence of a political asymmetry. Instead, the strength and direction of the relationship between political orientations and conspiricism is dependent on the characteristics of the specific conspiracy beliefs employed by researchers and the socio-political context in which those ideas are considered. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-022-09812-3.