Australasian Public Awareness and Belief in Conspiracy Theories: Motivational Correlates

Abstract

Conspiracism is not restricted to the fringe dwellers of society. International research suggests that such beliefs are quite common and that conspiracy theories may serve three basic psychological motives (i.e., epistemic, existential, and relational) for individuals. Yet, little is known about conspiracy theory awareness or conspiracism in Australasia. We report the first large systematic investigation of system justifying motives using two nationally representative samples of Australians (n = 1,011) and New Zealanders (n = 754). Our findings show that almost all are aware of local and international conspiracies, and the majority endorse one or more. Also, that all three psychological motives consistently relate to conspiracism but not to awareness. In a series of hierarchical multiple regressions, we find that epistemic (i.e., decreased analytic thinking), existential (i.e., less trust in others, and socially conservative political ideology and increased religiosity), and relational motives (i.e., increased anomie and disillusionment with the government) were all significant unique predictors of increased local and international conspiracism. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of understanding conspiracism as an ideological belief system that may function to serve underlying psychological motives.

The usual suspects: How psychological motives and thinking styles predict the endorsement of well‐known and COVID‐19 conspiracy beliefs

“…For example, Newheiser et al (2011) showed that the more strongly someone endorsed New Age beliefs, the more likely they believed the Da Vinci Code conspiracy. Similarly, Marques et al (2021) found a positive relationship between a one‐item measure that combined religion and spirituality (i.e., religion/spirituality) and belief in local and international conspiracy theories. However, both these studies had limited operationalizations of either conspiracy beliefs or spirituality—while the former investigated relation with one specific conspiracy theory, the latter combined religion and spirituality in one item.…”

“…However, there is still little empirical groundwork in understanding how these variables work together and which ones are more relevant. Only rarely have studies made strides to assess the joint contribution of various predictors (e.g., Marques et al, 2021). This is problematic, especially because many psychological motives or concepts overlap (Douglas et al, 2017), so exploring individual correlates might fail to assess the relative importance of predictors.…”

The Usual Suspects: How psychological motives and thinking styles predict the endorsement of well-known and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs

“…For example, Newheiser et al (2011) showed that the more strongly someone endorsed New Age beliefs, the more likely they believed the Da Vinci Code conspiracy. Similarly, Marques et al (2021) found a positive relationship between a one-item measure that combined religion and spirituality (i.e., religion/spirituality) and belief in local and international conspiracy theories. However, both these studies had limited operationalizations of either conspiracy beliefs or spirituality-while the former investigated relation with one specific conspiracy theory, the latter combined religion and spirituality in one item.…”

“…However, there is still little empirical groundwork in understanding how these variables work together and which ones are more relevant. Only rarely have studies made strides to assess the joint contribution of various predictors (e.g., Marques et al, 2021). This is problematic, especially because many psychological motives or concepts overlap (Douglas et al, 2017), so exploring individual correlates might fail to assess the relative importance of predictors.…”

Why are beliefs in different conspiracy theories positively correlated across individuals? Testing monological network versus unidimensional factor model explanations

“…For example, a nationally representative sample of 1935 members of the American public (Oliver & Wood, 2014) found that 55% of participants expressed agreement with at least one of seven conspiracy theories including narratives claiming that vapour trails left by aircraft are actually chemical agents ("chemtrails") sprayed as part of a clandestine government programme (9% agreed). A more recent study of conspiracy beliefs in demographically representative samples of Australians and New Zealanders reported that approximately half of the participants from each nation (56.7% Australians and 50.1% of New Zealanders) endorsed one or more of seven local conspiracy theories (Marques et al, 2021). Furthermore, these data showed that some people believed in several conspiracy theories, whereas others believed in none.…”