Conspiracy Theories Are for Losers

Abstract

faculty paper series, the University of Miami Law and Policy Workshop, and the 2011 Florida Political Science Association. The authors are grateful to the participants of these meetings for valuable comments and to many research assistants, especially Jing Chen, for their exhausting labors. Generous financial support provided by the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences. Enduring errors have nothing to do with the authors. Any flaws in the work are solely the fault of secretive powerful groups.

Girl in the cellar: a repeated cross-sectional investigation of belief in conspiracy theories about the kidnapping of Natascha Kampusch

“…Indeed, almost all psychological studies on conspiracy theories to date have focused on constrained periods of time, taking a snapshot of particular conspiracy theorizing at a given point. Although cross-sectional studies have been useful, there is a need to supplement the existing database with longitudinal studies (Uscinski et al, 2011). …”

“…In their longitudinal assessment of published letters to the editor of the New York Times from 1897 to 2010, Uscinski et al (2011) reported that international and domestic conflicts influenced when and how conspiracy theories became more prominent in the United States. More specifically, they found that conspiracy theories were more frequent and vociferous during times of elections and wars.…”

“…More specifically, they found that conspiracy theories were more frequent and vociferous during times of elections and wars. Even so, systematic longitudinal work on conspiracy theories remains in its infancy and further prospective work may highlight important dimensions of conspiracy theorizing that have hitherto been neglected (Uscinski et al, 2011). …”

Conspiracy Theory: Truth Claim or Language Game?

“…In contrast to the approach inspired by Hofstadter, this category of research literature tends to have a more hermeneutic and less dismissive approach to conspiracy theories: Some conspiracy theories may be factually wrong, while others contain some or many elements of truth, but in any case they should be viewed as meaningful responses to the experience of certain political, social and cultural conditions rather than simply dismissed as pathological. In this category of literature we find the works of Dean (1998), Melley (1999), Knight (2001), Fenster (2008), Uscinski et. al.…”

Anti-Western Conspiracy Thinking and Expectations of Collusion: Evidence from Russia and China

“…Although public interest in conspiracy theories may be increasing, there has been surprisingly little empirical research on this topic. A number of studies have investigated issues of conspiracies in terms of psychology (Goertzel 1994;Abalakina-Paap et al 1999;Swami et al 2010;Douglas and Sutton 2011;Swami et al 2011;Wood et al 2012; Prooijen and Jostmann 2013), political science (Uscinski et al 2011;Einstein and Glick 2013;Oliver and Wood 2014) and philosophy (Clarke 2002;Sunstein and Vermeule 2009). To our knowledge, our paper is the first in the economics literature to address the issue of conspiracy thinking and the first to study the impacts of anti-Western conspiracy thinking in particular.…”