What Are Conspiracy Theories? A Definitional Approach to Their Correlates, Consequences, and Communication

Abstract

Conspiracy theories are abundant in social and political discourse, with serious consequences for individuals, groups, and societies. However, psychological scientists have started paying close attention to them only in the past 20 years. We review the spectacular progress that has since been made and some of the limitations of research so far, and we consider the prospects for further progress. To this end, we take a step back to analyze the defining features that make conspiracy theories different in kind from other beliefs and different in degree from each other. We consider how these features determine the adoption, consequences, and transmission of belief in conspiracy theories, even though their role as causal or moderating variables has seldom been examined. We therefore advocate for a research agenda in the study of conspiracy theories that starts—as is routine in fields such as virology and toxicology—with a robust descriptive analysis of the ontology of the entity at its center. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 74 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

What is so special about conspiracy theories? Conceptually distinguishing beliefs in conspiracy theories from conspiracy beliefs in psychological research

“…Mobilising more precise definitions of the notion of conspiracy theory may allow us to address this mismatch, and to draw more precise theoretical inference from empirical research. It may also improve the generation of hypotheses regarding the causes and consequences of conspiracy theories (Douglas & Sutton, 2022). Finally, it may facilitate interdisciplinary discussions with disciplines that have already formulated criticisms against psychologists' approach to conspiracy theories (e.g., Harambam, 2020;Butter & Knight, 2015; see also Butter & Knight, 2020), and help "bridging the great divide" between social sciences studying conspiracy theories (e.g., Butter & Knight, 2015).…”

Comparing the Ideological Correlates of Anti-Government and Anti-Roma Conspiracy Beliefs in Romania

“…Conspiracy beliefsbeliefs that two or more actors have coordinated in secret to achieve an outcome, and that their actions are of public interest but not widely known by the public (Sutton & Douglas, 2022) are strongly and positively interrelated, often to the point that they can be statistically considered as reflecting a single underlying construct (Sutton & Douglas, 2020). For this reason, many authors endorse the assumption that belief in conspiracy theories is to a large extent underpinned by some kind of conspiracist predisposition (Imhoff et al, 2022).…”

Rabbit Hole Syndrome: Inadvertent, accelerating, and entrenched commitment to conspiracy beliefs

“…To paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir (1949), "One is not born, but made, a conspiracy theorist". Nonetheless, with some exceptions (Jolley et al, 2021), research has typically focused on a small set of immediate antecedent variables (Douglas & Sutton, 2022), rather than the dynamic development of conspiracy beliefs. For that matter, with some exceptions (Frenken & Imhoff, 2021), theory and research has focused more on these variables than the people they affect.…”