Conspiracy theorySomething’s going on here: Building a comprehensive profile of conspiracy thinkers

By Joshua Hart

Published 25 September 2018

By and large, people gravitate toward conspiracy theories that seem to affirm or validate their political views. Republicans are vastly more likely than Democrats to believe the Obama “birther” theory or that climate change is a hoax. Democrats are more likely to believe that Trump’s campaign “colluded” with the Russians. But some people are habitual conspiracists who entertain a variety of generic conspiracy theories.

Here’s a theory: President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Here’s another: Climate change is a hoax. Here’s one more: The “deep state” spied on Donald Trump’s campaign, and is now trying to destroy his presidency.

Who believes this stuff? Conspiracy theories have been cooked up for ages, but for the first time in history, we have a president who has regularly endorsed them. Assuming that President Donald Trump’s preoccupation is genuine, he shares it with many fellow Americans. What explains it?

I’m a psychologist who studies, among other things, people’s worldviews and belief systems. I wanted to figure out why some people gobble up conspiratorial explanations, while others dismiss them as the raving of lunatics.

Consistency in views
By and large, people gravitate toward conspiracy theories that seem to affirm or validate their political views. Republicans are vastly more likely than Democrats to believe the Obama “birther” theory or that climate change is a hoax. Democrats are more likely to believe that Trump’s campaign “colluded” with the Russians.

But some people are habitual conspiracists who entertain a variety of generic conspiracy theories.

For example, they believe that world politics are controlled by a cabal instead of governments, or that scientists systematically deceive the public. This indicates that personality or other individual differences might be at play.

In fact, some people seem to be downright devoted to conspiracy theories. When conspiracy maven Alex Jones’ content was recently banned from several social media websites, the popularity of his Infowars news app skyrocketed.

Scientific research examining the nature of the “conspiratorial disposition” is abundant, but scattershot. So in a pair of new studies, and with help from my student Molly Graether, I tried to build on previous research to piece together a more comprehensive profile of the typical conspiracy theory believer, and for that matter, the typical non-believer.

Common traits
We asked more than 1,200 American adults to provide extensive information about themselves and whether they agreed with generic conspiratorial statements. We tried to measure as many personal factors as possible that had been previously linked to conspiracy belief. Looking at many traits simultaneously would allow us to determine, all else being equal, which ones were most important.