Over the past few months, we have seen an increase in people who believe in conspiracy theories. These individuals, like followers of QAnon to COVID-deniers, have always fascinated researchers. Now, we may have a greater understanding of these individuals.
Bowes, Costello, Ma, and Lilienfeld (2020) used community (Amazon’s Mechanical Turk) and student participants to examine conspiratorial ideation. Through the course of four studies, the researchers found the explanation was complex, multifaceted.
They found some correlates — both positive and negative. In their own words: “A mixture of narcissism and undue intellectual certainty, on the one hand, conjoined with poor impulse control, angst, interpersonal alienation, and reduced inquisitiveness, on the other hand, may provide a personological recipe for a tendency to impetuously latch on to spurious but confidently held causal narratives that account for one’s distress and resentment. To the persons fitting this portrait, positing a world populated by malevolent actors hatching secret plots may be comforting, as it may afford at least a partial explanation for their otherwise inexplicable negative emotions” (pg. 12).
This was an interesting study.