Thus, belief in conspiracy theories appears to be a “slippery slope”, where belief in one theory can quickly lead to espousal of other conspiracy theories, even when such theories are fictitious or mutually inconsistent with one another (e.g., Swami et al., 2011, Wood et al., 2012). This is characteristic of a “monological” or self-supporting belief system in which explanations about world events are processed not according to rational deliberation of the evidence but rather in terms of their consistency with a larger conspiratorial worldview (Dagnall et al., 2015, Lewandowsky et al., 2013b, Wood et al., 2012). For example, a number of recent studies have revealed that belief in one conspiracy is highly predictive of belief in other conspiracies (Goertzel, 1994, Swami et al., 2011). In fact, it is not belief in a particular conspiracy that is of interest here, but rather the social-psychological nature and consequences of conspiracy theorizing. It is important to note that the purpose of this line of research is not to ascertain whether or not a conspiracy theory is true 1. Although belief in conspiracy theories is sometimes associated with a latent psychopathology such as paranoid schizophrenia (Barron et al., 2014, Darwin et al., 2011), social-personality psychologists have developed an increased interest in explaining conspiracy ideation in the non-clinical population. While once conceived of as the “implausible visions of a lunatic fringe” (Melley, 2000), national surveys have revealed that over 50% of the American public now believes in at least one conspiracy (Oliver & Wood, 2014). These results strongly point to the socio-cognitive potency of conspiracies and highlight that exposure to popular conspiracy theories can have negative and undesirable societal consequences.Ī conspiracy theory purports that some covert and powerful individual(s), organization(s) or group(s) are intentionally plotting to accomplish some sinister goal (van der Linden, 2013). Results indicate that those participants who were exposed to the conspiracy video were significantly less likely to think that there is widespread scientific agreement on human-caused climate change, less likely to sign a petition to help reduce global warming and less likely to donate or volunteer for a charity in the next six months.
Participants ( N = 316) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (a) a brief conspiracy video about global warming, (b) an inspirational pro-climate video or (c) a control group. While past studies have mainly examined the personality correlates of conspiracy ideation, this study examines the conspiracy-effect the extent to which exposure to an actual conspiracy theory influences pro-social and environmental decision-making. Although public endorsement of conspiracy theories is growing, the potentially negative societal consequences of widespread conspiracy ideation remain unclear.
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