Most of Us Believe in at Least One Conspiracy Theory, Scientists Say

A new meta analysis of 170 studies identifies qualities of people who believe conspiracy theories. Here’s what it found.

Getty Images

• A new meta analysis of 170 studies identifies qualities of people who believe conspiracy theories.
• This paper is not a new study; it’s a statistical analysis of existing work and findings.
• Researchers find that most people in the world believe at least one conspiracy theory.

Most people believe at least one conspiracy theory, according to a new paper in the journal Psychological Bulletin that combines years of studies and papers on conspiracy theory thinking into one big meta analysis. The analysis is not a comment or political statement on the idea of conspiracy theories, but instead a straightforward look at the people who believe them.

Shauna Bowes, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Emory University, led the team, which includes two other researchers. In their paper, they note that this field has exploded in recent years: not conspiracy theories necessarily, but the study of them. Their goal in the new paper was to survey existing literature—the researcher in-term for a compilation of papers that have already been published—to come up with an analysis of what this collective body of work is saying. In other words, it’s a snapshot of a given field of study at a particular time.

There’s a striking statistic right at the start, which cites at least six supporting studies: “[M]ost surveyed participants all over the world endorse at least one conspiracy theory.” The cited studies predate the COVID-19 pandemic, which spawned a handful of pretty major conspiracy theories by itself (like this one). One reason a meta analysis of literature may be especially useful now is because we’re likely to see a swell of research on these specific conspiracy theories in the years to come. Establishing an occasional status quo or baseline in the field can help those researchers in the future.

How do you combine “170 studies, 257 samples, 52 variables, 1,429 effect sizes, and 158,473 participants”? Bowes and her colleagues looked at two research questions in particular: “(a) What are the motivational correlates of conspiratorial ideation? (b) What are the personological correlates of conspiratorial ideation?”

Read More – Most of Us Believe in at Least One Conspiracy Theory, Scientists Say