Conspiracy Thinking and Belief in Political Conspiracy Theories: A Moderating Effect of Political

?Congruence

Omer Yair, Reichman University

Shira Hebel-Sela, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Amnon Cavari, Reichman University

Asif Efrat, Reichman University

Various studies from different countries have shown that people's predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories, commonly referred to as "conspiracy thinking", strongly predicts belief in a myriad of conspiracy theories. In addition, other studies have shown that people's political preferences, while orthogonal to conspiracy thinking, also predict beliefs in many conspiracy theories, such that people tend to believe conspiracy theories that accuse their political rivals of conspiring and are less likely to believe in those that entail a conspiracy of the political ingroup. In this paper we examine whether conspiracy thinking and political preferences interact in predicting belief in conspiracy theories that involve political actors and groups. Specifically, we argue that the conspiracy thinking's effect is moderated by political congruence, such that this effect is stronger when the conspiracy theories are congruent with one's political preferences than when the conspiracy theories are incongruent with those preferences. Building on two studies in the US (total N=4,786; with 41 conspiracy theories) and four studies in Israel (total N=5,979; with 20 conspiracy theories), we find strong and consistent support for our argument. By contrast, we find no interactive effect for belief in non-political conspiracy theories. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the study of conspiracy theory endorsement

The data is collected with the assistance of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) as part of the Program on Democratic Resilience (PDRD) at the Lauder School of Government

For registration: https://www.eventer.co.il/research220525