What makes a conspiracy theorist? Is it poor education, an overactive imagination, a tinfoil hat? According to one recent study, it isn’t any of that stuff, but instead something psychologically revealing: a deep insecurity about the world they inhabit.
The study, published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, examined 14 variables in demographics, ideology, and personality for links to conspiratorial thinking. Some 253 adults were recruited to participate in the study, primarily from the UK, US, Canada, and South Africa, with an average age of 49 years old.
Specifically, the researchers were interested in exploring factors that might influence whether a person has “beliefs about cover-ups.” This is the blanket idea that powerful organizations or collectives are concealing the truth from the entire world, which only the conspiracy-minded can see through.
“I have long been interested in conspiracy theories, having published around 20 papers on the topic over the past decade or so,” the study’s lead author and professor of psychology at the Norwegian Business School, Adrian Furnham, told PsyPost. “Few, if any, researchers have taken into account the ‘cover up’ perspective of conspiracy believers.”
To consistently measure conspiratorial thinking, the researchers created a 10-point scale, corresponding to responses to statements such as “politicians usually do not tell us the true motives for their decisions” and “government agencies closely monitor all citizens.” Participants also took a personality assessment called the High Potential Trait Indicator (HTPI), which measures six traits including competitiveness and tolerance of ambiguity.
When all was said and done, one of the main factors researchers found a strong correlation between endorsement of conspiracy theories and an intriguing characteristic: a low tolerance of ambiguity.
In other words, people who feel insecure or uncomfortable when they don’t know all the answers, or who can’t grasp that some situations are complex, multidimensional, and puzzling even to experts. Presented with a complicated set of issues or events, these folks were more likely to sign on to a hare-brained conspiracy theory that offered an easy answer, even if it was wrong, or an oversimplification.
There was also a significant correlation between those who believe that the world is fundamentally unfair — from a “human nature” point of view — and those who subscribe to far-fetched theories. Those who believe in an “unjust world,” the researchers found, were also more inclined to believe in shadowy groups pulling the strings.
Contrary to what many may think, the researchers found no correlation between a person’s level of education and their capacity to believe in absurd conspiracies. Basically, this suggests that intelligence isn’t a factor determining whether a person falls into a conspiracy rabbithole, which paints a far different picture of conspiracy theorists than the one we typically see.
Going forward, more research with a much larger sample size is needed to expand the findings. Still, it’s a fascinating glimpse at the factors that could shape conspiratorial thinking — concrete evidence that when faced with uncertainty, some of us really do prefer simple lies to complicated truths.
More on conspiracies: A Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI