The psychological factors associated with acting on a conspiracy theory

New research published in the British Journal of Social Psychology suggests that people who believe in conspiracy theories do not always act on those beliefs in a uniform way. Instead, the likelihood that a person will act on a conspiracy theory tends to depend on how certain they are about the belief and how relevant they think it is for their daily decisions. These findings provide evidence that specific qualities of a belief shape how it translates into everyday behavior.

Conspiracy beliefs involve the idea that a small group of people is secretly working to cause harm to society. Past research indicates that these beliefs can be related to real-world actions like avoiding vaccines or voting for specific candidates. However, the average statistical relationship between believing in a conspiracy and actually taking action is quite weak.

“People often want to know whether conspiracy beliefs predict behavior,” said Javier Granados Samayoa, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Texas Christian University. Granados Samayoa noted that reviewing large collections of past studies, known as meta-analyses, reveals an inconsistent pattern. “If you look at meta-analyses on this topic, the answer is that there is evidence for a relation, but it tends to be somewhat modest and the strength can vary such that sometimes the relation is large and sometimes it is not.”

To understand why some people act on their beliefs and others do not, Granados Samayoa and co-author Dolores Albarracín designed a framework based on belief strength. Belief strength refers to the meta-cognitive judgments people make about their own thoughts. In other words, it is how people evaluate and understand what they believe.

“So what might account for this variability? We proposed that conspiracy beliefs have different qualities that influence whether the conspiracy belief-behavior relation is weaker or stronger,” Granados Samayoa explained. “For this research, we focused on the following qualities: the certainty with which people hold the belief, the importance of the belief, and how actionable (i.e., useful and relevant for making decisions).”

The authors proposed a step-by-step pathway. They suspected that conspiracy beliefs shape attitudes, which are a person’s positive or negative evaluations of a specific action.

“We also know that beliefs often have an impact on behavior by influencing intermediary variables so we used people’s attitudes toward the behavior in question as a mediator variable,” Granados Samayoa added. In turn, the researchers predicted that these intermediary attitudes would forecast actual behavior.

To test this model, the researchers carried out three separate studies. The first study included 1,959 participants from an online survey platform. The authors measured participants’ belief in the great replacement conspiracy theory, which falsely claims a secretive group is trying to make White Americans a minority group.

Participants answered questions about how certain they were in this belief and how relevant it was for their decisions. The researchers also measured their attitudes toward actions like voting for politicians who support strict immigration policies. To ensure accuracy, the scientists controlled for demographic variables like age, race, and sex.

The first study indicated that believing in this conspiracy theory predicted more positive attitudes toward anti-immigration actions. This association was strongest among people who felt highly certain about their belief. The link was amplified even further when participants felt their belief was highly actionable, meaning they saw it as a useful guide for their behavior.

“I was surprised that actionability mainly functioned to amplify the influence of certainty and importance in shaping the conspiracy belief-behavior relation,” Granados Samayoa told PsyPost, noting that actionability intensified the other qualities rather than driving the relationship on its own.

The second study utilized a nationally representative sample of 2,572 adults in the United States. The scientists measured beliefs in conspiracy theories claiming that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips or alter DNA. Participants rated how important the issue of vaccination was to them and how actionable they found their beliefs.

The authors also assessed attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine and asked participants if they had actually received at least one dose of the vaccine. This study accounted for factors like age, gender, race, education, political ideology, and income.

The second study provided evidence for the researchers’ full pathway. Belief in vaccine conspiracies predicted negative attitudes toward vaccination, which in turn predicted a lower likelihood of actually getting the vaccine. The negative association between the conspiracy belief and vaccine attitudes was strongest when the issue was rated as highly important. Just like in the first study, high perceived actionability amplified this effect.

The third study involved a sample of 1,551 adults in the United States and focused on the political domain. In the first phase of the study, participants reported their belief in a deep state conspiracy theory claiming that government officials were illegally working to undermine Donald Trump. The researchers measured the certainty and importance of this belief, as well as its perceived actionability.

They also measured participants’ attitudes toward political behaviors like donating money to a campaign or sharing information online. Three months later, the researchers followed up with the same participants. They asked how often the participants had actually engaged in those specific political behaviors during the intervening months.

The third study matched the patterns seen in the previous two. Belief in the deep state conspiracy theory robustly predicted positive attitudes toward supportive political actions. This link was strongest for people who reported high certainty and importance regarding their belief, combined with high perceived actionability. Additionally, those positive attitudes successfully predicted the actual frequency of political behaviors over the three-month follow-up period.

These patterns highlight a core finding across different domains. “Conspiracy beliefs are not created equal,” Granados Samayoa said. “You may have two people who seem to endorse a conspiracy theory to the same degree, but our work suggests that additional qualities of that belief like certainty and importance will shape how strongly that conspiracy belief predicts behavior, with actionability further amplifying this relation. Given that concerns about the negative behavioral consequences of conspiracy beliefs are so prominent, I think this additional information is worth keeping in mind when making decisions.”

These studies rely on statistical models to trace the pathway from beliefs to attitudes to behavior. This approach tracks variables in a way that limits the ability to definitively establish cause and effect. “Given our focus on measuring conspiracy beliefs, attitudes, and behavior as they exist in the real-world, our data are correlational,” Granados Samayoa explained.

It is possible that engaging in a behavior actually changes a person’s attitudes or beliefs, rather than the sequence flowing strictly from belief to action. The findings indicate that behavior is highly dependent on how a person subjectively weighs their own thoughts. If a belief is not viewed as important or useful for daily life, it tends to remain just a thought rather than a catalyst for action.

Future research could explore whether these properties of belief strength apply to non-conspiracy beliefs in the same way. Researchers might also test interventions designed to change a belief’s perceived actionability. By encouraging people to see a conspiratorial belief as less relevant to their personal choices, it might be possible to reduce harmful behaviors even if the underlying belief remains unchanged.

Going forward, Granados Samayoa hopes to expand on this framework. “I would like to provide a more comprehensive account of the different qualities of conspiracy beliefs that can shape how strongly they predict behavior,” he said.

The study, “Belief strength and the attitudinal and behavioural correlates of conspiracy beliefs,” was authored by Javier A. Granados Samayoa and Dolores Albarracín.