Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-23T21:00:25.455Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are All ‘Birthers’ Conspiracy Theorists? On the Relationship Between Conspiratorial Thinking and Political Orientations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2018

Adam M. Enders ,
Steven M. Smallpage  and
Robert N. Lupton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While research on conspiracy theories and those who believe them has recently undergone a renaissance, there still exists a great deal of uncertainty about the measurement of conspiratorial beliefs and orientations, and the consequences of a conspiratorial mindset for expressly political attitudes and behaviors. We first demonstrate, using data from the 2012 American National Election Study, that beliefs in a variety of specific conspiracy theories are simultaneously, but differentially, the product of both a general tendency toward conspiratorial thinking and left/right political orientations. Next, we employ unique data including a general measure of conspiratorial thinking to explore the predictors of specific conspiracy beliefs. We find that partisan and ideological self-identifications are more important than any other variable in predicting ‘birther’ beliefs, while conspiratorial thinking is most important in predicting conspiracy beliefs about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Keywords

conspiracy theorypartisanshipmotivated reasoningstructural equation modeling
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 849 - 866
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Department of Political Science, University of Louisville (E-mail: [email protected]); Department of Political Sciences, Stetson University (email: [email protected]); Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut (email: [email protected]). We thank the participants on the conspiracy panel at the 2016 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association for their helpful suggestions, as well as the anonymous reviewers who provided thoughtful comments about the manuscript. Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at https://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JVBAWN, and online appendices att https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123417000837.

References

Abalakina-Paap, Marina, Stephan, Walter G., Craig, Traci, and Gregory, W. Larry. 1999. Belief in Conspiracies. Political Psychology 20 (3):637–647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2002. Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions. Political Behavior 24:117–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blank, Joshua M., and Shaw, Daron. 2015. Does Partisanship Shape Attitudes toward Science and Public Policy? The Case for Ideology and Religion. ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 658:18–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brotherton, Rob, and French, Christopher C.. 2015. Intention Seekers: Conspiracist Ideation and Biased Attributions of Intentionality. PloS ONE 10 (5):e0124125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brotherton, Rob, French, Christopher C., and Pickering, Alan D.. 2013. Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale. Frontiers in Psychology 4:279.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Browne, Michael W., and Cudeck, Robert. 1992. Alternative Ways of Assessing Model Fit. Sociological Methods and Research 21 (2):230–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruder, Martin, Haffke, Peter, Neave, Nick, Nouripanah, Nina, and Imhoff, Roland. 2013. Measuring Individual Differences in Generic Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories Across Cultures: Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology 4:225.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bullock, John G., Gerber, Alan S., Hill, Seth J., and Huber, Gregory A.. 2015. Partisan Bias in Factual Beliefs about Politics. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 10:519–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angus, , Philip E. Converse, Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1960. The American Voter. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Douglas, Karen M., and Sutton, Robbie. 2010. The Hidden Impact of Conspiracy Theories: Perceived and Actual Influence of Theories Surrounding the Death of Princess Diana. Journal of Social Psychology 148 (2):210–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enders, Adam M., Smallpage, Steven M., Lupton, Robert N.. 2018. Replication data for: “Are All ‘Birthers’ Conspiracy Theorists?: On the Relationship Between Conspiratorial Thinking and Political Orientations”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JVBAWN, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:jtkvwKb1sJNkB+th76CaGQ==.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenster, Mark. 2008. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Goertzel, Ted. 1994. Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Political Psychology 15:731–742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goren, Paul. 2005. Party Identification and Core Political Values. American Journal of Political Science 49:881–896.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hargrove, Thomas. 2006. Third of Americans Suspect 9–11 Government Conspiracy. Available from http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll, accessed 11 June 2015.Google Scholar
Hartman, Todd K., and Newmark, Adam J.. 2012. Motivated Reasoning, Political Sophistication, and Associations between President Obama and Islam. PS: Political Science and Politics 45 (3):449–455.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, Richard. 1964. The Paranoid Style in American Politics. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Hu, Li-tze, and Bentler, Peter M.. 1999. Cutoff Criteria for Fit Indexes in Covariance Structure. Analysis: Conventional Criteria Versus New Alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling 6 (1):1–55.Google Scholar
Jolley, Daniel, and Douglas, Karen M.. 2014. The Social Consequences of Conspiracism: Exposure to Conspiracy Theories Decreases Intentions to Engage in Politics and to Reduce One’s Carbon Footprint. British Journal of Psychology 105:35–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keeley, Brian L. 1999. Of Conspiracy Theories. Journal of Philosophy 96 (3):109–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kline, Rex B. 2011. Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling, 3rd edition, New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Kraft, Patrick W., Lodge, Milton, and Taber, Charles S.. 2015. Why People ‘Dont Trust the Evidence’: Motivated Reasoning and Scientific Beliefs. ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 658:121–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kunda, Ziva. 1990. The Case for Motivated Reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 108:480–498.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lodge, Milton, and Taber, Charles S.. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCright, Aaron M., and Dunlap, Riley E.. 2011. The Politicization of Global Climate Change and Polarization in the American Publics Views of Global Warming, 2001–2010. Sociological Quarterly 52 (2):155–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Joanne M., Saunders, Kyle L., and Farhart, Christina E.. 2016. Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust. American Journal of Political Science 60:824–844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moscovici, Serge. 1987. The Conspiracy Mentality. In Changing Conceptions of Conspiracy, edited by F. Graumann and S. Moscovici, 151–169. New York: Springer Press.Google Scholar
Oliver, J. Eric, and Wood, Thomas J.. 2014. Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Styles(s) of Mass Opinion. American Journal of Political Science 58 (4):952–966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasek, Josh, Stark, Tobias H., Krosnick, Jon A., and Tompson, Trevor. 2015. What Motivates a Conspiracy Theory? Birther Beliefs, Partisanship, Liberal-Conservative Ideology, and Anti-Black Attitudes. Electoral Studies 40:482–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swami, Viren, Barron, David, Weis, Laura, Voracek, Martin, Stieger, Stefan, and Furnham, Andrian. 2017. An Examination of the Factorial and Convergent Validity of Four Measures of Conspiracist Ideation, with Recommendations for Researchers. PLoS ONE 12 (2):e0172617.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Swami, Viren, Pietschnig, Jakob, Tran, Ulrich S., Nader, Ingo W., Stieger, Stefan, and Voracek, Martin. 2013. Lunar Lies: The Impact of Informational Framing and Individual Differences in Shaping Conspiracist Beliefs about the Moon Landings. Applied Cognitive Psychology 27:71–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swami, Viren, Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas, and Furnham, Adrian. 2010. Unanswered Questions: A Preliminary Investigation of Personality and Individual Difference Predictors of 9/11 Conspiracist Beliefs. Applied Cognitive Psychology 24:749–761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taber, Charles S., and Lodge, Milton. 2006. Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs. American Journal of Political Science 50 (3):755–769.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uscinski, Joseph E., Klofstad, Casey, and Atkinson, Matthew D.. 2016. What Drives Conspiratorial Beliefs? The Role of Informational Cues and Predispositions. Political Research Quarterly 69:57–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uscinski, Joseph E., and Parent, Joseph M.. 2014. American Conspiracy Theories. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Michael J., Douglas, Karen M., and Sutton, Robbie M.. 2012. Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories. Social Psychological and Personality Science 3 (6):767–773.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Enders et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JVBAWN
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Enders et al. supplementary material

Enders et al. supplementary material
Download Enders et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 163.4 KB