Sources on the Psychology of Conspiracy to Supplement Fuchsman’s Political Approach (response article)

Ken Fuchsman’s presentation was strong on political history with only brief comments on the underlying psychology. This has also been true of many discussions on the Psychohistory Forum’s Listserv. This may be because psychohistorians read political news, but many don’t follow the psychological research on conspiracy ideation. Fuchsman asked me to suggest some references to this literature, which I will do here.

Richard Hofstadter’s phrase “the paranoid style” naturally suggests looking at research on paranoid delusions. But Hofstadter was talking about a rhetorical style, not a mental illness. Psychological research has confirmed Hofstadter’s observation that people who use conspiracy ideation are not suffering from mental illness, perhaps with rare exceptions. A readable essay on this is Preston Bost’s “Crazy Beliefs, Sane Believers: Toward a Cognitive Psychology of Conspiracy Ideation” (Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 29, No. 1, January 2015), which you can easily find on the web.

Preston Bost reports that studies using the Big Five measures of personality traits have had some success. The Big Five personality traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Can you guess which of these five is most correlated with conspiracy ideation? If you read David Brooks’ column titled “Our Herd Immunity Failure” in the May 7, 2021 New York Times, you will get a hint. The trait that correlates best with conspiracy ideation is the lack of agreeableness, defined as being affable, tolerant, sensitive, trusting, kind, and warm. This meshes with Brooks’ discussion of how high levels of “distrust, suspicion, and alienation” have marred American politics. Lack of interpersonal trust is the key psychological factor here.

If you are open to a statistical study, I can recommend Cameron Kay’s “Predicting COVID-19 Conspiracist Ideation from the

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Dark Tetrad traits” (not yet published but available on the web). The traits that are investigated are Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. Kay finds relationships with Machiavellianism, a generalized distrust of others, with being rash and generally unconscientious.

Conspiracy theories are often used as rhetorical devices to persuade others, even if the speaker has no strong belief in them. If you are interested in this, I can recommend my article, “The Conspiracy Meme” (Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 35, No. 1, January/February 2011), easily found online. If you want to be prepared to treat clients who are involved with conspiracy theories, I would recommend looking at a website called Conspiracy Theory Addiction. Everyone finds that you can’t talk people out of conspiracy beliefs; indeed, arguing with them typically makes the problem worse. What you may be able to do is help them to be less obsessed with them. Strong beliefs don’t change abruptly, but they do fade away as people work on other problems.

There is a huge psychological literature on conspiracy ideation, much of it based on experimental studies and population surveys. I can recommend a review by Michael Butter and Peter Knight, “The History of Conspiracy Theory Research: A Review and Commentary.”  This is in a book edited by Joseph Uscinski called Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (2018), which has a lot of interesting papers (full disclosure: It includes one of mine). It is available on Amazon in Kindle or print format and is well worth reading.

Drawing links between the political history Fuchsman reviewed so well and the psychological literature isn’t easy, but psychohistorians have the skills for it. This can include biographical studies of leaders who use conspiracy theories as a rhetorical device, although it is hard to know when they believe what they say (sometimes) or when they are being manipulative (usually). If you have clients who are obsessed with conspiracy beliefs, you might get insights from them that could be written up as case studies. Academic social psychologists often do experiments where people are exposed to conspiracy arguments. Sociologists and political scientists are more likely to analyze population surveys or review political history. Each of these approaches has its strengths and weaknesses; I believe they can reinforce each other.

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