Karen M. Douglas, Robbie M. Sutton, Caspar J. Van Lissa, Wolfgang Stroebe, Jannis Kreienkamp, Maximilian Agostini, Jocelyn J. Bélanger, Ben Gützkow, Georgios Abakoumkin, Jamilah Hanum Abdul Khaiyom, Vjollca Ahmedi, Handan Akkas, Carlos A. Almenara, Mohsin Atta, Sabahat Cigdem Bagci, Sima Basel, Edona Berisha Kida, Allan B. I. Bernardo, Nicholas R. Buttrick, Phatthanakit Chobthamkit, Hoon‐Seok Choi, Mioara Cristea, Sára Csaba, Kaja Damnjanovic, Ivan Danyliuk, Arobindu Dash, Daniela Di Santo, Violeta Enea, Daiane Gracieli Faller, Gavan Fitzsimons, Alexandra Gheorghiu, Ángel Gómez, Ali Hamaidia, Qing Han, Mai Helmy, Joevarian Hudiyana, Bertus F. Jeronimus, Ding‐ Yu Jiang, Veljko Jovanović, Željka Kamenov, Anna Kende, Shian‐Ling Keng, Tra Thi Thanh Kieu, Yasin Koc, Kamila Kovyazina, Inna Kozytska, Joshua Krause, Arie W. Kruglanski, Anton Kurapov, Maja Kutlaca, Nóra Anna Lantos, Edward P. Lemay, Cokorda Bagus Jaya Lesmana, Winnifred R. Louis, Adrian Lueders, Najma Iqbal Malik, Anton Martinez, Kira O. McCabe, Jasmina Mehulić, Mirra Noor Milla, Idris Mohammed, Erica Molinario, Manuel Moyano, Hayat Muhammad, Silvana Mula, Hamdi Muluk, Solomiia Myroniuk, Reza Najafi, Claudia F. Nisa, Boglárka Nyúl, Paul A. O'Keefe, Jose Javier Olivas Osuna, Evgeny N. Osin, Joonha Park, Gennaro Pica, Antonio Pierro, Jonas Rees, Anne Margit Reitsema, Elena Resta, Marika Rullo, Michelle K. Ryan, Adil Samekin, Pekka Santtila, Edyta Sasin, Birga M. Schumpe, Heyla A. Selim, Michael Vicente Stanton, Samiah Sultana, Eleftheria Tseliou, Akira Utsugi, Jolien Anne van Breen, Kees Van Veen, Michelle R. vanDellen, Alexandra Vázquez, Robin Wollast, Victoria Wai‐Lan Yeung, Somayeh Zand, Iris L. Žeželj, Bang Zheng, Andreas Zick, Claudia Zúñiga, N. Pontus Leander

Identifying important individual‐ and country‐level predictors of conspiracy theorizing: A machine learning analysis

  • Social Psychology
Save to CiteDrive Show PDF

AbstractPsychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing—explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make it difficult to examine the relative importance of predictors, and risk overlooking some potentially relevant variables altogether. To overcome this limitation, the present study used machine learning to rank‐order the importance of 115 individual‐ and country‐level variables in predicting conspiracy theorizing. Data were collected from 56,072 respondents across 28 countries during the early weeks of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Echoing previous findings, important predictors at the individual level included societal discontent, paranoia, and personal struggle. Contrary to prior research, important country‐level predictors included indicators of political stability and effective government COVID response, which suggests that conspiracy theorizing may thrive in relatively well‐functioning democracies.

Need a simple solution for managing your BibTeX entries? Explore CiteDrive!

  • Web-based, modern reference management
  • Collaborate and share with fellow researchers
  • Integration with Overleaf
  • Comprehensive BibTeX/BibLaTeX support
  • Save articles and websites directly from your browser
  • Search for new articles from a database of tens of millions of references
Try out CiteDrive

More from our Archive