ArticleFrontiers in psychology2015
Conspiracy theory and cognitive style: a worldview.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Psychological Research on Conspiracy Beliefs: Field Characteristics, Measurement Instruments, and Associations With Personality Traits.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Pooled it
- Evaluating the psychometric properties of the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale: a Rasch modelling approach.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Leave the world(view) behind, but keep the words: The effect of conspiracism on writing.PloS one · 2026Article
- Neural correlates of conspiracy beliefs during information evaluation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Populist attitudes and belief in conspiracy theories: anti-elitist attitudes and the preference for unrestricted popular sovereignty reduce the positive impact of an analytical thinking style on conspiracy beliefs.BMC research notes · 2025Article
- Examining the degree to which paranormal belief and conspiracy endorsement influence meaning in life: sequential mediating effects of creativity and self-esteem.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Paranormal belief and conspiracy theory endorsement: variations in adaptive function and positive wellbeing.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Conspiracy beliefs and perceptual inference in times of political uncertainty.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Paranormal belief, psychopathological symptoms, and well-being: Latent profile analysis and longitudinal assessment of relationships.PloS one · 2024Article
- Who falls for fake news? Psychological and clinical profiling evidence of fake news consumers.Personality and individual differences · 2023Article
- The Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale-5: further psychometric evaluation using a United Kingdom-based sample.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Exploring vaccine hesitancy: the twofold role of critical thinking.Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Interconnectedness and (in)coherence as a signature of conspiracy worldviews.Science advances · 2022Article
- COVID-19 conspiracy ideation is associated with the delusion proneness trait and resistance to update of beliefs.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Impact of conspiracist ideation and psychotic-like experiences in patients with schizophrenia during the COVID-19 crisis.Journal of psychiatric research · 2022Article
- Psychotic-like experiences in the lonely predict conspiratorial beliefs and are associated with the diet during COVID-19.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Article
- Profiles in conspiracism: Associations with two psychiatric syndromes, religiosity and pandemic-related health behaviors.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- What drives beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories? The role of psychotic-like experiences and confinement-related factors.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Article
- Are COVID-19 conspiracies a threat to public health? Psychological characteristics and health protective behaviours of believers.European journal of social psychology · 2021Article
- Soaring seas, forest fires and deadly drought: climate change conspiracies and mental health.BJPsych bulletin · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This paper assessed whether belief in conspiracy theories was associated with a particularly cognitive style (worldview). The sample comprised 223 volunteers recruited via convenience sampling and included undergraduates, postgraduates, university employees, and alumni. Respondents completed measures assessing a range of cognitive-perceptual factors (schizotypy, delusional ideation, and hallucination proneness) and conspiratorial beliefs (general attitudes toward conspiracist thinking and endorsement of individual conspiracies). Positive symptoms of schizotypy, particularly the cognitive-perceptual factor, correlated positively with conspiracist beliefs. The best predictor of belief in conspiracies was delusional ideation. Consistent with the notion of a coherent conspiratorial mindset, scores across conspiracy measures correlated strongly. Whilst findings supported the view that belief in conspiracies, within the sub-clinical population, was associated with a delusional thinking style, cognitive-perceptual factors in combination accounted for only 32% of the variance.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.