Measuring Individual Differences in Generic Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories Across Cultures: Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire

By Martin Bruder, Peter Haffke, Nick Neave, Nina Nouripanah, R. Imhoff. Frontiers in Psychology, 2013

816 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Conspiracy theories are ubiquitous when it comes to explaining political events and societal phenomena. Individuals differ not only in the degree to which they believe in specific conspiracy theories, but also in their general susceptibility to explanations based on such theories, that is, their conspiracy mentality. We present the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ), an instrument designed to efficiently assess differences in the generic tendency to engage in conspiracist ideation within and across cultures. The CMQ is available in English, German, and Turkish. In four studies, we examined the CMQ’s factorial structure, reliability, measurement equivalence across cultures, and its convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. Analyses based on a cross-cultural sample (Study 1a; N = 7,766) supported the conceptualization of conspiracy mentality as a one-dimensional construct across the three language versions of the CMQ that is stable across time (Study 1b; N = 141). Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated cross-cultural measurement equivalence of the CMQ items. The instrument could therefore be used to examine differences in conspiracy mentality between European, North American, and Middle Eastern cultures. In Studies 2–4 (total N = 476), we report (re-)analyses of three datasets demonstrating the validity of the CMQ in student and working population samples in the UK and Germany. First, attesting to its convergent validity, the CMQ was highly correlated with another measure of generic conspiracy belief. Second, the CMQ showed patterns of meaningful associations with personality measures (e.g., Big Five dimensions, schizotypy), other generalized political attitudes (e.g., social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism), and further individual differences (e.g., paranormal belief, lack of socio-political control). Finally, the CMQ predicted beliefs in specific conspiracy theories over and above other individual difference measures.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c1055f9c224fd48c0cd3df351705b275ab4a1add

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Citations in the corpus

A Bioweapon or a Hoax? The Link Between Distinct Conspiracy Beliefs About the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak and Pandemic Behavior (2020, positive): “…robust finding that content-wise even completely unrelated conspiracy beliefs are so highly intercorrelated that they typically load on one factor (Bruder et al., 2013; Swami et al., 2011) and are thus often understood as specific expressions of a generalized mindset or political attitude (Imhoff…”
Rumors and Health Care Reform: Experiments in Political Misinformation (2015, background): “18 Brotherton, French, and Pickering 2013; Bruder et al. 2013; Oliver and Wood 2014; Wood, Douglas, and Sutton 2012.”
Does Self-Love or Self-Hate Predict Conspiracy Beliefs? Narcissism, Self-Esteem, and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories (2016, positive): “…major political or social event is intentionally caused by ‘‘a secret plot by a covert alliance of powerful individuals or organizations’’ (Douglas & Suttton, 2011, p. 3; e.g., Bruder et al., 2013; Darwin, Neave, & Holmes, 2011; Grzesiak-Feldman, 2015; Kramer & Schaffer, 2014; Wilson & Rose, 2014).”
Beyond confidence: Development of a measure assessing the 5C psychological antecedents of vaccination (2018, methodology): “We further used validated scales to measure conspiracy mentality [36] and empowerment [45].”
Resolving the Puzzle of Conspiracy Worldview and Political Activism: Belief in Secret Plots Decreases Normative but Increases Nonnormative Political Engagement (2021, neutral): “The relatively high intercorrelations among the agreement with conspiracy theories that are largely independent in content (e.g., Bruder et al., 2013; Goertzel, 1994), even if they entail logically contradictory propositions (Wood et al., 2012) has led several authors to postulate a more general…”
Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: Validation of a French and English Single-Item Scale (2016, methodology): “Other scales still measure what is known as a generalized conspiratorial mindset where more general conspiracist views are examined rather than belief in specific conspiracy theories (e.g., Brotherton et al., 2013; Bruder et al., 2013).”
The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories (2017, background): “Other research indicates that conspiracy belief is strongly related to lack of sociopolitical control or lack of psychological empowerment (Bruder et al., 2013).”
Examining the Relationship Between Conspiracy Theories, Paranormal Beliefs, and Pseudoscience Acceptance Among a University Population (2014, background): “Recent investigations into conspiracy beliefs have begun to do so with the development of a Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (Bruder et al., 2013) and the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs scale (Brotherton, French, & Pickering, 2013).”