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.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Populist attitudes and the tendency to believe in specific conspiracy theories (conspiracy beliefs) are often exploited by extremist or populist parties. However, more scientific research is needed to scrutinize this association. Consequently, the present non-preregistered exploratory online study assessed whether and how conspiracy beliefs and populist attitudes are associated and whether populist attitudes moderate the association between the preference for an analytical or intuitive thinking style and conspiracy beliefs.

Results

We assessed 483 nonclinical individuals regarding their conspiracy beliefs, populist attitudes, and thinking styles and found a moderate correlation between populist attitudes and conspiracy beliefs. Conspiracy beliefs were significantly

SUBMITTER: Mehl S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11817401 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature