The relationship between conspiracy theory beliefs and political violence

Abstract

Recent instances of political violence have prompted concerns over the relationship between conspiracy theory beliefs and violence. Here, we examine the relationships between beliefs in various conspiracy theories and three operationalizations of violence––support for political violence, self-reported engagement in political violence, and engagement in non-political conflict. While we did observe significant correlations between most conspiracy theory beliefs and (support for) violence, we also observed considerable variability in the correlations. We found that this variability is related to the popularity of the conspiracy theories. Specifically, conspiracy theory beliefs that are more “fringe,” held by smaller groups of homogenous people, are likely to be more strongly correlated with (support for) violence than beliefs in more popular theories. Our findings have implications for those seeking to curtail conspiracy theory-related violence.