Testing the socio-functional model: Does precarity cause conspiracy belief?

Abstract

Research seeking to explain why people believe conspiracies has largely focused on intrapsychic factors, but there is growing research examining structural-level elements of disadvantage. The socio-functional model of conspiracy belief (Adam-Troian et al., 2023, British Journal of Social Psychology, 62, 136) posits that subjective feelings of permanent insecurity arising from objective material strain (i.e., precarity) cause conspiracy belief directly or indirectly through institutional distrust. Across three preregistered studies using observational longitudinal designs over 3 (n = 637) and 11 months (n = 832), and a between-group experimental design (n = 285), we use various methods to estimate causal effects for this proposition during the current cost-of-living crisis. In Studies 1 and 2 using random intercept cross-lagged panel models, we find no evidence that increases in precarity temporally precede increases in conspiracy belief (or vice versa) but find stable between-persons effects over time. In Study 3, despite successfully manipulating precarity using a self-imagine paradigm, we find no direct or indirect effect on conspiracy belief through decreased government trust. We discuss the importance of using methods that permit credible causal inferences and key directions for future studies investigating the socio-functional model.