You believe what?!: Relational closeness and belief relevance predict conspiracy belief tolerance

Abstract

Hardly a day passes without seeing the negative consequences of conspiracy beliefs manifest in headline news. While a great deal of research has examined the causes and consequences of believing conspiracy theories, relatively little research has examined the reaction to one’s belief in conspiracy theories from one’s social network. We asked participants to indicate how they would react if a family member, friend, or co-worker believed a series of conspiracy theories (e.g., Would they be willing to tolerate those beliefs? Would they be willing to confront those beliefs?). Also, we examined the role of Actively Openminded Thinking (AOT; Svedholm-Hakkinen & Lindeman, 2018) to examine the extent to which it predicted the belief in conspiracy theories and the acceptance of those beliefs in others. Study 1 and Study 2 were nearly identical, except the former consisted of an internet sample and the latter consisted of college students. Together, the data from these studies revealed that conspiracy beliefs that had direct consequences for the participant were less likely to be tolerated and more likely to be confronted. The closer the relationship of the believer to the participant, the more likely the participant was to tolerate and confront the belief. Finally, AOT scores were associated with a decreased tendency to believe in conspiracies and an increased tendency to confront those beliefs in others. These data inform our understanding of social and individual factors that lead to confrontation of conspiracy beliefs and increase our understanding of the AOT construct.