TY - JOUR
T1 - The Paranoid Style in American Politics Revisited
T2 - An Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
AU - van der Linden, Sander
AU - Panagopoulos, Costas
AU - Azevedo, Flávio
AU - Jost, John T.
N1 - Funding Information:
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Sander van der Linden, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Site, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK. E-mail: sander.vanderlinden@psychol.cam.ac.uk
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Political Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/2
Y1 - 2021/2
N2 - It is often claimed that conspiracy theories are endorsed with the same level of intensity across the left-right ideological spectrum. But do liberals and conservatives in the United States embrace conspiratorial thinking to an equivalent degree? There are important historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons dating back to Richard Hofstadter's book The Paranoid Style in American Politics to doubt this claim. In four large studies of U.S. adults (total N = 5049)—including national samples—we investigated the relationship between political ideology, measured in both symbolic and operational terms, and conspiratorial thinking in general. Results reveal that conservatives in the United States were not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories, but they were also more likely to espouse conspiratorial worldviews in general (r =.27, 95% CI:.24,.30). Importantly, extreme conservatives were significantly more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals (Hedges' g =.77, SE =.07, p <.001). The relationship between ideology and conspiratorial thinking was mediated by a strong distrust of officialdom and paranoid ideation, both of which were higher among conservatives, consistent with Hofstadter's account of the paranoid style in American politics.
AB - It is often claimed that conspiracy theories are endorsed with the same level of intensity across the left-right ideological spectrum. But do liberals and conservatives in the United States embrace conspiratorial thinking to an equivalent degree? There are important historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons dating back to Richard Hofstadter's book The Paranoid Style in American Politics to doubt this claim. In four large studies of U.S. adults (total N = 5049)—including national samples—we investigated the relationship between political ideology, measured in both symbolic and operational terms, and conspiratorial thinking in general. Results reveal that conservatives in the United States were not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories, but they were also more likely to espouse conspiratorial worldviews in general (r =.27, 95% CI:.24,.30). Importantly, extreme conservatives were significantly more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals (Hedges' g =.77, SE =.07, p <.001). The relationship between ideology and conspiratorial thinking was mediated by a strong distrust of officialdom and paranoid ideation, both of which were higher among conservatives, consistent with Hofstadter's account of the paranoid style in American politics.
KW - conservatism
KW - conspiracy theories
KW - paranoid ideation
KW - political ideology
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U2 - 10.1111/pops.12681
DO - 10.1111/pops.12681
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087212228
VL - 42
SP - 23
EP - 51
JO - Political Psychology
JF - Political Psychology
SN - 0162-895X
IS - 1
ER -