Conspiracy Rumor Psychology

Abstract

Social psychologists have been researching the psychology of rumor for nearly a century. Using the rumor psychology framework leads us to see conspiracy theories as stories that are communicated from person to person and in groups. Why do people spread conspiracy theories, in what sorts of relationships and community networks are they spread, and what is it about these groups or relationships that manufactures and maintains such false stories (and every once in a while a true one)? This approach focuses on the psychology of social interactions and group dynamics involved in conspiracy theory spread, belief, change and maintenance.

Full text

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Chapter 17
Conspiracy Rumor Psychology
Nicholas DiFonzo
Keywords: Rumor, Conspiracy Theory, Gossip, Communication, Trust
Abstract
Social psychologists have been researching the psychology of rumor for nearly a century. Using
the rumor psychology framework leads us to see conspiracy theories as stories that are
communicated from person to person and in groups. Why do people spread conspiracy theories,
in what sorts of relationships and community networks are they spread, and what is it about these
groups or the relationships that manufactures and maintains such false stories (and every once in
a while a true one)? This approach focuses on the psychology of social interactions and group
dynamics involved in conspiracy theory spread, belief, change and maintenance.

2
Rumor psychology can shed light on conspiracy theories. Rumor, which is unconfirmed
information in circulation, has tantalized social psychologists and sociologists on several
continents for eight decades.
1
Indian psychologist Jamuna Prasad analyzed rumors after the
Great Indian Earthquake of 1934, American psychologists Gordon Allport and Leo Postman
explored The Psychology of Rumor in 1947, and Japanese sociologist Tomotsu Shibutani argued
for thinking of rumor as Improvised News in 1966.
2
We know a lot about rumors.
Examining conspiracy theories using the lens of rumor psychology leads to interesting
questions that might not otherwise be raised. This is because when trying to understand
conspiracy theories, the typical focus has been on the individual: Why do individuals believe
such outlandish, unlikely and paranoid tales? And often, this question becomes: What individual
personality traits or personal characteristics predispose such gullibility? But using the rumor
framework leads us to see conspiracy theories as part of a social system of interacting persons.
We begin to think of conspiracy theories as stories that are communicated between people in
relationships and as stories that grow out of the hub-bub of the group. Thinking of it this way
makes a great deal of sense because, after all, the vast number of conspiracy theorists didn’t
theorize their conspiracies. Conspiracy theories are heard and told; hearing and telling are things
done with other people and in groups.
If we do this, the focus then shifts to the social relationships and group dynamics
involved in communicating conspiracy theories. Several intriguing questions are then
spotlighted: In what are sorts of situations do groups start telling and hearing conspiracy
theories? What do they do for groups in such situations? Why do people communicate them to
one another? What is it about the groups or the relationships that spawns and sustains such
wildly false stories (and every once in a while a true one)? Let’s apply what we know from
eighty years of research on rumor to our understanding of conspiracy theories.
Are Conspiracy Theories a Type of Rumor?
Rumors can be thought of as unproven information claims in circulation that may be true
or false.
3
The statement “Tropical Fantasy Fruit Punch contains a substance that makes black
men sterile,” for example, made a specific claim about the ingredients of a popular soft drink
sold in Brooklyn during the early 1990s that could have been true but turned out to be false.
4
The
dubious nature of the rumor claim is often signaled with the preface “I don’t know if this is true,
but I heard that…”, or the teller may pass it along as fact. Rumor claims are often smaller stories
that are part of larger narratives, for example, rumors in 2004 that the US military was poisoning
Iraqi cows fit neatly into larger narratives about the Crusades and Colonialism that everyone in
that culture knew.
5
This fit with narratives that are well-known to the teller’s club, clan, or
culture makes many rumors—even the fantastic ones—seem quite plausible to the teller.
6
Conspiracy theories can also be thought of as unproven information claims in circulation
that may be true or false. The Watergate conspiracy tale about a US Presidential plot to bug
Democratic National Committee headquarters, for example, proved true. In addition, conspiracy
theories have a common story line: a powerful and secret group engaging in covert, malevolent
and organized activities against vulnerable groups.
7
One popular conspiracy theory claims that
world events such as political revolutions and economic recessions are clandestinely orchestrated
by the Illuminati, a secret organization of powerful world leaders.
8
Like rumors, which draw on
narratives in general, conspiracy theories draw on exclusionary narratives, which are stories
about how the powerful oppress the weak.
9

3
And so, conspiracy theories are really a type of rumor. Indeed, we might just as well call
them conspiracy rumors: rumors characterized by stories about the covert and malevolent
activities of powerful and secretive groups (and so I’ll use the terms conspiracy theory and
conspiracy rumor interchangeably). It makes sense therefore to think about conspiracy theories
in light of what we know about the psychology of rumor, that is, to develop a conspiracy rumor
psychology. In the remainder of this chapter, I’ll do just that by posing some of the main
questions that social psychologists have asked about rumor, summarizing what they have found,
and posing the same questions about conspiracy theories.
When do Conspiracy Rumors Flourish?
This question gets at the circumstances that breed conspiracy rumor activity, and what
they do for groups in these circumstances. Rumors arise in situations that groups have trouble
interpreting. When important events happen without explanation or the meaning of a situation
seems unclear, it is unpleasant. We then interact to fill in the gaps with rumors. In other words,
when reliable news is in short supply, groups “improvise” by crafting their own explanations,
which are rumors.
10
This sort of circumstance is especially plentiful during times of change,
instability, conflict, when information is contradictory or communication is poor. Simply
understanding why bad things happen is a way of emotionally coping with those bad things.
Explanations make us feel less uncertain and more in control. Similarly, the explanations that
conspiracy theories offer for a wide range of distressing, chaotic and unfair events help people
cope by fulfilling psychological needs for certainty and a sense of control.
11
(A later chapter in
this volume by Jan-Willem van Prooijen furthers this point.)
Rumors also arise in situations that groups interpret as threatening. The urge to protect
ourselves immediately is indeed strong, can overpower ordinarily slower and cooler thinking,
and can lead us to act hastily on dubious information claims. Better safe than sorry. Threats may
be physical, having the potential to harm our health, wealth, or well-being, and rumors then help
groups prepare for or avoid danger. But the threats that conspiracy rumors help groups cope with
seem to be psychological.
Psychological threats are when we feel our identity, values, community, party, ideology
or anything else we happen to cherish, is ridiculed, criticized, derogated, blamed or otherwise
humbled.
12
This too is unpleasant. Groups may then use rumors in psychological self-defense.
13
One of the most common ways that rumors defend us is when the rumors we spread about our
group are positive and those about rival groups are negative. This seems to be what now
routinely happens in US Presidential elections. In 2008, for example, rumors about then-Senator
Barack Obama that he was secretly a Muslim bent on US collapse, and Governor Sarah Palin
that she tried to ban books in a public library and had posed in a bikini while holding an assault
rifle, were born and gained momentum in very active conservative and liberal political
blogospheres
14
. Where there is conflict, telling stories about our own virtues and the other’s
villainy is quite useful in discrediting the other side and distracting us from our own peccadillos.
And so, in circumstances that are unclear and threatening, conspiracy rumors explain
matters and help groups defend themselves psychologically. Consider the conspiracy theory that
President Obama was purposely overwhelming the US economy with government spending and
weakening the military in order to destroy the US, this time because he was a Socialist.
15
Or that
9/11 and subsequent US military campaigns were orchestrated by George W. Bush in order to
further his family’s oil interests.
16
Both conspiracy theories enabled ideological partisans to

4
“see” a unifying purpose behind the actions of each president and to neutralize ever-present
psychological threats by casting aspersions on him.
What Psychological States Lead to Transmission?
Conspiracy rumors would cease altogether if people didn’t communicate them. So why
do people communicate them?
Rumor researchers have asked this question in a couple of ways. The first way asks:
What are the psychological conditions or states that lead people to transmit rumors? This is of
course the flip side of circumstances, because psychological states come in part from how we
interpret our circumstances. Circumstances lay outside of us; our experience of those
circumstances lives inside of us.
Researchers have found that anxiety, believing the rumor to be true, and having a sense of
uncertainty, which is a lack of sureness about current or future events, all predict rumor
transmission
17
. These states are a natural response to circumstances that groups have difficulty
interpreting, or that they interpret as threatening. Research also points to distrust, especially
distrust of official news sources or statements
18
. Before the fall of the “iron curtain”, for
example, Russians did not trust the state-controlled news and relied heavily on rumors.
19
And in
workplace settings, employees who distrusted management spread negative rumors regardless of
how anxious or uncertain they were.
20
Do anxiety, uncertainty, belief, and distrust lead people to transmit conspiracy theories?
Though not investigated directly, there is some indirect evidence on these questions. For
example, research connecting anxiety and belief implies a link between anxiety and
transmission: Since Hofstadter’s seminal work in 1965, paranoia, a psychological state riddled
with anxiety, has long been thought to promote belief in conspiracy theories.
21
Researchers think
that conspiracy theories are believed as a way of coping with “feelings of powerlessness sparked
by complex economic, social, and political phenomena”, or with perceived ingroup threat from
powerful and secretive outgroups.
22
Well, “feelings of powerlessness” and “perceived threat”
sound a lot like anxiety.
And recent research found that abnormal levels of anxiety, having an anxious personality,
and feeling anxious due to one’s situation were all correlated with belief in conspiracy theories.
23
This picure is mixed, though, because belief in one study was not correlated with anxiety, but
rather with feeling stressed, that is, feeling that life’s situations are “unpredictable,
uncontrollable and overloaded.”
24
But anxiety may still play a key role: the researchers in that
study suggested that highly anxious individuals may react more strongly to stressful events.
Similarly, research connecting the psychological state of uncertainty and belief implies a
link between uncertainty and transmission.
25
In one experiment, university students in
Amsterdam read a bogus report that oil companies “frequently violate international
environmental policies in developing countries”, and were then asked if oil companies ordered
the start the (2003-2011) US war with Iraq for financial gain.
26
Students were more likely to
believe this conspiracy theory if they had first been asked to write about their emotions and
physical reactions when they felt uncertain, as compared to when they were watching TV. In
other words, just thinking about uncertainty increased belief in a well-known conspiracy theory!
Anecdotal evidence also suggests that conspiracy theories, like rumors, may be
transmitted as a way of reducing uncertainty. For example, a plethora of conspiracy theories
arose in response to the mysterious March 8th 2014 disappearance of Malaysian Airlines 370.
27

5
In this puzzling situation—in which proposed explanations included alien abduction, jihadist
terror, and government cover-up—uncertainty abounded, no doubt amplified by non-stop news
coverage. Even uncertainty that is raised by the conspiracy theory itself seems to lead to
transmission. For example, the conspiracy theory that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax
draws attention to supposed inconsistencies in the lunar images of that event, such as the absence
of stars
28
(lest I promote uncertainty in the reader, stars couldn’t be seen because of glare caused
by the sun and because shutter speeds necessitated by the blinding rays of the sun were too fast
to detect dim starlight).
What about the role of belief in conspiracy theory transmission? Ironically, there is little
evidence either way on this question. Ironic, because while belief is what researchers have been
most interested in, they have focused on the question what leads to belief, rather than the
question, what does belief lead to. Or doesn’t: A tantalizing and plausible possibility is that
belief has little to do with transmission of conspiracy theories, despite conversational norms to
tell what one believes to be true.
29
The motives inherent in a conspiracy theory interchange (see
below) may override tell-the-truth conversational norms. In a later chapter in this volume,
Matthew Atkinson and colleagues examine this as costly signaling.
Finally, there is indirect evidence that a posture of distrust, especially of powerful
outgroups, leads to conspiracy theory transmission. For example, conspiracy theories circulating
on the Internet that vaccines cause autism express strong themes of distrust of the medical
establishment and expertise.
30
And given that attitudes that go hand-in-hand with distrust, such
as political cynicism, anomie, and negative attitudes toward authority, predict conspiracy theory
belief, it seems likely that distrust also predicts conspiracy theory transmission.
31
Folklorists in
the African-American community have documented persistent and widespread conspiracy
rumors born out of decades of racial conflict and distrust, for example, “the KKK did it,” “the
powers that be want to keep us down,” “they want to sterilize us,” “they want us to take all of
those drugs”.
32
Conspiracy theory researchers say that distrust born of perceptions of oppression is
central to conspiracy thinking.
33
For example, the death toll from AIDS has been especially high
in Africa, several times higher than on any other continent. Why? One well-known conspiracy
theory “explains” it: AIDS is a secret Western government plot to wipe out Africans.
34
Indeed,
feeling a strong sense of solidarity with a vulnerable group that you believe is being victimized
by a powerful group is a good recipe for conspiratorial beliefs.
35
This is likely behind the AIDs in
Africa story just mentioned. The story meshes well with narratives of white oppression
circulating actively in black communities.
36
In one study, black persons believed black-targeted
conspiracy theories more strongly than white persons believed them (of course, given slavery
and segregation, narratives like this seem justifiable).
37
This recipe for conspiratorial thinking
becomes especially potent in times of political polarization, civil unrest or racial tension.
38
What Psychological Motives lead to Transmission?
“Why do people communicate conspiracy rumors?” can be asked a second way: what are
the psychological motives or aims that lead people to transmit rumors?
39
Rumor researchers point to three general motives or aims for spreading rumors: fact
finding to get at the truth, relationship enhancement to increase liking between teller and hearer,
and self-enhancement to boost self-esteem.
40
Other motives include revenge, propaganda to

6
achieve a strategic goal, entertainment, emotional coping to feel better about a negative outcome,
and altruism to help others.
41
What aims do people intend when they spread conspiracy rumors?
Conspiracy theorists might be motivated by fact-finding, especially given a general
distrust of official information sources. Indeed, according to Coady, such distrust is warranted.
42
Whether or not this is so, the persistence and atypicality of conspiracy thinking has often baffled
scientists and frustrated laypeople. Other motives seem to be at work.
Conspiracy theory researchers recently pointed to the role of social identity in conspiracy
theory belief, and social identity implies relationship-enhancement and self-enhancement
motives.
43
My social identity is my sense of who I am, that is, my values, beliefs and attitudes,
based on the group that I think of myself as being part of.
44
Believing the false conspiracy theory
that an inexpensive and popular fruit-drink contains a substance that will sterilize black men may
seem bizarre, but I may suspend my skepticism if this theory fits a deeply held group narrative of
white oppression, and I may share this theory with others in the community as a way of
communicating and affirming my group membership.
45
In other words, the exchange: “Hey man,
did you hear that Tropical Fantasy can make you sterile?—What? Damn! Thank you brother.”
may be more of a social greeting than a fact-finding discussion. And as a social greeting, it is
relationship-enhancing (“we are part of the same group”) and self-enhancing (“you think as I
do”).
Similarly, sharing conspiracy theories with others who believe them is likely motivated
by a desire to affirm a common worldview.
46
This too is aimed at relationship-enhancement and
self-enhancement. For example, a stranger once described a rumor to me of how, during the
Clinton years, he had witnessed planes crisscrossing Washington, DC that were leaving trails of
white smoke—or so he thought at the time. He then heard that the planes were spraying
contraceptive “dust” as part of a secret government plan to reduce the population. (This is a
variant of long-standing “chemtrails” conspiracy theories).
47
He professed not to believe these
conspiracy rumors at first, but conveyed how he gradually became convinced of their truth. It
was clear that he shared this conspiracy theory with me at least partly in order to assess whether
or not I possessed the same general outlook of deep suspicion of powerful secret groups. My
assent would have simultaneously formed a bond of common identity between us (relationship-
enhancement motive) and affirmed his deeply-held “opposition to officialdom” (self-
enhancement motive).
48
Indeed, when conspiracy theorists discuss such beliefs as “AIDS is a
plot to wipe out minority groups,” “the government is storing information in its files to use
against its citizens,” and “fluoridating drinking water will hurt people,” they may be more
strongly driven by social bonding and ingroup identity affirmation aims than by their individual
personality or cognitive style.
Why are Conspiracy Rumors (Mostly) False?
To apply the label “conspiracy theory” to a story is not just to say that it is in doubt, but
that it is false, and wildly so. Although some conspiracy theories turn out to be true, these are the
exception. Why are conspiracy rumors almost always false?
To answer this question, rumor researchers suggest a mix of motive and ability.
49
When
the primary motive is fact-finding, accurate rumors seems more likely to emerge over time. But
any other primary motive, such as revenge, strategic gain, relationship-enhancement or self-
enhancement, is likely to yield less accurate rumors.
50
Groups, after all, may or may not be

7
primarily interested in the facts. For example, in long-standing workplace grapevines, rumors
about potential layoffs are often 100-percent true; employees truly want facts about these
matters. But the situation is quite different in settings where groups are competing or in conflict.
When I transmit a rumor to a fellow group member that praises our group or warns against
dangers from the rival group, regardless of how true it is, I get a nice boost to my popularity
(“Nolan is in-the-know!”) and self-esteem (“I’m associated with a good group”). And I am easily
forgiven if it turns out to be false or exaggerated.
Rumor researchers also point to the capability of the group to ferret out the facts.
51
Information can become distorted and riddled with error simply because there are limits to
human attention and memory. And perceptions are frequently biased. Add to this that it is
sometimes difficult for any community to check the truth of a rumor: often nothing is known,
time-pressure is extreme, information sources are distrusted, strong conformity is expected, and
communication networks function like echo chambers.
For conspiracy theories, once again it appears that two key ingredients are social identity
and distrust. Relationship-enhancement and self-enhancement motivations stemming from social
identity needs are likely to trump accuracy motivation. Plus, conspiracy theory communities are
probably less able to check the conspiracy rumor’s truth because they distrust formal information
sources. Both factors compromise a group’s desire and ability to ferret out the facts. For
example, after the mass murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in
2012, conspiracy theories that they were an elaborate hoax to promote gun control and
confiscation were propagated by fearful gun rights advocates getting their information from
InfoWars.
52
Alternately, a false rumor that InfoWars host Alex Jones had been named Trump
White House Press Secretary was disseminated by fearful left-wing partisans getting their
information from The Babylon Bee.
53
If we add in a third ingredient, ingroup echo-chambers, to this mix of social identification
and distrust, then we cook up a super-recipe for false conspiracy theory birth, growth and
resilience. Ingroup echo-chambers are communication networks where people from the same
group are densely connected with one another but isolated from people outside their group.
54
We
find, for example, two vast ideological ingroup echo-chambers thriving on the Internet, one
consisting of liberal blogs and the other of conservative blogs.
55
We can represent this visually
with blogs as circles and hyperlink connections as lines. If we do, what emerges is two enormous
clusters of circles, one red and the other blue, with a dense web of lines connecting the circles
within each cluster, but very few lines connecting circles across the clusters. Birds of a feather
talk together, not with birds from a different flock. Political discussions on Twitter also follow
this Polarized Crowd pattern where two distinct discussion groups do not interact and do not
share news media sources.
56
Because one rarely or never hears a dissenting opinion, ingroup
echo chambers polarize opinions and beliefs, yield a crop of incredible conspiracy rumors, resist
hoax-busting efforts, and magnify distrust of the other crowd’s news sources.
57
It is no wonder
then that Democrats are equally likely to believe “truther” conspiracy theories that George W.
Bush knew beforehand about the events of 9/11, as Republicans are to believe “birther”
conspiracy theories that Barack Obama was not born in the US.
58
Looking Forward: Conspiracy Rumors as Social Interaction
We know a lot about conspiracy theories, but I think we can learn more. The great
strength of rumor research is that it has approached rumor as social and group interaction. This

8
means that rumor moves between people and within groups; it is not stationary inside of a
person. With this approach, the focus is on relationships and group dynamics. With some
exceptions, conspiracy theory research has instead focused on individuals, and in particular, why
individuals believe such incredible and improbable tales.
59
This is an important question, and
fascinating work has explored individual conspiracy theorists’ characteristics, such as
personality, attitudes, judgmental biases, and thinking style.
60
But there is a yawning gap in this
work. Conspiracy theory research has rarely, if ever, investigated questions about why people
transmit conspiracy theories. This question is at least as important, because conspiracy theories,
like rumors, are a social and group interaction. Conspiracy theorists almost never theorize their
conspiracies, they hear them and tell them to one another. Conspiracy theory researchers have
learned a lot about “conspiracy theories and the people who believe them,” but they can learn
even more about “conspiracy theories and the group members that communicate them.”

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