The Paranoid Style in American Politics Revisited: An Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking

Abstract

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.

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Political Psychology, Vol. 0, No. 0, 2020
doi: 10.1111/pops.12681
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The Paranoid Style in American Politics Revisited: An Ideological
Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
Sander van der Linden
University of Cambridge
Costas Panagopoulos
Northeastern University
Flávio Azevedo
New York University
Cologne University
Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena
John T. Jost
New York University
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.
KEY WORDS: conspiracy theories, paranoid ideation, political ideology, conservatism
“Let us now abstract the basic elements in the paranoid style. The central image is that of a vast
and sinister conspiracy, a gigantic and yet subtle machinery of influence set in motion to under-
mine and destroy a way of life.” (Richard Hofstadter, 1964, p. 29)
A conspiratorial mindset is characterized by a persistent belief that one or more individuals,
groups, or organizations are plotting to accomplish menacing objectives (van der Linden, 2013;
bs_bs_banner

2van der Linden et al.
Moscovici, 1987). In the present era, in which fake news and misinformation are spread quickly and
easily through social media platforms, belief in conspiracy theories is widespread; it is estimated
that more than 50% of Americans endorse at least one conspiracy theory (Oliver & Wood, 2014).
For society, there are many troubling consequences of conspiratorial thinking, including antisocial
behavior, hostility against outgroups, rejection of science, decreased trust in government, and a lack
of civic engagement (Einstein & Glick, 2015; Flynn, Nyhan, & Reifler, 2017; Jolley & Douglas,
2014; Lewandowsky & Oberauer, 2016; van der Linden, 2015; Swami, 2012; Uscinski & Parent,
2014).
For all of these reasons, it is important to understand the sociocognitive factors that shape public
belief in conspiracy theories. A number of studies suggest that conspiratorial thinking is associated
with paranoia, narcissism, interpersonal distrust, feelings of powerlessness, lack of agency and con-
trol, uncertainty, low levels of education and intelligence, as well as “magical thinking,” defined
as the superstitious tendency to draw false inferences about causal relationships (Abalakina-Paap,
Stephan, Craig, & Gregory, 1999; Barron, Morgan, Towell, Altemeyer, & Swami, 2014; Brotherton,
French, & Pickering, 2013; Cichocka, Marchlewska, & de Zavala, 2016; Darwin, Neave, & Holmes,
2011; Lobato, Mendoza, Sims, & Chin, 2014; van Prooijen, 2017; van Prooijen & Jostmann, 2013;
Swami, 2012; Swami, Voracek, Stieger, Tran, & Furnham, 2014). Increasingly, researchers are com-
ing to appreciate the role of political ideology—defined as the beliefs, opinions, and values about the
way society is and how it should be (Jost, 2006)—in fostering conspiratorial thinking (Imhoff, 2015;
Miller, Saunders, & Farhart, 2015; Oliver & Wood, 2014; Pasek, Stark, Krosnick, & Tompson, 2015;
van Prooijen, Krouwel, & Pollet, 2015). Zeroing in on the effects of political ideology is appropriate
and necessary because a high proportion of conspiracy theories are political in nature (Sunstein &
Vermeule, 2009). This is why recent formulations have conceptualized conspiratorial thinking as a
generalized political attitude (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014; Sutton & Douglas, 2020) that is “intrinsically
tied to the sociopolitical realm” (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2018, p. 911).
There are historical, philosophical, and psychological reasons to suppose that political ideology
plays a prominent role in conspiratorial thinking (Bennett, 1995; Jost, Stern, Rule, & Sterling, 2017;
Lipset & Raab, 1978; Robin, 2004). In a major contribution to social history, Richard Hofstadter
(1964) documented a long history of “paranoid” thinking that contributed to right-wing political
movements in the United States throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including nativistic, an-
ti-Masonic, anti-Catholic, and anti-Mormon organizations; opposition to the income tax amendment
to the U.S. Constitution and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal”; the John Birch Society and the
“Red Scare” that motivated Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist purges; and the presiden-
tial campaigns of Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, and George Wallace. Hofstadter described several
ways in which “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy” contributed to a
wide range of right-wing movements that—following Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and
Sanford (1950)—he characterized as “pseudo-conservative” because they “believe themselves to
be conservatives and usually employ the rhetoric of conservatism” but “have little in common with
the temperate and compromising spirit of true conservatism in the classical sense of the word” and
“show signs of a serious and restless dissatisfaction with American life, traditions, and institutions”
(Hofstadter, 1954/1955, p. 3).
In contemporary American politics, many citizens on the right believe that evidence of
anthropogenic climate change is merely the product of a vast conspiracy involving scientists,
liberal politicians, and foreign governments (Public Policy Polling, 2013). By the middle of
2017, Donald Trump had sent over 100 Twitter messages claiming that global warming is a
hoax (Matthews, 2017). President Trump has also promulgated many other conspiracy theories
over the years (Shear et al., 2019), including claims that Barack Obama is a Muslim who was
born outside of the United States and that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was mur-
dered (Haberman, 2016). Trump supporters routinely push conspiracy theories about liberals

3
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
and Democrats to deflect criticism over Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential election,
the impeachment case against Trump, and his administration’s mishandling of the coronavirus
pandemic in 2020 (Levin, 2020).
Yet, conspiratorial thinking is by no means confined to President Trump’s inner circle. According
to a YouGov poll, 70% of Republicans in 2019 believed that a secret “deep state” network was at-
tempting to overthrow President Trump (Frankovic, 2019). In addition, paranoid reactions to gun
control legislation that Hofstadter (1964, p. 5) described more than 50years ago are eerily similar to
sentiments expressed by supporters of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in recent years. Many
self-identified conservatives are deeply distrusting not only of scientists but also of government of-
ficials and media journalists, all of whom they routinely accuse of “liberal bias” (Gauchat, 2012;
Jones, 2004; Kraft, Lodge, & Taber, 2014; Lee, 2005; Pew Research Center, 2017; van der Linden,
Panagopoulos, & Roozenbeek, 2020).
Still, commentators are quick to point out that “conspiracy theories aren’t just for conser-
vatives” (Moore, Parent, & Uscinksi, 2014). Some conspiracy theories are assumed to be more
popular on the left. In the United States, these include the claims that President George W. Bush
possessed advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and chose not to intervene; that agri-
cultural businesses are suppressing evidence of the harmful effects of genetically modified organ-
isms (or GMOs); and that childhood vaccinations pushed by “Big Pharmaceutical Companies”
cause autism and other serious health problems (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009). With respect to
antivaccination sentiment, research by Rabinowitz, Latella, Stern, and Jost (2016) found that—contrary
to many political stereotypes—U.S. liberals were significantly more likely than conservatives to endorse
provaccination statements and to regard them as facts rather than beliefs. The finding that opposition to
vaccines is actually more prominent on the right than the left has been reported in several other studies
as well (e.g., see Lewandowsky, Gignac, & Oberauer, 2013; Lewandowsky, Woike, & Oberauer, 2020).
Nonetheless, there is some reason to suspect that ideological extremism—on both the left and right—
is associated with conspiracist ideation (Bartlett & Miller, 2010; Imhoff, 2015; McClosky & Chong, 1985;
van Prooijen et al., 2015). However, it does not follow from these or other research programs that those
on the left and right are equally susceptible to conspiracy theorizing. For example, close inspection of
results reported by Miller et al. (2015, p. 830) indicate that right-wing extremists in the United States were
more likely than left-wing extremists to endorse ideologically congenial conspiracy theories. Moreover,
even in studies that appear to provide evidence of ideological symmetry in general, there are often notable
asymmetries, suggesting that conservative rightists are more conspiratorially minded than liberal leftists
(e.g., see van Prooijen et al., 2015, pp. 573–575, Figures 1 and 3, and Oliver & Wood, 2014, p. 958,
Figure 1). These asymmetries are consistent with an observation about cognitive-motivational style made
by Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003b), namely that: “In all cases graphically summarized by
McClosky and Chong (1985, p. 350),… the percentage of high scorers from the far right group (63% and
81% for intolerance of ambiguity in 1958 and 1976—1977, respectively, and 39% for rigidity) exceeds
the percentage of high scorers from the far left (49%, 75%, and 33%, respectively)” (p. 388).
In an effort to integrate more than 50 years of theory and research on the social, cognitive, and
motivational bases of left-right (or, in the U.S. context, liberal-conservative) differences, Jost, Glaser,
Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003a, 2003b) emphasized individual differences and contextual variabil-
ity in epistemic needs to attain order, certainty, structure, and closure and existential needs to attain
safety, security, and a sense of reassurance. The idea was that these needs would contribute to an
ideological preparedness for resistance to social change and the legitimation of social, economic, and
political inequality. Consistent with this perspective, a meta-analytic review of 88 studies conducted
in 12 countries over a 44-year period involving over 22,000 participants confirmed that intolerance of
ambiguity, dogmatism, avoidance of uncertainty, cognitive simplicity, and personal needs for order,
structure, and closure, as well as death anxiety and system-level threats, were positively related to the
endorsement of a conservative, right-wing ideology.

4van der Linden et al.
In an extension of this theoretical program, we posit that there may well be an important and
underappreciated ideological asymmetry when it comes to conspiratorial thinking in general, at least
in the context of the United States. Such an asymmetry would be consistent with mounting evidence
that, in comparison with liberals, conservatives in the United States and other Western countries
score higher on measures of dogmatism, cognitive rigidity, intolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty,
self-deception, and threat sensitivity—and lower on measures of need for cognition, integrative com-
plexity, cognitive reflection, intelligence, and analytical reasoning (see Jost, 2017). Conservatives
are also more likely to adopt an “intuitive” cognitive style (Deppe et al., 2015; Talhelm et al., 2015),
which tends to be associated with conspiratorial thinking (Lobato et al., 2014; Swami et al., 2014).
American conservatives are also less interested in scientific forms of knowledge (Blank &
Shaw, 2015; Carl, Cofnas, & Woodley of Menie, 2016; Lewandowsky & Oberauer, 2016; Tullett,
Hart, Feinberg, Fetterman, & Gottlieb, 2016) and more likely to mistake political opinions for facts
(Landreville & Niles, 2019). They appear to be more receptive to “fake news” (Basol, Roozenbeek,
& van der Linden, 2020; Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019) and pseudo-profound “bullshit”
(Nilsson, Erlandsson, & Västfjäll, 2019; Pfattheicher & Schindler, 2016; Sterling, Jost, & Pennycook,
2016). Consistent with all of these psychological differences, research suggests that in the United
States, at least, rumors, misinformation, and conspiracy theories spread more rapidly and exten-
sively in the social networks of conservatives, as compared with liberals (Benkler, Faris, Roberts,
& Zuckerman, 2017; Guess, Nagler, & Tucker, 2019; Guess, Nyhan, & Reifler, 2020; Jost, van der
Linden, Panagopoulos, & Hardin, 2018). This was observed, for instance, in the early days of the
SARS-2/COVID-19 pandemic: Right-wing news outlets such as Fox News and Breitbart were much
more likely than mainstream news outlets to spread misinformation, including conspiracy theories
about the virus, and citizens who consumed more right-wing news held more false beliefs about
the pandemic (Motta, Stecula, & Farhart, 2020).Thus, although many perspectives in social science
would suggest that motivated reasoning, biased information processing, and conspiratorial thinking
should be equally prevalent among leftists and rightists (Ditto et al., 2019; Kahan, 2016; McClosky
& Chong, 1985; Moore et al., 2014; Oliver & Wood, 2014; van Prooijen et al., 2015; Sunstein &
Vermeule, 2009; Uscinski, Klofstad, & Atkinson, 2016), there are ample empirical reasons to ques-
tion this assumption (see also Baron & Jost, 2019). The fact that “conspiracy theories are not just for
conservatives” (Moore et al., 2014) does not mean that conspiracies are endorsed at the same scale
or level of intensity by liberals and conservatives nor that conspiracy theories on the left and right are
equally harmful, fallacious, or driven by paranoid ideation.
Several previous studies suggest that the tendency to endorse conspiracy theories is positively
and linearly associated with authoritarianism and right-wing extremism (Abalakina-Paap et al.,
1999; Bruder, Haffke, Neave, Nouripanah, & Imhoff, 2013; Grzesiak-Feldman & Irzycka, 2009;
Swami, 2012). Historically, it is conspicuous that conspiracy theories have so often been used against
popular targets of right-wing prejudice, such as Jews, Blacks, leftists, feminists, and sexual minori-
ties (Altemeyer, 1996; Grzesiak-Feldman, 2015; Krekó, 2015; Pasek et al., 2015; Swami, 2012). The
question of whether an ideological asymmetry exists is therefore important, not only for research
in political psychology, but also for a practical understanding of how, why, and when conspiratorial
thinking may shape public consciousness—and how interventions might be designed to root it out.
Overview of the Present Research Program
In the present research program, we sought to provide a comprehensive assessment of the role
of political ideology in conspiratorial thinking in the context of American politics. In four studies
making use of large, national samples, we administered a variety of ideological measures, includ-
ing (symbolic) self-placement items as well as (operational) issue-based and value-based scales.
Because there are clearly content-specific reasons why leftists or rightists would be more motivated
to embrace specific conspiracy theories, we elected not to follow the common methodological pro-
cedure of merely asking participants which individual conspiracy theories they subscribed to and

5
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
drawing conclusions based on the total number of conspiracy theories they endorsed (see Brotherton
et al., 2013; Bruder et al., 2013). Instead, we included measures that directly tap into an individual’s
underlying tendency to engage in paranoid thinking and to adopt a conspiratorial mindset in general.
We hypothesized that, after adjusting for the symmetrical effect of ideological extremity, conserva-
tives in the United States would be more likely than liberals to exhibit a conspiratorial mindset.
According to Hofstadter (1964), high levels of distrust in scientific, governmental, and journal-
istic authorities is a hallmark of “the paranoid style of American politics.” Thus, across studies we
investigated the extent to which: (1) Left-right (or liberal-conservative) political ideology would be
associated with the adoption of a conspiratorial worldview in general, and (2) if so, whether this effect
would be mediated by two of the most well-known correlates of conspiracy beliefs, namely “paranoid
ideation” and “distrust of officialdom” (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Goertzel, 1994; Jolley & Douglas,
2014; Miller et al., 2015; Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009). Because of its timely and, some would say, ur-
gent significance for society, we also gauged endorsement of a well-established conspiracy theory that
is currently popular on the right, namely the belief that “global warming is a hoax” (Lewandowsky,
Oberauer, & Gignac, 2013; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; van der Linden, 2015; Uscinski et al., 2016).
This enabled us to directly compare the effects of political ideology when it comes to measures of
conspiratorial thinking in general and with respect to a specific conspiracy theory.
STUDY 1
In Study 1, we examined the relationship between political ideology and conspiratorial thinking
in a large, nationally representative sample of American adults. In addition to investigating linear and
quadratic effects of ideology—to probe asymmetrical and symmetrical effects, respectively—we ex-
plored one potentially important mediator of conspiratorial thinking, namely distrust of officialdom.
Method
Participants and Procedure
For Study 1, we obtained a nationally representative quota sample (N= 1000) of American
adults (18–91, 47% male, 53% female, 28% liberal, 35% moderate, 37% conservative, 39% college
degree). The survey was fielded by YouGov using an online panel from February 21 to 23, 2018 with
standard national quotas on gender, age, race, education, and region.
Political Ideology
Participants in this study completed a single measure of ideological self-placement: “In general,
I think of myself as (1=very liberal, 2=somewhat liberal, 3=moderate, 4=somewhat conservative,
5=very conservative,” M=3.12, SD=1.21).
Conspiratorial Thinking
We adopted Bruder et al.’s (2013) generalized “conspiracy mentality” (CMS) scale. This scale,
which has been validated cross-culturally, measures an individual’s general tendency to engage in
conspiratorial thinking without mentioning any specific conspiracies.1 The measure consists of five
items (e.g., “I think that events which superficially seem to lack a connection are often the result of
1We selected this scale over other available measures of conspiratorial mindsets—such as the scale by Brotherton et al.
(2013)—because the latter is substantially longer and mentions specific, content-laden conspiracies about the government
concealing information about UFOs and aliens.

6van der Linden et al.
secret activities”; 0=definitely not true, 100=definitely true). The CMS exhibited good reliability
in our sample (M=67.72, SD=17.41, α=.79).
Belief in a Global-Warming Conspiracy
A single item was used to assess climate-change conspiracy beliefs (“Climate change is a hoax”;
definitely not true=0, definitely true=100, M=39.57, SD=46.56).
Distrust of Officialdom
Participants were asked to rate the trustworthiness of six sources of information (e.g., scientists,
government, NGO’s, the United Nations, and the mainstream news and media) on a 7-point scale
(1=extremely trustworthy, 7=extremely untrustworthy M=3.98, SD=1.23, α=.85).
Results and Discussion
Consistent with previous research, we observed a strong positive correlation between self-re-
ported political conservatism and belief in global-warming conspiracies (r=.52, 95% CI: .48, .57,
Figure 1. Bivariate linear associations (Study 1) between political conservatism and belief in global-warming conspiracies
(A), general conspiratorial thinking (B), distrust of officialdom (C), and a nonsignificant quadratic trend between ideological
extremity and conspiratorial thinking (D). Bands represent 95% confidence intervals.

7
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
Figure 1, panel A). Importantly, we also observed a positive and significant correlation between
conservatism and the adoption of a conspiratorial mindset in general (r= .185, 95% CI: .12, .25,
Figure1, panel B). To investigate the possibility of a curvilinear relationship, we also estimated a
quadratic trend (Figure1, panel D). Although a slight U-curve can be fitted to the data, the trend was
not statistically significant (p=.16), and the linear association is included in the confidence interval
around the quadratic effect (panel D).
A one-way ANOVA revealed that the linear effect was driven primarily by extreme conserva-
tives (F [4, 829] = 8.81, p<.001,
𝜂2
p
=
.04
), who differed significantly from all other groups when it
came to conspiratorial thinking (p<.01). Comparing the raw scores of extreme liberals and extreme
conservatives reveals a sizeable asymmetry of nearly 10 percentage points (M=65.37, SE=1.81, vs.
M=75.27, SE=1.36, t [232]=4.45, p<.001, Cohen’s d=.58, 95% CI: .32, .85).
Conservatives were also significantly more distrustful of officialdom, in comparison with lib-
erals (r = .47, 95% CI: .42, .52, Figure 1, panel C). We observed that the relationship between
conservatism and conspiratorial thinking was partially (45%) mediated by distrust of officialdom
(with the direct effect dropping from β=.18 to β=.10, p<.01, see Figure2). Therefore, in our first
study, we obtained unambiguous evidence that, in comparison with political liberals, conservatives
were: (1) more likely to endorse a conspiracy theory about climate change; (2) more likely to adopt
a conspiratorial mindset in general; and (3) less trusting of scientists, government, NGOs, and the
mainstream media. Furthermore, the relationship between conservatism and conspiratorial thinking
was statistically mediated by distrust of these official sources.
STUDY 2
In Study 2, we sought to build on the findings from our first study by conducting a replication and
incorporating an additional mediating variable, namely paranoid ideation. Previous studies suggest
that paranoia is associated with the attribution of harmful intent to outgroups (Saalfeld, Ramadan,
Bell, & Raihani, 2018) and—like distrust of officialdom—is a key correlate of conspiratorial thinking
Figure 2. Multiple mediation model (Study 1). Path coefficients are standardized and estimated using Full Information
Maximum Likelihood (FIML). YouGov survey weights were applied, and 95% confidence intervals are provided in parentheses
using robust standard errors. *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001. N=1000.

8van der Linden et al.
(Brotherton & Eser, 2015; Bruder et al., 2013; Darwin, Neave, & Holmes, 2011; Grzesiak-Feldman
& Ejsmont, 2008; Imhoff & Lamberty, 2018). Wilson and Rose (2014) situated paranoid ideation in
the context of Duckitt’s (2001) dual-process model of ideology and prejudice and observed that in-
creased paranoia was positively associated with ring-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dom-
inance orientation (SDO). Thus, we investigated the hypothesis that there would an asymmetrical
effect of political ideology on conspiratorial thinking and that the effect would be mediated by para-
noid ideation as well as distrust of officialdom.
Method
Participants and Procedure
A diverse sample (N=430) of American adults (18–65+, 45% male, 46% liberal) were recruited
from Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk). The survey was administered online via Qualtrics and took
approximately 10minutes to complete. Participants were asked to participate in an online person-
ality study and paid $0.50 for the task; their location was restricted to the United States. The study
received ethical approval from the university’s Institutional Review Board.
Political Ideology
Political ideology was assessed using the same item as in Study 1: “In general, I think of myself
as (1=very liberal, 2=somewhat liberal, 3=moderate, 4=somewhat conservative, 5=very con-
servative,” M=3.28, SD=1.22).
Conspiracy Mentality
We administered the same “conspiracy mentality” scale (CMS) used in Study 1. The CMS again
exhibited good reliability (M=64.06, SD=22.39, α=.85).
Global-Warming Conspiracy (GWC) Scale
Rather than relying upon a single item, we administered 10 items tapping into popular global-
warming conspiracy theories (sample item: “Global warming is a hoax invented by the United Nations
as part of a secret plot to advance a new world government”; 1=completely disagree, 7=completely
agree). The scale was highly reliable and unidimensional (M= 28.61, SD=16.69, α=.96, see the
online supporting information for an exploratory factor analysis of the unidimensional scale).
Distrust of officialdom. Participants were again asked to rate the trustworthiness of six different
sources of information (e.g., scientists, government, mainstream media) on the same 7-point scale
used in Study 1 (1 = extremely trustworthy, 7= extremely untrustworthy, M = 4.04, SD = 1.30,
α=.96).
Paranoid Ideation
We assessed paranoid ideation by administering Fenigstein and Vanable’s (1992) 10-item
Paranoia Scale (sample item; “I often feel that strangers are looking at me critically”; 1=not at all
true, 5=very true, M=2.77, SD=.83, α=.96).

9
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
Results and Discussion
As in Study 1, we observed a strong positive correlation between political conservatism and
belief in global-warming conspiracies (r=.46, 95% CI: .37, .54, Figure3, panel A). Once again, we
also observed a significant positive correlation between conservatism and conspiratorial thinking in
general (r=.18, 95% CI: .07, .29, Figure3, panel B). We explored the possibility of a curvilinear
relationship, but the quadratic term was not significant (p= .86). Comparing the raw conspiracy
scores of extreme liberals and extreme conservatives revealed the existence of a large asymmetry of
nearly 15 points (M=59.91, SE=2.30, vs. M=74.66, SE=3.06, t [114]=3.68, p<.001, Cohen’s
d=.73, 95% CI: .33, 1.14).
Conservatives were again significantly and substantially more distrustful of officialdom than
liberals (r=.38, 95% CI: .29, .47, Figure3, panel C). A relatively small but positive correlation was
observed between the endorsement of conservative ideology and paranoid ideation (r=.11, 95%
CI: .01, .21, Figure3, panel D). As expected, paranoia (r=.44, 95% CI: .35, .53) and distrust of
officialdom (r=.28, 95% CI: .18, .38) were both significantly correlated with conspiratorial think-
ing in general. The association between political conservatism and conspiratorial thinking was fully
mediated by paranoid ideation and distrust of officialdom (see Figure4).
Figure 3. Linear associations (Study 2) between political conservatism and belief in global-warming conspiracies (A), a
conspiratorial mindset in general (B), distrust of officialdom (C), and paranoid ideation (D). Bands represent 95% confidence
intervals.

10 van der Linden et al.
STUDY 3
Although the Mturk platform generally provides quality data on psychological aspects of politi-
cal ideology (Clifford, Jewell, & Waggoner, 2015), we sought to enhance the robustness of our find-
ings by reproducing our analyses using larger and more diverse samples and considering a broader
array of conceptually related but distinctive independent, dependent, and mediating variables. In
Study 3, we administered to a large, nationally representative sample of American adults a wide
range of measures gauging political ideology, including general, social, and economic forms of con-
servatism. We again measured participants’ general tendencies to engage in conspiratorial thinking,
their levels of distrust, paranoia, and endorsement of conspiracies pertaining to climate change as
well as the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Method
Participants and Procedure
We retained a professional survey company (SSI; Survey Sampling International) to recruit a
nationally representative sample of 1500 Americans (18–65+, 51% female, 50% Republican) to
complete the study during the American general election season (August 16 to September 9, 2016).
The survey used interlocked quotas for gender, age, education, and income to reflect proportions of
the 2014 U.S. Census.2 The survey was administered online via Qualtrics in line with German ethical
guidelines, which do not require separate IRB approval for anonymous data.
2Detailed information about the sample and sampling method is provided in the online supporting information.
Figure 4. Multiple parallel mediation model (Study 2). Path coefficients are standardized and estimated with Full Information
Maximum Likelihood (FIML). Bootstrapped (1000 samples) 95% confidence intervals are provided in parentheses. Model
covariates include gender, age, and education. *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001. N=430.

11
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
In total, 2424 participants were directed to the survey, 1885 of whom finished the survey (attri-
tion rate 22%). We followed recommendations to minimize the problem of careless responding in on-
line studies (Meade & Craig, 2012). Specifically, the survey allowed us to employ 10 attention-check
questions and time controls to ensure data quality. There were 385 participants who failed more
than one attention check or finished the survey too quickly (under 22minutes) and were therefore
excluded from the final sample by the survey company. We only paid for data that included the 1500
participants who successfully finished the survey.
Measures
Participants responded to all survey items using 9-point Likert scales. The specific items used
for each of the variables measured in Study 3 are listed in Table1.
Political Ideology
Ideology was assessed using two types of measures: ideological self-placement (or symbolic
ideology) and issue-based preferences (or operational ideology). In terms of ideological self-place-
ments, participants located themselves on bipolar scales of political orientation in general, with
Table 1. Constructs and Wording of Individual Items
Construct Item Number Item Text
Conspiratorial thinking 1 Some political and social events are debated (for example, 09/11 attacks,
the death of Lady Diana, the assassination of John F. Kennedy). It is
suggested that the “official version” of these events could be an attempt
to hide the truth to the public. This “official version” could mask the
fact that these events have been planned and secretly prepared by a cov-
ert alliance of powerful individuals or organizations (for example, secret
services or government). What do you think? I think that the official
version of the events given by the authorities very often hides the truth.
2 I think the 2016 US Presidential elections will be rigged.
3 Media coverage of the 2016 US Presidential elections has been controlled
by vested interests behind one side of the debate.
Ideological
self-placement
1 Overall, where would you place yourself, on the following scale of
liberalism-conservatism?
2 How about in terms of social and cultural issues (e.g., abortion, separation
of church and state, affirmative action)?
3 How about in terms of economic issues (e.g., taxation, welfare, privatiza-
tion of social security)?
Belief in climate-
change conspiracies
1 Climate scientists and their political allies are deliberately misleading the
public about global warming.
2 Selfish interests are scheming to convince the public that global warming
is a major threat.
Paranoid ideation 1 Every day, our society becomes more lawless and bestial, a person’s
chances of being robbed, assaulted and even murdered go up and up.
2 Although it may appear that things are constantly getting more dangerous
and chaotic, it really isn’t so. Every era has its problems, and a person’s
chances of living a safe, untroubled life are better today than ever before
(reverse coded).
Distrust of officialdom 1 I’d rather put my trust in the wisdom of ordinary people than the opinions
of experts and intellectuals.
2 When it comes to really important questions, scientific facts don’t help
very much.
3 We believe too often in science, and not enough in faith and feelings.

12 van der Linden et al.
respect to economic issues, and with respect to social/cultural issues. In all three cases, the response
scales ranged from 1 (strongly liberal) to 9 (strongly conservative).
Issue-based ideological preferences were assessed using five different instruments: (1) the Core
Domains of Social and Economic Conservatism Scale, which contains seven items measuring eco-
nomic conservatism and three items measuring social conservatism (Feldman & Johnston, 2014); (2)
the Pew Research Center’s “Core Issues in American Politics” scale, which is comprised of 12-items
(e.g., “The government needs to do more to make health care affordable and accessible”; Zell &
Bernstein, 2014); (3) the Social and Economic Conservatism Scale, which includes five economic
and seven socially conservative values (e.g., “Traditional values”; Everett, 2013); (4) the Political
Issue Statements which is comprised of 10-items measuring political orientation on the left-right
ideological space (e.g., “A woman should have the right to choose what to do with her body, even if
that means getting an abortion”; Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom, 2009); and (5) an adapted 16-item version
of Henningham’s (1996, 1997) Social and Economic Conservatism scales, which are contemporary
versions of the “classic” Wilson and Patterson (1968) scale for measuring liberalism-conservatism
(see the online supporting information for the full list of items).
Conspiratorial Thinking
We administered Lantian, Muller, Nurra, and Douglas’s (2016) general measure of conspiracy
belief and two additional items adapted from Uscinski and Parent (2014) to apply to the 2016 U.S.
presidential election. A composite measure was created to estimate individual differences in the ten-
dency to embrace conspiracy theories in general (e.g., “Some political and social events are debated,
for example the 9/11 attacks, the death of Lady Diana, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It is
suggested that the ‘official version’ of these events could be an attempt to hide the truth to the public.
What do you think? I think that the official version of the events given by the authorities very often
hides the truth”). Participants responded to all items on a 9-point scale ranging from 1 (definitely
false) to 9 (definitely true). Our composite measure of conspiratorial thinking exhibited good reli-
ability (M=5.65, SD=1.93, α=.79).
Belief in Conspiracies about Climate Change
Two items were used to measure beliefs in denialist climate-change conspiracies. One item accuses
climate scientists (“Climate scientists and their political allies are deliberately misleading the public
about global warming”), whereas the second refers to an unspecified target that is allegedly involved in
fear mongering (“Selfish interests are scheming to convince the public that global warming is a major
threat”). Responses to both items, which were strongly intercorrelated (r [1498]=.87, p<.001), were
provided on 9-point response scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree).
Distrust of Officialdom
Three items were used to measure the lack of trustworthiness of traditional sources of informa-
tion (e.g., “I’d rather put my trust in the wisdom of ordinary people than the opinions of experts and
intellectuals”). The distrust of officialdom scale exhibited adequate reliability (M=4.97, SD=1.89,
α=.69).
Paranoid Ideation
Two items were used to measure paranoid ideation (e.g., “Every day, our society becomes more
lawless and bestial, a person’s chances of being robbed, assaulted and even murdered go up and up”).

13
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
Responses to both items, which were intercorrelated (r [1498]= .45, p < .001), were provided on
9-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree).
Results and Discussion
In all cases—whether we measured political orientation in terms of ideological self-placement
or issue-based preferences on social or economic dimensions—we observed that political con-
servatism was strongly and positively associated with belief in climate-change conspiracies (with
correlations ranging from r=.53 to r = .67, see Figure 5, panel A and Tables2 and 3) and with
conspiratorial thinking in general (with correlations ranging from r= .20 to r =.35, see Figure5,
panel B and Tables2 and 3). These associations, which were remarkably consistent and robust, were
linear (Figure5) and significant at the p < .01 level. We also investigated curvilinear (or quadratic)
relationships in the context of a regression framework. Formal testing was performed for all eight
measures of political orientation in relation to conspiratorial thinking and belief in climate-change
conspiracies. Due to the large sample size, very small effect sizes were flagged as statistically sig-
nificant. In general, however, we found that the quadratic coefficients were small in magnitude and
directionally inconsistent. Thus, we consider the relationship between ideology and conspiratorial
thinking to be linear in general.
We also observed that conspiratorial thinking in general was associated with belief in cli-
mate-change conspiracies (r=.49, 95% CI: .45, .53), providing further evidence that these two phe-
nomena are linked. As in the preceding studies, there was a clear asymmetry in general conspiratorial
thinking, such that extreme conservatives (M=6.50, SD =1.75) scored significantly higher than
Figure 5. Bivariate linear associations (Study 3) between political conservatism (average ideological self-placement score)
and Global Warming Conspiracy Index (A), General Conspiratorial Mindset Score (B), Distrust of Officialdom (C), and
Paranoid Ideation Score (D).

14 van der Linden et al.
extreme liberals (M=4.75, SD=2.13, t [386]=9.63, p<.001, Cohen’s d=.90) on our measure of
general conspiratorial thinking.
Conservatives were once again significantly more distrusting of official sources (r=.36, 95%
CI: .33, .40, Figure5, panel C) and more likely to engage in paranoid ideation (r=.25, 95% CI: .21,
.29, Figure5, panel D), in comparison with liberals. Distrust of officialdom (r=.44, 95% CI: .39,
.49) and paranoid ideation (r=.19, 95% CI: .14, .23) were both significantly associated with conspir-
atorial thinking in general. Replicating the results of Study 2, the association between conservatism
and conspiratorial thinking, was fully mediated by distrust of officialdom and paranoid ideation (see
Figure6).
Even if some of the associations were fairly modest in terms of the magnitude of effect sizes, we
see that there was a meaningful ideological asymmetry that was remarkably stable across our first
three studies. The pattern is similar for belief in climate-change conspiracies and conspiratorial
thinking in general, and it holds for three measures of ideological self-placement as well as five is-
sue-based measures and one value-based measure of political conservatism, in the context of a na-
tional representative sample of American adults.3 When we compare the average magnitude of effect
sizes between conservatism and belief in conspiracies about climate change to that between conser-
vatism and conspiratorial thinking in general, we find that the former relationship is consistently
stronger. This finding suggests that the association between conservatism and conspiratorial thinking
is present in general, but it is magnified when the conspiracy theory in question is ideologically
congenial.
STUDY 4
In a fourth and final study, we sought to replicate the multiplicity of effects observed in Study
3 in another large and diverse sample of U.S. adults (N= 2119). Thus, we administered the very
same measures used in Study 3, including ideological self-placement for (symbolic) general, social,
3As reported in the online supporting information, we also investigated the role of party identification, prospective voting in-
tentions, and perceptions of candidate likeability (see Table S4). Results confirm that stronger partisan attachment among
Republicans, intentions to vote for Donald Trump, and greater liking of Donald Trump and disliking of Hilary Clinton were
all positively associated with belief in climate-change conspiracies and conspiratorial thinking in general.
Table 2. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations with Confidence Intervals
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Conspiratorial thinking 5.65 1.93
2. Belief in climate-change
conspiracies
4.81 2.59 .49**
[.45, .53]
3. Paranoid ideation 5.45 1.96 .38** .35**
[.33, .42] [.30, .39]
4. Distrust of officialdom 4.97 1.89 .52** .57** .42**
[.48, .56] [.54, .61] [.38, .46]
5. General conservatism 5.31 2.45 .28** .59** .32** .46**
[.24, .33] [.55, .62] [.27, .36] [.42, .50]
6. Economic conservatism 5.48 2.63 .21** .54** .22** .35** .82**
[.16, .25] [.51, .58] [.18, .27] [.31, .40] [.80, .83]
7. Social conservatism 4.93 2.76 .30** .56** .32** .47** .84** .72**
[.26, .35] [.53, .60] [.27, .36] [.43, .51] [.82, .85] [.69, .74]
Note. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively. Values in square brackets indicate the 95%
confidence interval for each correlation.
**p<.01.

15
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
Table 3. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations with Confidence Intervals
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Conspiratorial thinking 5.7 1.9
2. Belief in climate-change conspiracies 4.8 2.6 .49**
[.45, .53]
3. Paranoid ideation 5.5 2.0 .38** .35**
[.33, .42] [.30, .39]
4. Distrust of officialdom 5.0 1.9 .52** .57** .42**
[.48, .56] [.54, .61] [.38, .46]
5. Core issues 4.7 1.6 .27** .66** .34** .48**
[.22, .32] [.63, .69] [.29, .38] [.44, .52]
6. Political issue statements 4.9 1.5 .35** .67** .41** .56** .85**
[.30, .39] [.64, .70] [.37, .45] [.52, .59] [.83, .86]
7. Social and economic conservatism 4.7 1.5 .32** .63** .40** .54** .86** .85**
[.27, .36] [.60, .66] [.36, .44] [.50, .57] [.85, .87] [.83, .86]
8. Core domains 4.2 1.7 .25** .58** .27** .44** .85** .79** .81**
[.20, .29] [.55, .62] [.23, .32] [.40, .48] [.83, .86] [.77, .81] [.79, .83]
9. SECS 6.4 1.5 .20** .53** .32** .41** .72** .72** .71** .65**
[.15, .25] [.49, .57] [.27, .36] [.37, .45] [.70, .75] [.70, .74] [.68, .73] [.62, .68]
Note. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively. Values in square brackets indicate the 95% confidence interval for each correlation.
**p<.01.

16 van der Linden et al.
and economic conservatism; the same issue-based and value-based measures of operational conser-
vatism; belief in climate-change conspiracies; the tendency to engage in conspiratorial thinking in
general; two items measuring paranoid ideation; and three items measuring distrust of officialdom.
Method
Participants and Procedure
We used a professional survey firm (SSI; Survey Sampling International) to recruit a large con-
venience sample of 2119 American adults (22% women). The age distribution was as follows: 18–24
(9%), 25–34 (14%), 35–44 (11%), 45–54 (3%), 55–65(4%), and 65 and older (59%). The ethnic
breakdown was White/European American (86%), Black/African American (5%), Latino (4%), and
“Other” (5%). In terms of religion, 70% identified as Christian, 16% as religiously affiliated but
not Christian, and 14% as Atheist/Agnostic. With respect to educational status, 16% reported “high
school or lower,” 41% reported “some college,” and 43% had attained a “Bachelors” or “graduate”
degree. The median income category was US$50,000–$74,999. The survey was administered online
via Qualtrics according to German ethical guidelines.
Measures
Because Study 4 was a direct replication of Study 3, participants responded to the same sur-
vey items using 9-point Likert scales. The wording of all items listed in Table1 (and the online
Figure 6. Multiple parallel mediation model (Study 3). *p <.05, **p< .01, ***p <.001. N = 1500. Path coefficients are
standardized. Bootstrapped (10,000 samples) 95% confidence intervals are provided in parentheses. Model covariates include
gender, age, and education.

17
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
supporting information) were the same. For the sake of simplicity—and because means, standard
deviations, and internal consistencies were nearly identical to those reported in Study 3—we omit
the reporting of descriptive results and move directly to the reporting of inferential statistics (but see
the online supporting information for factor analyses of the scales and all item means and standard
deviations).
Results and Discussion
The results of Study 4 replicate those of our first three studies almost perfectly. Whether we
measured political orientation in terms of ideological self-placement or issue-based preferences on
social or economic dimensions, political conservatism was strongly and positively associated with
belief in climate-change conspiracies (with correlations ranging from r=.54 to r=.69, see Figure7,
panel A and Tables4 and 5) and with conspiratorial thinking in general (with correlations ranging
from r=.22 to r=.37, see Figure7, panel B and Tables4 and 5). These associations were once again
linear and robust (see Figure7) and significant at the p<.01 level.4 Conspiratorial thinking in general
was again strongly associated with belief in climate-change conspiracies (r=.51, 95% CI: .48, .54).
And, as in all of the preceding studies, there was a clear asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking in
general such that extreme conservatives (M=6.10, SD=1.65) scored significantly higher than ex-
treme liberals (M=4.70, SD=2.19, t [413]=8.97, p<.001, Cohen’s d=.72).
4As in Study 3, we explored curvilinear relationships in the context of a regression framework and—in light of the small and
directionally inconsistent effect sizes observed for quadratic coefficients—we concluded once again that the relationship be-
tween ideology and conspiratorial thinking was linear in general.
Figure 7. Bivariate linear associations (Study 4) between political conservatism (average ideological self-placement score)
and Global Warming Conspiracy Index (A), General Conspiratorial Mindset Score (B), Distrust of Officialdom (C), and
Paranoid Ideation Score (D).

18 van der Linden et al.
As in the previous studies, political conservatives were significantly more distrusting of official
sources (r=.36, 95% CI: .34, .39, Figure7, panel C) and more likely to engage in paranoid ideation
(r=.30, 95% CI: .27, .30, Figure7, panel D), in comparison with liberals. Distrust of officialdom
(r = .43, 95% CI: .39, .47) and paranoid ideation (r= .20, 95% CI: .16, .23) were significantly
associated with conspiratorial thinking in general. As shown in Figure8, the association between
conservatism and conspiratorial thinking was again mediated by distrust of officialdom and paranoid
ideation. Thus, the results of Study 4 strongly and unambiguously replicate the results of Study 3
and provide further evidence of an ideological asymmetry in the psychological tendency to engage
in conspiratorial thinking in general.
Quantitative Synthesis of Results
With the goals of providing a formal synthesis of effect sizes and working towards cumulative
social science (Mischel, 2009), we aggregated the associations observed in each of the four studies
and calculated their overall magnitude and direction (Table6). We also conducted an analysis on the
pooled data (see Webster, Smith, Brunell, Paddock, & Nezlek, 2017). Similar to integrative data
analysis (IDA; Curran & Hussong, 2009), this procedure offers two advantages over traditional me-
ta-analysis for studies with similar constructs in situations in which researchers have access to the
raw data. First, it makes fewer methodological assumptions than meta-analysis, and, second, it max-
imizes statistical power by combining individual-level data from each study. Accordingly, we con-
ducted a parallel mediation analysis on the pooled data; results are displayed in Figure9. We reach
two major conclusions: (1) The association between political conservatism and general conspirato-
rial thinking is linear, positive, robust, and replicable (r=.27, 95% CI: .24, .30); and (2) the associ-
ation between conservatism and conspiratorial thinking is fully mediated by distrust of officialdom
and paranoid ideation.5
5The association between political conservatism and conspiratorial thinking is robust with respect to both symbolic and oper-
ational measures of ideology, prospective voting intentions, retrospective voting behavior, and perceptions of candidate
likeability.
Table 4. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations with Confidence Intervals
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Conspiratorial mindset 5.40 1.93
2. Climate-change conspiracies 4.91 2.63 .51**
[.48, .54]
3. Paranoid ideation 5.56 2.04 .39** .37**
[.35, .42] [.34, .41]
4. Distrust of officialdom 4.86 1.84 .50** .62** .43**
[.47, .53] [.59, .64] [.39, .46]
5. General conservatism 5.62 2.44 .26** .58** .34** .45**
[.22, .30] [.56, .61] [.30, .38] [.42, .48]
6. Economic conservatism 5.85 2.60 .22** .54** .30** .38** .84**
[.18, .26] [.51, .57] [.26, .34] [.34, .42] [.82, .85]
7. Social conservatism 5.27 2.78 .29** .58** .37** .50** .83** .74**
[.25, .33] [.55, .61] [.33, .40] [.47, .53] [.82, .84] [.72, .76]
Note. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively. Values in square brackets indicate the 95%
confidence interval for each correlation.
**p<.01.

19
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
Table 5. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations with Confidence Intervals
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Conspiratorial mindset 5.4 1.9
2. Climate-change conspiracies 4.9 2.6 .51**
[.48, .54]
3. Paranoid ideation 5.6 2.0 .39** .37**
[.35, .42] [.34, .41]
4. Distrust officialdom 4.9 1.8 .50** .62** .43**
[.47, .53] [.59, .64] [.39, .46]
5. Core issues 5.0 1.7 .30** .69** .39** .52**
[.26, .33] [.67, .71] [.35, .42] [.49, .55]
6. Political issue statements 5.1 1.6 .37** .69** .43** .56** .85**
[.33, .41] [.66, .71] [.40, .47] [.53, .59] [.83, .86]
7. Social and economic conservatism 4.8 1.5 .33** .66** .43** .57** .87** .83**
[.29, .37] [.64, .69] [.40, .47] [.55, .60] [.86, .88] [.82, .85]
8. Core domains 4.5 1.7 .28** .62** .34** .48** .86** .80** .82**
[.24, .32] [.60, .65] [.30, .38] [.44, .51] [.85, .87] [.78, .81] [.81, .84]
9. SECS 6.6 1.5 .23** .54** .35** .42** .74** .69** .71** .68**
[.18, .27] [.51, .57] [.31, .38] [.38, .45] [.72, .76] [.67, .71] [.68, .73] [.65, .70]
Note. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively. Values in square brackets indicate the 95% confidence interval for each correlation.
**p<.01.

20 van der Linden et al.
In addition, we sought to quantify the overall evidence pertaining to the average ideological
asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking. For this analysis, we conducted a random effects meta-
analysis on the standardized mean differences between ideological extremes across the four studies.
As shown in Figure10, we obtained an effect-size estimate for the standardized mean difference of
Hedges’ g=.77, SE=.07, p<.001.6 We interpret this as providing very strong evidence (aggregat-
ing across four different samples) that a significant and substantial ideological asymmetry exists in
conspiratorial thinking between liberals and conservatives in the United States, even at the
extremes.
6Hedges g is an unbiased variation of Cohen’s d (Hedges & Olkin, 1985).
Figure 8. Multiple parallel mediation model (Study 4). *p <.05, **p< .01, ***p <.001. N = 2119. Path coefficients are
standardized. Bootstrapped (10,000 samples) 95% confidence intervals are provided in parentheses. Model covariates include
gender, age, and education.
Table 6. Aggregated Spearman’s Correlations across Studies
Study N
Ideology
& Distrust
Ideology
& Paranoid
Ideation
Conspiracy
Mindset &
Distrust
Conspiracy
Mindset &
Paranoid Ideation
Ideology &
Conspiracy
Mindset
U.S. convenience sample 2119 .47 .35 .49 .36 .28
Mturk sample 311 .36 .07 .29 .40 .18
National sample 1500 .45 .28 .50 .36 .28
National sample 1000 .50 – .22 – .17
Aggregated correlations 4930 .46 .30 .43 .36 .25
Note. Spearman’s rank correlations coefficients using pairwise complete observations.

21
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
General Discussion
Although it may be reasonable to suggest that liberals and conservatives may both be susceptible
to conspiratorial forms of thinking under certain circumstances (Moore et al., 2014), the results of
our investigation point to meaningful psychological differences, at least in the context of American
politics. Although previous accounts have suggested that conspiratorial thinking should be equally
Figure 9. Pooled multiple parallel mediation model (N =4930). Path coefficients are standardized. Bootstrapped (10,000
samples) 95% confidence intervals are provided in parentheses. *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001.
Figure 10. Random effects meta-analysis synthesizing the evidence for an ideological asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking
between liberals and conservatives.

22 van der Linden et al.
prevalent among ideological extremists on the left and right (e.g., Kahan, 2016; McClosky & Chong,
1985; Oliver & Wood, 2014; van Prooijen et al., 2015)—with some concluding that “there is no
marked ideological asymmetry in conspiracy belief” (Sutton & Douglas, 2020, p. 1)—this is not
what we find. Consistent with Hofstadter’s (1964) historical observations about “the paranoid style
in American politics” and the theory of political conservatism as motivated social cognition (Jost,
2006, 2017; Jost et al., 2003, 2018), we observed a replicable ideological asymmetry when it comes
to the adoption of a conspiratorial mindset in general. Overall, the relationship between conservatism
and conspiratorial thinking was positive, linear, and statistically robust (r=.27, 95% CI: .24, .30).
To begin with, we observed a strong, linear relationship between political conservatism and the
belief that “global warming is a hoax”—a position that maintains the socioeconomic status quo and
obviates the need for social change aimed at protecting the natural environment (Hennes, Ruisch,
Feygina, Monteiro, & Jost, 2016; Jolley, Douglas, & Sutton, 2018). More surprisingly, at least from
the standpoint of certain perspectives in social science, we observed the very same pattern with
respect to generalized conspiratorial mindsets. In four studies based on diverse (and in two cases,
nationally representative) samples and a broad constellation of measures of political ideology and
conspiratorial thinking, we found that conservatives in the United States were significantly and sub-
stantially more likely than liberals to embrace conspiratorial ways of thinking. These findings are
consistent with independent lines of research indicating that (1) political conservatism is associated
with heightened epistemic, existential, and relational needs to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social
deviance (Jost, 2017; Jost et al., 2018), and (2) heightened epistemic, existential, and relational needs
are associated with conspiratorial thinking (Douglas, Sutton, & Cichocka, 2017; Garrett & Weeks,
2017; Kay, Whitson, Gaucher, & Galinsky, 2009; Krekó, 2015; Whitson, Galinsky, & Kay, 2015).
In contrast to the suppositions of van Prooijen and colleagues (2015), we found little or no
evidence of a curvilinear or quadratic relationship between ideological extremity and conspiratorial
thinking in the U.S. context. Extreme liberals were not as likely as extreme conservatives to adopt
a conspiratorial mindset, although it is possible that extreme liberals would be more motivated than
moderate liberals to embrace some conspiracy theories. We observed that extreme conservatives
scored significantly higher on conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals, aggregating across all
four studies (Hedges’ g=.77, SE=.07, p<.001). Importantly, this pattern of ideological asymmetry
applied to conspiratorial thinking in general as well as belief in an ideologically congenial conspir-
acy theory, namely, the conspiracy theory that global warming is a hoax.
It is perhaps worth noting that we obtained very similar results with respect to social and eco-
nomic dimensions of ideology. That is, in Studies 3 and 4 economic conservatism was positively and
significantly associated with conspiratorial ways of thinking in general, endorsement of conspiracy
theories about global warming in particular, paranoid ideation, and distrust of officialdom—much as
social conservatism was. These findings are not readily reconciled with suggestions that the psycho-
logical underpinnings of economic conservatism are vastly different from those of social or cultural
conservatism and, in particular, that psychological needs for certainty and security are associated
with social conservatism but not economic conservatism (Feldman & Johnston, 2014; Johnston,
Lavine, & Federico, 2017; Malka & Soto, 2015).
Of course, we readily note several limitations of our research program, including the fact that
we have relied upon cross-sectional, correlational analyses of data. Clearly, it is impossible to draw
causal inferences about the relationship between political ideology and conspiratorial worldviews
on the basis of these studies. Some readers might suggest that belief in conspiracy theories could,
in certain media environments, also lead people to embrace political conservatism. If this is true, it
would not necessarily contradict the theory of political ideology as motivated social cognition, which
stresses the existence of elective affinities arising from a reciprocal combination of “top-down,” elite-
driven communication processes and “bottom-up” psychological needs and interests (Jost, Federico,
& Napier, 2009). We decided not to conduct mediation models that reverse the order of the variables,

23
Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking
because this approach has been criticized sharply on methodological grounds (Lemmer & Gollwitzer,
2017). Instead, we cite a number of theoretical reasons why statistically equivalent models would
be less plausible than the model we have developed in the present research program (Pieters, 2017).
First, political ideology is generally understood to be a reasonably stable disposition that re-
mains fairly consistent throughout the lifespan of an adult (Peterson, Smith, & Hibbing, 2020; Sears
& Funk, 1999), whereas conspiratorial thinking may not be. Second, there is a good deal of evi-
dence linking political conservatism in particular to epistemic, existential, and relational needs (Jost,
2017; Jost et al., 2003, 2009, 2018) which, as noted above, are themselves linked to the endorse-
ment of conspiracy theories (Douglas et al., 2017; Kay et al., 2009; Whitson et al., 2015). Third,
although there are alternative theoretical accounts emphasizing ideological symmetry, which would
suggest that conspiratorial thinking should be equally prevalent on the left and right (Kahan, 2016;
McClosky & Chong, 1985; van Prooijen et al., 2015; Uscinski et al., 2016), we know of no theories
in social science that would make the opposite prediction, namely that liberals would be more prone
to conspiratorial thinking than conservatives. Nor are we aware of any patterns of data that show an
asymmetry in the direction opposite to the one we have observed here.
It is conceivable that—as suggested by an anonymous reviewer—conservatives may be more
likely than liberals to admit to thinking in conspiratorial terms, but that both groups actually engage
in such thinking to an approximately equivalent degree. To the extent that conspiracy theorizing is
considered to be socially undesirable in American society, however, this is not the pattern that one
would expect on the basis of other psychological evidence indicating that conservatives tend to score
higher rather than lower than liberals on measures of socially desirable responding (Jost et al., 2010;
Wojcik, Hovasapian, Graham, Motyl, & Ditto, 2015). It is possible that social norms differ among
liberals and conservatives with respect to conspiratorial thinking and other epistemic practices, and
this would be a fruitful direction for future research. At the same time, if it is in fact true that conser-
vatives feel that conspiratorial thinking is more socially appropriate than liberals do, this difference
in social norms would also seem to require explanation in social psychological terms, along the lines
of what we have attempted in this article.
Another clear limitation is that we are focusing in particular on the United States shortly before
and during the era of Donald Trump. This could be important, because cross-national studies suggest
that the link between political conservatism and skepticism about global warming, for instance, is
stronger in the United States than in other countries (Hornsey, Harris, & Fielding, 2018). It is worth
recounting that Hofstadter’s (1964) observations about the “paranoid style” of conservative (or pseu-
do-conservative) thinking were confined to the American context—although he was describing a
decidedly different historical period.
In any case, we suspect that our findings might also have resonance in other countries where
right-wing authoritarianism is in the ascendancy, such as Hungary, Austria, Poland, Turkey, Israel,
and Brazil. To take just a few examples, right-wing conspiracy theories blaming liberals, Jews, im-
migrants, foreigners, journalists, academics, and other secret cabals for domestic and international
problems—including plans for an alleged “replacement” of the White Christian population with
non-White Muslims—have gained political currency throughout Europe (e.g., Davies, 2016; Faragó,
Kende, & Krekó, 2020; Feffer, 2019). Conspiracy theories involving George Soros, a liberal Jewish
businessman and philanthropist, have been extremely popular among rightists not only in his na-
tive country of Hungary, where government-sponsored billboards spread misinformation about him,
but also in Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey, Malaysia, Canada, and the United
States (Baram, 2018; Holmes, 2019). In future research, it would be important—for theoretical and
practical reasons—to determine the extent to which left-right ideological asymmetries operate in
contexts outside of the United States.
In the meantime, our findings, which are clearly focused on the context of American politics,
provide strong support for the notion that conspiratorial ideation—and the related phenomenon of

24 van der Linden et al.
science denial—are forms of motivated reasoning that resonate more with politically conservative
than liberal or progressive audiences (see also Dieguez, Wagner-Egger, & Gauvrit, 2015; Fessler,
Pisor, & Holbrook, 2017; Jolley et al., 2018; Kraft et al., 2014; Lewandowsky, Oberauer, et al.,
2013; Miller et al., 2015; Mooney, 2012). Conspiracy theories—like many other types of rumors—
provide relatively simple causal explanations for events that are otherwise experienced as complex,
uncertain, ambiguous, and potentially troubling or threatening (Allport & Postman, 1946; Kay
et al., 2009). It is important, then, to bear in mind that psychological needs to reduce uncertainty and
threat are correlated not with ideological extremity in general, but with right-wing conservatism in
particular (Jost, 2006, 2017).
Concluding Remarks
In the present research program, we administered a variety of psychological and political instru-
ments to large samples of American adults and observed that political conservatives were signifi-
cantly more likely than liberals to exhibit paranoid ideation, to be more distrustful of officialdom,
and to espouse conspiratorial thinking in general and in particular (for example, with respect to the
scientific evidence about climate change). As noted above, these observations are remarkably con-
sistent with Hofstadter’s (1964) historical analysis of the “paranoid style in American politics”—as
well as previous research indicating that paranoia is positively associated with right-wing authoritar-
ianism and SDO (Wilson & Rose, 2014).
The fact that conservatives—or perhaps “pseudo-conservatives”—are especially distrustful of
scientists, governmental representatives, and the mainstream media as sources of information pre-
sumably makes them more susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. Likewise, conspiratorial thinking
is likely to increase distrust of conventional epistemic authorities. In conclusion, then, we have pro-
vided new and robust evidence that a meaningful ideological asymmetry exists in the United States
when it comes to the adoption of conspiratorial mindsets. As Hofstadter (1964) pointed out, there
are some troubling implications of the paranoid style for the stable functioning of liberal-democratic
societies—insofar as some level of political trust is required for citizens to share power with and
consent to being governed by others with whom they disagree (see also Morisi, Jost, & Singh, 2019).
Although these normative implications are beyond the scope of the present article, they are well
worth considering.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
All data required to reproduce the main analyses reported in this article are available on the
Open Science Framework (OSF): https://osf.io/r9jnh /
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Supporting Information
Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher’s
web site:
Table S1. Global-Warming Conspiracy Scale Items (Study 2)
Table S2. Constructs and Item Text (Studies 3 and 4)
Table S3. Demographic Characteristics of Survey Respondents (Study 3)
Table S4. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations with Confidence Intervals for Party ID
(Study 3)
Table S5. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations With Confidence Intervals for Individual
Scale Items (Study 3)
Table S6. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations With Confidence Intervals for Individual
Scale Items (Study 4)
Figure S1-S7. Scree plots to examine unidimensionality of scales.