Conspiracy Belief as a Coping Strategy: An Attachment Theory Perspective

Conspiracy theories explain significant events as the actions of secretive and powerful groups. They are both popular and consequential, influencing people's decisions to vote, vaccinate their children, and reduce their carbon footprint (1). A recent theoretical perspective on why people adopt conspiracy theories proposes that they do so to meet important psychological needs, including the needs for security and control (2). That is, people appear to turn to conspiracy theories in an attempt to restore security and control by, for example, believing that they are in possession of knowledge that other people do not have (3). However, little is known about the specific mechanisms that link psychological needs to the adoption of conspiracy theories. Also, little is known about whether or not adopting conspiracy theories is a strategy that works, and if people do indeed feel better when they adopt them. These questions are the focus of the current research.

The research focuses specifically on the psychological needs for security and control that arise as a result of different attachment styles (4), and whether or not these needs are met by conspiracy theories. My research has shown that for people who have an insecure attachment style, and in particular for those who are anxiously attached, but not avoidant or securely attached, conspiracy theories appear to be particularly appealing (5). We aim to build on this finding in two strands of research.

The first strand will examine why anxiously attached people are drawn to conspiracy theories. One possibility is that such people have a tendency to exaggerate threats to gain attention and support (6), whereas people who have avoidant or secure attachment style do not. This possible explanation will be the focus of a first study (complete by Dec 2018). We will measure attachment styles and belief in conspiracy theories using established scales, and threat exaggeration using items designed for this study. For instance, the items will list threatening scenarios (e.g., being the victim of online fraud) and participants will be asked to report the likelihood that these threatening events will befall them. We predict that anxious attachment will positively predict conspiracy belief (4), and that anxious attachment will predict threat exaggeration (6). We further predict that threat exaggeration will positively predict conspiracy belief and that it will also mediate the relationship between anxious attachment and conspiracy belief. Subsequent studies (especially if results in Study 1 are null or inconclusive) will examine other mechanisms that could explain the relationship between attachment styles and conspiracy belief, such as lack of control, powerlessness, and uncertainty about the future (Jul 2019).

The second strand will focus on the success of conspiracy beliefs as a means to cope with the challenges posed by insecure attachment. To begin, a correlational study will measure conspiracy belief, attachment style, and a variety of coping strategies to examine the extent to which conspiracy belief and insecure attachment predict the same coping strategies (Dec 2019). Experimental studies will then manipulate attachment style (e.g., by priming a secure base schema) to establish a causal relationship between attachment style, conspiracy belief, and coping strategies (Jul 2020). Finally, we will examine in subsequent studies whether conspiracy theories make insecurely attached people feel better by measuring attachment, manipulating exposure to conspiracy theories, and measuring a variety of indices of wellbeing (Feb 2021).

In each study, we will conduct power analyses to obtain sufficient samples, and aim to recruit participants from a range of sources including crowdsourcing, the RPS, and representative samples by collaborating with other researchers to collect data from large panels.