Belief in Conspiracy Theories

Author(s): Ted Goertzel

Source: Political Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 731-742
Published by: International Society of Political Psychology
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 Vol. 15, No. 4, 1994
PoliticalPsychology,

Beliefin ConspiracyTheories
Ted Goertzel
Camden
RutgersUniversity,

A surveyof348 residents NewJerseyshowedthatmostbelieved

ofsouthwestern
thatseveralofa listof10 conspiracy
theorieswereat leastprobablytrue.People
whobelievedinone conspiracy weremorelikelytoalso believeinothers.Belief
in conspiracieswas correlatedwithanomia, lack of interpersonal trust,and
about
insecurity employment. Blackand hispanicrespondentsweremore likelyto
believein conspiracytheoriesthanwerewhiterespondents. Youngpeople were
morelikelyto believein conspiracy
slightly theories,buttherewerefewsignifi-
cantcorrelations withgender,educationallevel,or occupationalcategory.
KEY WORDS: conspiracy
theories,anomia,trust

Reportsin themassmediasuggested thatbeliefin conspiracies was partic-

ularlyacuteintheUnitedStatesin 1991and 1992(Krauthammer, 1991;Krauss,
1992). The releaseof themovieJFK triggered a revivalof popularinterest in
America's"conspiracy thatwon'tgo away"(Oglesby,1992). A nationalsurvey
by theNew YorkTimes(1992) showedthatonly10% ofAmericans believedthe
officialaccountthatLee HarveyOswald actedalonein assassinating President
JohnF. Kennedy, while77% believedthatotherswereinvolved,and 12% didn't
knowor declinedto answer.
BeliefintheKennedy conspiracyhasalwaysbeenstrong butseemstohavein-
creasedas theeventbecamemoredistant.In 1966,36% oftherespondents in a
Galluppoll believedthatOswaldacted alone.The was
percentage I11% in boththe
1976and 1983Galluppolls,and 13% ina 1988CBS poll(Times,1992).Thisin-
creaseinbeliefintheconspiracyhastakenplacedespitethefactthattheaccumula-
tionofevidencehasincreasingly
supported thelone-assassintheory (Moore,1990).
Perhaps more was
surprising the widespreadbelief,particularly in the
African-American andgaycommunities, thattheAIDS epidemicwas a deliber-
ate conspiracyby government officials(Bates, 1990; Cooper,1990; Douglass,
1989). A surveyofAfrican-American churchmembers bytheSouthern Christian
Leadership Council foundthat35% believed AIDS was a form of genocide,
731
0162-895X? 1994 International
Societyof PoliticalPsychology
Publishedby BlackwellPublishers,
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732 Goertzel

while30% wereunsure(Thomas& Quinn,1991,p. 1499). Thirty-four percent

of therespondents believedthatAIDS is a man-madevirus,while44% were
unsure.AIDS specialistssay thatthereis no convincing evidenceforthisargu-
ment,butmanyAfrican-Americans see a parallelbetweenAIDS andtheTuske-
gee syphilisexperiments conductedfrom1952-1972.
Anotherconspiracy theory current in 1991was the"OctoberSurprise,"the
beliefthatGeorgeBushandotherRepublicans conspired withIranianofficialsto
delaythereleaseofAmerican hostagesuntilafter the1980elections.Thistheory,
like manyothers,failedto holdup to carefulscrutiny (Barry,1991),butitcon-
tinuedto be viewedas plausibleby manypeopleon boththerightand theleft.
A numberof otherconspiracy theorieswerealso current in 1991. Focus-
groupdiscussionswithstudents at a New Jersey publicuniversity identified
the
following as widelybelieved: the conspiracy of Anita Hill and othersagainst
ClarenceThomas,theconspiracy bygovernment officialsto distribute
drugsin
Americanminoritycommunities,the conspiracyof Japanesebusinessmen
againsttheAmericaneconomy,theconspiracy of theAirForceto concealthe
of
reality flying saucers, and the conspiracy of theFBI to kill MartinLuther
King.
Therehas beenno publishedinformation abouttheprevalenceof beliefin
any of theseconspiracies.Nor has anyoneaddressedthequestionof to what
extentbeliefin conspiraciesis a generalized ideologicaltrait,thatis, how likely
arepeoplewhobelieveinone conspiracy tobelieveinothers.Norhas therebeen
anypreviousattempt to discoverthepsychological or sociologicalcorrelatesof
beliefin conspiracies.

SURVEY RESULTS

In April1992,a telephone surveywas conducted of 348 randomly selected

residentsof Burlington,Camden,andGloucester countiesin southwestern New
Jersey.These counties,which are of
part thePhiladelphia metropolitan are
area,
and
racially,ethnically, sociologically diverse,includinginner-city underclass
and
neighborhoods working- and middle-classsuburbs. The sample was strati-
fiedto overrepresenttheimpoverished minoritycommunity residingin the city
of Camden,and thepercentages wereweighted to reflectthedemographic bal-
ance in theregionas a whole.Twohundred andelevenof therespondents were
white, 74 were black,44 were Hispanic,and 19 were Asian or members of other
groups.Interviews wereconducted by studentsin a universityresearch-methods
class and carefullyverifiedby a staffmember.This samplesize providesa
marginof errorof approximately 5.3%.
The firstquestionwas, "Therehas recently beena good deal of interest in
theassassinationofPresident JohnKennedy. Do youthinkitlikelythatPresident
Kennedywas killedby an organizedconspiracy, or do youthinkit morelikely

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Beliefin ConspiracyTheories 733

thathe was killedby a lone gunman?"Sixty-nine percentof therespondents

thought it likelythatKennedyhad beenkilledby a conspiracy,14% by a lone
gunman,and 17% volunteered thattheywereuncertain.Thesefiguresareclose
to thosein theNew YorkTimes/CBSNewsnationalsurvey(Times,1992),which
used verysimilarquestionwording.

Table I. Responsesto SurveyItemson Conspiracies

2. "AnitaHill was partof an organizedconspiracy True(DT): 10%

Definitely
againstJudgeClarenceThomas." ProbablyTrue(PT): 22%
Don't Know (volunteered)(DK): 14%
ProbablyFalse (PF): 31%
False (DF): 23%
Definitely
3. "The AIDS viruswas createddeliberately
in a DT: 5%
governmentlaboratory." PT: 10%
DK: 12%
PF: 25%
DF: 48%
4. "The government spreadtheAIDS
deliberately DT: 3%
virusin thehomosexualcommunity." PT: 8%
DK: 9%
PF: 26%
DF: 54%
5. "The government spreadtheAIDS
deliberately DT: 4%
virusin theblackcommunity." PT: 6%
DK: 8%
PF: 26%
DF: 56%
6. "The Air Forceis hidingevidencethat DT: 12%
theUnitedStateshas beenvisitedby flying PT: 29%
saucers." DK: 11%
PF: 25%
DF: 23%
7. "The FBI was involvedin theassassination
of DT: 9%
MartinLutherKing." PT: 33%
DK: 16%
PF: 22%
DF: 20%
8. "RonaldReaganand GeorgeBush conspired DT: 16%
withtheIraniansso thattheAmericanhostages PT: 39%
wouldnotbe releaseduntilafterthe 1980 DK: 12%
elections. PF: 23%
DF: 11%
9. "The Japaneseare deliberately to
conspiring DT: 16%
destroytheAmericaneconomy." PT: 30%
DK: 8%
PF: 30%
DF: 16%
10. "The Americangovernment deliberately
put DT: 7%
drugsintotheinnercitycommunities." PT: 14%
DK: 9%
PF: 29%
DF: 41%

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734 Goertzel

The respondents were thenasked theiropinionsabout nine othercon-

spiracieswhichhadlatelybeeninthenews.A four-point scale was used,ranging
from"definitely true"and "probablytrue"to "probablyfalse"and "definitely
false.""Don'tknow"was notoffered as an alternativebutwas recorded whenthe
respondents volunteered it. This questionwordingencouragedrespondents to
give theirbest guessas to the truth of a conspiracy,while relyingon the distinc-
tionbetween"probably"and "definitely" to distinguishbetweenhunchesand
strong beliefs.The items and the weightedpercentages in Table I.
are
Figure 1 shows the number of conspiracies thattherespondents believedto
be definitelyor probablytrue.Veryfew(6.2%) of therespondents thought that
noneof theconspiracies was at leastprobablytrue,while21% thought thattwo
weretrue,and 19% thatthreeweretrue.These percentages wereweightedto
correctforthedisproportionate of
sampling minority respondents.
African-American respondents were morelikelythanwhiteor Hispanic
respondents to believein theconspiracies whichspecifically affected theircom-
munity.Sixty-two percent of the black respondents believed that it was defi-
or
nitely probably true thatthe government deliberately
putdrugs in black com-
munities.Sixty-eight percent believed that the FBI had been involved in the
killingof Martin Luther King. Thirty-one percentbelievedthat the government
deliberatelyputAIDS intoAfrican-American communities. These percentages
are reasonablyconsistent withthosefroma surveyof black churchmembers
(Thomasand Quinn,1991),althoughoursamplingand questionwordingwere
different.Because of the smallernumberof respondents, percentagesbased

Pct.ofRespondents
(weighted)
25
21.1
20 19.1
16.7

15
11.8
10.6
10
6.2 6.4
3.1 3
1 1.1

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Numberof
Conspiracies
Fig. 1. Numberof ConspiraciesBelievedDefinitely
or ProbablyTrue

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Beliefin ConspiracyTheories 735

11% marginof
are subjectto an approximate
onlyon the black respondents
samplingerror.

BELIEF IN CONSPIRACIES AS A GENERALIZED DIMENSION

Thereis remarkably littlepsychologicalliteratureon beliefin conspiracy

theories.Graumann (1987, p. 245) observedthatthisis a "topicofintrinsic psy-
chologicalinterestthathasbeenlefttohistory andtoothersocialsciences."Histo-
rians(Groh,1987)andsociologists (LipsetandRaab, 1970)findthatconspirator-
ial thinkinghasbeencentraltoantisemitic andotherauthoritarian beliefsystems,
andtomanysocialmovements inbothEuropeandtheUnitedStates.A well-known
historicaldiscussionbyHofstadter (1965) arguedthatthereis a distinctparanoid
"style"inAmerican politics.Despitethishistorical
evidence,conspiratorialthink-
ingwas notpartoftheauthoritarianism syndrome as originally
conceptualized by
Adorno,et al. (1950), and has notbeenaddressedin thesubsequent researchon
authoritarianismor relatedsocial-psychologicalconstructs.
Giventhislack ofpriorempiricalresearch, ourfirstgoal was to determine
to whatextentthereis a generalizedtendency to believein conspiracies.The
matrix ofcorrelationsbetweenthenineconspiracy theory itemsis showninTable
II. The tableshowsa moderate to highlevelofcorrelation betweenmanyofthe
items,includingseveralthathaveno stronglogicalor topicalconnection. Most
of thecorrelationsare statistically as indicatedin thetable.A factor
significant,
analysisdetermined thatthefirst factor
principal explained37.8% ofthevariance
commonto theseitems.(For the whiterespondents alone, thefirstprincipal
factorexplained32.5% of thevariance;fortheblackaloneitexplained39.9%).
Thesefindings offerstrongsupport forthehypothesis thatbeliefin conspiracies
is a generalizedideologicaldimension.

Table II. Correlations

BetweenBeliefin SpecificConspiracies

Theory 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

1. Kennedy
2. AnitaHill .08
3. Aids Govlab .22** .28**
4. Aids-Gays .11 .24* .69*
5. Aids-Blacks .15* .24** .67* .78**
6. FlyingSaucers .24** .15* .21* .19 .11
7. FBI-King .27** .27* .35* .33** .42** .16*
8. IranHostages .16* .11 .32** .31** .32** .17** .34**
9. JapaneseEcon .07 .29** .20** .23** .22* .03 .24** .17**
10. Drugs-Gov .08 .34** .52** .54** .56** .19** .44** .29** .29**

N of cases: 348 * < .01, ** < .001

One-tailedsignificance:

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736 Goertzel

CORRELATES OF BELIEF IN CONSPIRACIES

These 10 itemswereused to construct a summated scale of Beliefin Con-

spiracies. This scale had a reliabilitycoefficient (a) of .78, confirming thatthe
itemshaveenoughvarianceincommontojustify treating them as a scale forthis
population. The scale was then used to investigate some of the correlates of
beliefin conspiraciesas an attitude dimension.
Beliefin conspiracies was notsignificantly correlated withgender,educa-
tionallevel, or occupationalcategory. Therewas a weak (r = -.21) negative
correlation withage (all correlations mentioned in thetextare significant at the
.001 level). Attendance at the movieJFK was not correlatedwithBelief in
Conspiracyscores.Therewas a strongcorrelation (r = .44) withminority status
(defined as white= 1, hispanic=2,black=3) and with black race as a dummy
variable(r = .42).
The minority statusvariablewas treatedas linearforpurposesof correla-
tionalanalysis since thismadesenseconceptually (Hispanicsarelessstigmatized
as a minority than are blacks) and empirically (Hispanicswere intermediate
betweenwhiteand blacksin theirscoreson thevariablesused in thisstudy).
Althoughthe U.S. Census treatsrace and Hispanicethnicity as two different
the
variables, sociologicalreality, at least in New Jersey, is that whites,blacks,
and Hispanicsare threedistinct social groups.
Beliefin conspiracieswas significantly correlated (r = .43) witha three-
=
itemscale of "Anomia"(ae .49) made up of itemstakenfromtheGeneral
Social Surveyof 1990. Theseitemsmeasuredthebeliefthatthesituation of the
averagepersonis getting worse,thatitis hardlyfairto bringa childintotoday's
world,andthatmostpublicofficials arenotinterested intheaverageman.These
itemstappedintofeelingsof discontent withtheestablished institutions of con-
temporary society,feelingswhichwerewidelyobservedbypollsters andpundits
in 1991and 1992. A comparison of scoresfromthissamplewiththosefromthe
national1990 sampleconfirmed thatanomiain thissense was higherin 1992
thanin 1990.
The Beliefin Conspiraciesscale was significantly correlated (r = -.37)
witha three-item scale oftrust(a = .57), whichaskedwhether respondents felt
thattheycouldtrustthepolice,theirneighbors, or theirrelatives.The Beliefin
Conspiraciesscale was also significantly correlated(r = .21) withthe item
"Thinking aboutthenext12 months, howlikelydo youthinkit is thatyouwill
lose yourjob or be laid off?"
TableIII showsthemeanscoresofeachoftheracial/ethnic groupson each
of the attitudescales. Groupdifferences on all threescales were statistically
significant at the.001 levelby analysisof variancetest.
In a multivariate regression analysisofthedeterminants ofbeliefinconspir-
acies, age and economicinsecurity werenotstatistically significant. The vari-

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Beliefin ConspiracyTheories 737

Table III. Mean Scoresof Racial/Ethnic

Groupson Attitude
Scales

Scale White Hispanic Black

Beliefin Conspiracies 2.5 2.8 3.3

Anomia 3.4 3.8 4.1
Trust 3.7 3.3 3.1

Note:All scales variedfromI to 5, with3 as a neutralscore.

ables whichretainedsignificance wereminority status,anomia,and trust.The

multivariaterelationshipsareshownmostclearlyinthepathanalysisinFigure2.
Minoritystatusand anomiaare clearlythestrongest determinants of beliefin
conspiracies.Minority statusis also strongly correlatedwithanomiaand with
lowerlevelsof interpersonal trust.The correlationbetweentrustand beliefin
conspiracieswas weakenedwhenanomiaand minority statuswerecontrolled,
butit retainedstatistical
significance.
The correlation betweenminority statusand beliefin conspiracieswas
elevatedby thefactthatourquestionsincludedseveralconspiraciesallegedto
have been directedspecifically at blacks. Black respondents weremuchmore
likelyto believein theseconspiracies thanwerewhiteor Hispanicrespondents.
However,thedatainTableIV showthatminority statuswas positivelycorrelated
withbeliefin severalof theconspiracieswhichhad nothing to do withminor-
ities,suchas theIranhostageconspiracy andtheJapanese conspiracy againstthe
Americaneconomy.Minority statuswas not,however, correlated withthebelief

Anomia

.38 .35

Minority .26 Beliefin

Status - Conspiracies

-.38 Interpersonal -.16

Trust
Fig. 2. Pathanalysisof determinants
of beliefin conspiracies

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738 Goertzel

Table IV. Correlations

of Minority
Status,Anomia,and Trust
withConspiracyItems

Items Status
Minority Anomia Trust

Kennedy .03 .17** -.10

AnitaHill .28** .18** -.10
Aids-govt .43"* .36** -.31**
Aids-gays .39** .35** -.30**
AIDS-blacks .38** .35** -.32**
FlyingSaucers -.05 .11 -.11
FBI-King .31** .34** -.26**
IranHostages .23** .43** -.16*
Japanese .19** .28** -.19**
Drugs-govt .55** .43** -.40**

N of cases: 329 * - .01 ** -.001

One-tailedsignificance:

thatPresident Kennedywas killedbya conspiracy orthattheAirForceis hiding

evidenceaboutflyingsaucers.Beliefin theKennedyconspiracy seemsto have
becomepartoftheconventional wisdominall sectorsofsociety,whiletheflying
saucersitemmaytapintoa "newage" beliefsystemnotmeasuredby theother
items.
Amongwhiterespondents, beliefintheAIDS conspiracies andbeliefinthe
MartinLutherKingconspiracy werenegatively correlatedwitheducationallev-
el. Therewereno othersignificant bivariatecorrelations
betweeneducationand
beliefin conspiracies.Therewas no evidenceof an interactionbetweeneduca-
tionallevel and anomia,whichmighthave caused an especiallyhighlevel of
beliefin certainconspiraciesamonghighlyeducatedanomics.Multivariate re-
gressiondid show,however,thatbotheducationand anomiaweresignificant as
determinants of beliefin theKennedyconspiracy forthesampleas a whole.
Table IV also shows thecorrelations betweenthe scales of Anomiaand
Trustand the 10 conspiracy items.The Anomiascale is significantly
correlated
withall oftheitemsexcepttheone aboutflying saucers,whichsupports theidea
thatthisitemmaytap intoa different beliefsystem.The Trustscale is signifi-
cantlycorrelatedwithmostof theconspiracies,althoughthecorrelations are
loweranddo notachievestatisticalsignificanceinthecase oftheKennedy, Anita
Hill, and flyingsaucerconspiracies.

DISCUSSION

Thesedataconfirm thatconspiracy
theories arealiveandwellin contempo-
rary American Most
society. are
respondents inclinedto believethatseveralofa
listof conspiraciesare probablyor definitelytrue.The tendency to believein
conspiraciesis correlatedwith anomia,witha lack of trust
in otherpeople,and

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Beliefin Conspiracy
Theories 739

withfeelingsof insecurity aboutunemployment. It is also morecommonamong

blackand Hispanicrespondents thanamongwhiterespondents, at leastforthis
New Jersey sample. The correlations
withminority status do notdisappearwhen
anomia,trustlevel,andinsecurity aboutunemployment arecontrolled,although
itis truethatminorities in thesamplearemoreanomic,distrustful, andinsecure
abouttheirjob opportunities.
The strongcorrelation withthe scale of Anomiaindicatesthatbeliefin
conspiracies is associatedwiththefeelingsofalienation anddisaffection fromthe
system. Volkan (1985) that of
suggests duringperiods insecurity and discontent
peopleoftenfeela needfora tangibleenemyon whichtoexternalize theirangry
feelings.Conspiracy theoriesmayhelp in thisprocessby providing a tangible
enemy to blame forproblems which otherwiseseem too abstract
and impersonal.
Conspiracytheoriesalso providereadyanswersforunanswered questionsand
helpto resolvecontradictions betweenknown"facts"and an individual'sbelief
system.

THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS

It is puzzlingthatconspiratorial thinkinghas beenoverlookedin theexten-

sive researchon authoritarianism whichhas dominatedquantitative workin
politicalpsychology since the 1950s. One possibleexplanation is thatmuch of
thisworkfocuseson right-wing authoritarianism(Altmeyer, 1988), whilecon-
spiratorial thinkingis characteristicofalienatedthinkerson boththerightandthe
left(Citrinetal., 1975;Graumann, 1987;Berlet,1992).Evenmoresurprisingly,
however,conspiratorial thinking notbeena focusof theefforts
has to measure
"left-wing authoritarianism" (Stone, 1980; Eysenck,1981; LeVasseur & Gold,
1993) or of researchwith the "dogmatism" concept(Rokeach,1960), which was
intendedto overcometheideologicalbias in authoritarianism measures.
On a morefundamental level,thedifficultywithexistingresearchtraditions
may be theirfocuson the content ofbeliefsratherthan therespondent'scognitive
processesor emotionalmakeup.As I have arguedelsewhere(Goertzel,1987),
moststudiesof authoritarianism simplyask peoplewhattheybelieveand then
assumethatthesebeliefsmustbe based on underlying psychological processes
whichgo unmeasured. Sincethesescalesask mostlyaboutbeliefsheldbythose
on theright,itis notsurprising thattheyfindauthoritarianism tobe a right-wing
phenomenon. Research with projectivetests(Rothman& Lichter,1982) and
biographical materials(Goertzel,1992),on theotherhand,haveconfirmed that
manyaspectsofauthoritarian thinking canbe foundonboththeleftandtheright.
Recentdevelopments in artificial
intelligence,chaostheory, and neuropsy-
chology are providing a framework whichmayenablepoliticalpsychologists
to go beyondthisfocuson thecontent ofbeliefs(Eiser,1994).In ChaoticLogic,

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740 Goertzel

BenjaminGoertzel(1994) developsa mathematical modelof beliefsystemsas

partof a largermodelofthestructure andevolution of intelligence (B. Goertzel,
1993a, 1993b). In thismodel,he showsthatbeliefsystemscan be character-
ized as dialogicalormonological.Dialogicalbeliefsystems engageina dialogue
withtheircontext,whilemonologicalsystemsspeak onlyto themselves,ig-
noringtheircontextin all but the shallowestrespects.This mathematical
modelquantifies thephilosophical distinction betweenthe"open"and "closed"
mind.
Conspiratorial beliefsare usefulin monologicalbeliefsystemssincethey
providean easy,automaticexplanation foranynewphenomenon whichmight
threaten thebeliefsystem.In a monologicalbeliefsystem,each of thebeliefs
servesas evidenceforeach of theotherbeliefs.The moreconspiracies a mono-
logical thinker believes in, the more likely he or she is to believe in any new
conspiracytheory which be
may proposed. Thus African-Americans, who are
morelikelyto be awareof theTuskegeesyphilisconspiracy, arepredisposed to
believethatAIDS mayalso be a conspiracy, whilethisidea mayseemabsurdto
people who are unfamiliar withpastmedicalabuses.
Of course,conspiracies are sometimes real,and notall conspiracy theories
are rootedin monologicalbeliefsystems.Today,everyoneacknowledgesthe
realityof theWatergate cover-upconspiracybecausethetape recordings pro-
videdsuchstrong evidence.The keyissueis notthebeliefin a specificconspir-
acy, but the logical processeswhichled to thatbelief.As withotherbelief
systems, conspiracy theories can be evaluatedaccording to theirproductivity (B.
Goertzel,1994). To the extent that are
they productive, beliefsystemsgenerate
newpatterns of thought in responseto newissuesandproblems.Some conspir-
acy thinkers are productivein thissense. They develophighlyidiosyncratic
theoriesand gatherextensiveevidenceto testthem.Brock(1993), forexample,
has recently uncovered a greatdeal offactualevidencerelevant toa hypothesized
conspiracy to defeat Clarence Thomas's confirmation to the United StatesSu-
preme Court. Although Brock could be characterizedas a conspiracy theorist,at
leastwithregardto thiscase, thestructure of his argument is less monological
thanthatof manyopponentsof thisparticular conspiracytheorywho relyon
discussionsof widersocietalissues whichadd no new information aboutthe
case Of
particular (Morrison,1992). course,dialogical thinkers who sympathize
withAnitaHill can findflawsin Brock'scase and cite otherfactsin Hill's
defense(Mayer& Abramson,1993).
Dialogical conspiracytheories,whichincludeextensivefactualevidence
anddetails,aretestableandmayevenbe disconfirmed bynewevidence.On rare
a
occasions, conspiracy expertmay even become a turncoat, abandoning a belief
whichis notsupported bythepreponderance ofevidence(Moore, 1990). Many
people seem to respondto dialogicalconspiracyarguments accordingto their
ideologicalscripts(Goertzel,1992). In just theNew YorkTimes,forexample,

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Beliefin ConspiracyTheories 741

reviewers of and commentators on Brock'sbookaboutAnitaHill founditto be

"sleaze withfootnotes"(Lewis, 1993), "a book thatsinksbeneathits bias"
(Quindlen,1993),"well written, carefully researched andpowerful in itslogic"
(Lehmann-Haupt, 1993), and a book with and
"opinionated sloppilypresented
arguments" whichnonetheless "badlydamages[AnitaHill's] case" (Wilkinson,
1993). A Washington Postreviewer characterized it as "thefirstsalvoin a long
and salutarysearchforthetruthof an affairthatis takingplace alongsidethe
Kennedyassassinationand Watergate as one of thenation'sunsolvedpolitical
mysteries" (Shales, 1993).
Monologicalconspiracy thinkers do notsearchforfactualevidenceto test
theirtheories.Instead,theyofferthe same hackneyedexplanationforevery
problem-it's the conspiracyof the Jews,the capitalists,the patriarchy, the
communists, themedicalestablishment, or whatever. In thesecases, theproof
whichis offeredis notevidenceaboutthe specificincidentor issue, but the
generalpattern; forexample,theX conspiracy has beenresponsible forall ofour
otherproblems,so it is obviousthatX mustbe responsible forthisone as well.
For example,Crenshaw(1992) observedthatblackwomenhavebeen racially
and sexuallyabusedby the whitemale powerstructure throughout American
history.She then simply assumed that Anita Hill's allegations should be viewed
as an exampleofthispattern, neverstopping to examinethefactualbasisforthe
particular allegationsat hand.
To fullytestthemodelof conspiratorial thinking as partof a monological
beliefsystem,we wouldneedtimeseriesdatato determine howchangein belief
aboutone conspiracy affects change in beliefin another. On a morequalitative
level, we wouldpredictthatmonologicalconspiracythinkers wouldbe more
likely to defend their
beliefs about a given case by citing evidence aboutother
cases. They would be less likelyto relyon evidencewhichis availableto
everyoneinpublicsources,andmorelikelytodependon untestable suppositions
and abstract principles.It wouldbe difficult to testthesehypotheses withques-
tionnaire data,buttheycouldbe testedwithcontent analysesofpublishedlitera-
tureor withdepthinterviews.

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Bates, K. D. (1990) Is it genocide?Essence,September, 76-117.
Berlet,C. (1992). Friendly fascists:The farrighttriesto movein on theleft.TheProgressive, 56
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