Authoritarian minds may be primed for conspiracy beliefs, study suggests

A new study published in Political Psychology challenges a widely held assumption about the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and democracy. The researchers found that, rather than conspiracy beliefs leading to criticism of democratic institutions or support for authoritarianism, it may be that people who already favor authoritarian forms of government are more likely to adopt conspiracy beliefs—especially during elections.

Over the past decade, conspiracy theories have become a prominent concern in political discourse. From election denial to vaccine misinformation, many commentators argue that such beliefs undermine the foundations of democracy. But while conspiracy theories are often seen as a threat to democratic norms, it’s less clear whether they are actually causing political disillusionment or are simply a symptom of it.

“Like many others, we became aware of the growing spread of false or misleading information, alongside increasing concerns about weakening support for democratic norms in many Western countries—a phenomenon often referred to as democratic backsliding,” said study author Emma Thomas, a Matthew Flinders Professor of Psychology and ARC Future Fellow at Flinders University.

“Some observers speculated that these trends might be connected: that conspiracy theories alleging wrongdoing by corrupt elites could be fueling criticism of democracy itself. However, when we began our research, there was little evidence directly linking belief in conspiracy theories to support for different forms of government, such as democracy or autocracy.”

“One particularly relevant context was the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, during which President Trump claimed the election had been rigged,” Thomas explained. “Since free and fair elections are fundamental to representative democracy, we hypothesized that endorsing election-related conspiracy theories might be especially closely tied to broader skepticism about democracy. But we also wanted to explore the alternative—that more anti-democratic people are more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs.”

The research took place during the 2020 presidential election in the United States and the 2020 general election in New Zealand. The study followed over 1,200 participants—609 from the U.S. and 603 from New Zealand—across three waves of data collection: two weeks before the election, at the time of the election result, and two weeks afterward.

Participants answered questions measuring their belief in election-related conspiracy theories, such as whether mail-in ballots were being tampered with or whether powerful elites were influencing the outcome. They also rated their general trust in democracy and their support for different forms of government, including representative democracy, direct democracy, and authoritarianism.

To examine how views changed over time, the researchers used a statistical method known as a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. This approach allowed them to separate stable, trait-like tendencies from short-term shifts in belief during the election period.

In the United States, the study found no strong evidence that belief in election conspiracy theories led to later increases in criticism of democracy or support for authoritarianism. Instead, the results suggested the opposite pattern: individuals who showed increased support for authoritarian government were more likely to adopt conspiracy beliefs later on.

In New Zealand, where election conspiracies were less widespread and the political climate was less polarized, the results were similarly revealing. There, people who generally supported authoritarianism or were critical of democracy also tended to endorse conspiracy theories about the election.

“Believing election conspiracy theories and being critical of democracy are connected—but perhaps not in the way you’d expect,” Thomas told PsyPost. “We found that individuals who more strongly believed the election had been illegitimately interfered with were also more likely to express stronger criticism of democracy. However, we found no evidence that changes in conspiracy beliefs caused changes in attitudes toward democracy.”

“Instead, our models indicated the opposite: people who already supported authoritarianism were more likely to adopt conspiracy beliefs over time. Strikingly, this pattern emerged in both the United States and New Zealand. In other words, in our data, it was those with pre-existing authoritarian leanings who became more receptive to conspiracy theories—not the other way around.”

Interestingly, across both countries, conspiracy beliefs were associated with both support for authoritarianism and support for direct democracy. While these two systems are quite different—one centralizing power in a strong leader, the other distributing it among the people—the common thread appears to be dissatisfaction with the current representative system. People critical of the status quo may be drawn to alternative forms of governance, even if those alternatives are ideologically opposed.

This study was preregistered, meaning the researchers publicly documented their hypotheses and planned analyses before analyzing the data. Preregistration helps prevent questionable research practices such as cherry-picking results or changing hypotheses after the fact. It also increases transparency and credibility, especially in politically sensitive research areas like this one.

Although the study used robust methods and tracked participants over time, it has some limitations. The researchers relied on self-report measures, and some constructs—like support for authoritarianism—were measured using single items. Future studies could improve on this by using more comprehensive scales.

Another limitation is that the findings are based on two democratic countries with relatively stable institutions. It remains unclear whether the same patterns would hold in countries with weaker democratic norms or in more authoritarian contexts.

The study also could not examine whether belief changes during earlier periods—such as the buildup to the election—had already set the stage for later attitudes. More granular timeframes or longer-term longitudinal data could help capture when and how these beliefs take shape.

“We sampled people a few weeks before election day in both the United States and New Zealand, and our data can therefore only capture change in a window immediately before, during, and shortly after elections,” Thomas noted. “However, it’s possible that people had changed outside of this window of time and our methodology simply didn’t detect those changes.”

“I am very concerned by how the information environment is affecting support for democratic norms and institutions in many Western countries,” she added. “These relationships are complex and comprised of interactions within and between people, communities, and institutions—I’d like to build up a multi-level picture of these processes so that they can be better understood and countered.”

The study, “Conspiracy beliefs and democratic backsliding: Longitudinal effects of election conspiracy beliefs on criticism of democracy and support for authoritarianism during political contests,” was authored by Emma F. Thomas, Alexander O’Donnell, Danny Osborne, Lucy Bird, Lisette Yip, Eliana Buonaiuto, Morgana Lizzio-Wilson, Linda Skitka, and Michael Wenzel.