New study flips the script on conspiracy beliefs and economic insecurity

A new study published in the journal Political Psychology sheds light on how conspiracy beliefs about the coronavirus disease pandemic might shape people’s sense of financial security. The researchers first analyzed large-scale data gathered in 17 European nations and found that, overall, individuals who endorsed conspiracy beliefs were more likely to feel uneasy about their financial well-being. Next, a second investigation in Slovakia revealed that believing in conspiracy theories could predict increased economic anxiety over time, indicating that conspiracy beliefs do not simply go hand-in-hand with financial stress but may actually drive it.

The researchers were motivated by a long-standing assumption in previous scholarship. It has often been proposed that people’s financial worries or unfavorable socioeconomic status encourage them to latch onto conspiratorial explanations for unsettling events. However, much of the evidence came from studies in which all measurements were taken at once. This made it challenging to untangle whether people’s financial situation came first or whether their tendency to embrace conspiracy beliefs might have led them to perceive their economic future more grimly.

The research team wanted to address this gap by tracking individuals over an extended period, as well as by looking across diverse national contexts. This allowed them to see if conspiracy beliefs could make people more anxious about their finances over time, even when accounting for their actual economic circumstances and educational background.

“We began investigating conspiracy beliefs during the COVID-19 pandemic because people in the country where some of us are based (Slovakia) were among the most prone to endorsing them,” said study author Magdalena Adamus, an assistant professor at the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

“Some data suggested that up to 40% of the population believed in at least one conspiracy theory about the origins of the virus at that time. When we developed a new project aimed at investigating the psychological factors associated with the endorsement of unfounded beliefs (including conspiracy beliefs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided that one of our aims should be to focus on appraisals of financial situations.”

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“This decision was motivated by research showing that individuals’ socioeconomic status is one of the most consistent predictors of their adherence to conspiracy beliefs. However, it is important to remember that people may react and adapt differently to long-term financial strain. As a result, objective material deprivation (poverty) may not be the primary driver of their beliefs or behaviors. Instead, the subjective appraisal of economic insecurity and uncertainty (precarity) may take precedence and play a key role in understanding the current spread and persistence of conspiracy beliefs.”

The researchers began by examining a large survey from the European Social Survey, which included more than 21,000 adults from 17 countries across Europe. This survey took place between 2020 and 2022 and asked participants about their level of agreement with various statements about the origins of the coronavirus, its global spread, and the intentions of institutions involved in managing it. It also asked people how they felt about their own financial situation and their country’s economic prospects, along with several other questions about politics, health, and education.

Adamus and her colleagues looked at whether conspiracy beliefs about the coronavirus corresponded to stronger feelings of economic worry or difficulty making ends meet. They found that, in every setting they examined, people who scored higher on these conspiracy views also reported more pessimism about the economy. This pattern held even after accounting for education, income, life satisfaction, and physical health.

In the second part of the investigation, the research team analyzed data from a group of 925 adults in Slovakia, who completed three surveys about eight months apart. These surveys asked about the degree to which participants believed in unproven claims regarding the coronavirus, including ideas of hidden groups plotting to produce or spread the illness.

Participants were also asked how anxious they felt about their own finances in the context of the pandemic and whether they believed they would be able to remain employed, keep up with debt, or have enough savings in the near future. The key aim was to track how conspiracy beliefs and economic worries changed over time. Using statistical modeling, the team looked at whether earlier measurements of conspiracy beliefs predicted greater anxiety later on, and whether earlier measurements of economic anxiety predicted stronger conspiracy beliefs in future surveys.

The researchers found that conspiracy beliefs about the coronavirus led to stronger economic worries over time, even when people’s actual incomes or educational levels were taken into account. In contrast, economic anxiety at one point did not increase people’s conspiracy beliefs later on. This reversal of expectations was surprising to the researchers, who initially assumed that financial problems would prompt individuals to embrace conspiracy ideas.

“I remember when we sat together with some of the other authors and discussed the findings,” Adamus recalled. “We were optimistic, because the model seemed to yield significant results. And then I felt, something is wrong, the relationships should run in the opposite direction. We double-checked for any mistakes in coding but no, we coded the variables correctly. So we re-run the analyses – but with the same results.

“Of course, our study is not the only one that shows that conspiracy beliefs brings misery or distress. It was speculated for some time that although people adhere to conspiracy beliefs to find sense or structure in the world or some awkward sense of consolation, they have the potential to bring more distress. But in the financial or economic domain, we all believed that income, poverty, deprivation and their subjective appraisals are causes not consequences of conspiracy beliefs. So this came a considerable surprise. Immediately we realized that the potential contribution of the results is great and practical, real-life consequences could be tremendous.”

For example, when large numbers of citizens become convinced that hidden agendas are behind major events, they might lose faith in social and political institutions, including those responsible for economic policies. This sense of disillusionment could lead to a more negative perception of the country’s financial outlook. In turn, this negativity can influence voting behavior.

“From a broader perspective, our study highlights the extent to which modern societies are vulnerable to the spread of conspiracy beliefs and their potentially harmful consequences,” Adamus epxlained. “The emergence or reinforcement of these beliefs could contribute to more pessimistic evaluations of economic conditions, while economic disappointment remains one of the most significant drivers of voting behavior.”

“When people grow increasingly skeptical about social, political, and economic circumstances, they may become more susceptible to manipulation by populists or foreign agents seeking to exploit their discontent. By leveraging conspiracy beliefs—and the resulting sense of economic insecurity—opportunistic actors could attempt to garner political support, expecting that widespread dissatisfaction will translate into voting preferences. We will explore this aspect of our findings further in our upcoming research.”

The research also highlights the importance of conducting longitudinal research, which collects data over time to examine patterns of change.

“In past studies—including the one we published in 2024—researchers consistently assumed that financial situation, whether objective or subjective, was a precursor to conspiracy beliefs,” Adamus told PsyPost. “However, most of the available data were cross-sectional, meaning that all we could determine was that conspiracy beliefs and financial situation were correlated. We could not confidently establish the direction of this relationship. Nonetheless, the prevailing assumption was that financial difficulties led people to adopt conspiracy beliefs.

“By employing longitudinal data in this study, we were able to take a closer look at changes over time. To our surprise, the results showed the opposite pattern: conspiracy beliefs came first, followed by increased economic anxiety. Even when controlling for objective financial circumstances, we still observed that adherence to conspiracy beliefs made people more pessimistic about their own financial situation and the economic trajectory of their country. This finding shifts our perspective on conspiracy beliefs and suggests that longitudinal studies are essential for fully understanding their causes and consequences.”

As with all research, there are caveats to consider. First, the findings are drawn from data in European countries, so it is unclear whether people in other parts of the world, with different histories or cultural norms, would show the same pattern. Another limitation is that the conspiracy content was specific to the pandemic. Other conspiracy theories may produce different effects, and some are likely to overlap with varying themes, such as politics, technology, or environmental disasters.

In the future, the researchers would like to see experimental and additional longitudinal work that tracks people’s movements through difficult times and explores how conspiracy beliefs might steer them toward harmful financial habits. They intend to investigate the social and political impacts in more depth in their upcoming projects.

“I think we will focus on the findings that suggest conspiracy beliefs could be used as tools in hybrid and/or hot wars,” Adamus said. “In a shorter time frame, we will also re-analyze the data to replicate our findings from 2024 longitudinally. We have already run the analysis for this replication and saw a similar pattern – the sense of precarity is an outcome while conspiracy beliefs and institutional trust are intertwined in a bidirectional relationship. You can access a preprint of this work in progress here: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/sj6k7_v1”

The study, “All you’ll feel is doom and gloom: Multiple perspectives on the associations between economic anxiety and conspiracy beliefs,” was authored by Magdalena Adamus, Maria Chayinska, Jakub Šrol, Jais Adam-Troian, Eva Ballová Mikušková, and Peter Teličak.