unanswered questions: a preliminary investigation of personality and individual difference...

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGYAppl. Cognit. Psychol. 24: 749–761 (2010)Published online 15 May 2009 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.1583
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Unanswered Questions: A Preliminary Investigation ofPersonality and Individual Difference Predictors

of 9/11 Conspiracist Beliefs

VIREN SWAMI1,2*, TOMAS CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC3

and ADRIAN FURNHAM4

1Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, UK2Department of Psychology, HELP University College, Malaysia

3Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK4Department of Psychology, University College London, UK

SUMMARY

Given the widespread appeal of conspiratorial beliefs, it is surprising that very little empiricalresearch has examined the psychological variables associated with such beliefs. In the present study,we examined individual and demographic predictors of beliefs in conspiracy theories concerning theSeptember 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon among a representativeBritish sample of 254 women and men. Results of structural equation modelling showed that 9/11 con-spiracist beliefs were positively associated with belief in other conspiracy theories, exposure to 9/11 con-spiracist ideas, political cynicism, defiance of authority and the Big Five personality factor ofAgreeableness. In total, a model including demographics, personality and individual differencevariables explained over 50% of the variance in 9/11 conspiracist ideas. The implications of these findingsfor the literature on conspiracy theories are discussed. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Conspiracy theories are lay beliefs that attribute the ultimate cause of an event, or the

concealment of an event from public knowledge, to a secret, unlawful, and malevolent plot

by multiple actors working together (Zonis & Joseph, 1994). Beliefs in conspiracy theories

are widespread across the globe (e.g. Byford & Billig, 2001; Goertzel, 1994; Graumann &

Moscovici, 1987; Hofstadter, 1965; Moynihan, 1985; Robins & Post, 1997), although they

appear to be particularly prominent in the West. In the United States, for instance, national

opinion polls regularly show that up to 90% of Americans believe Lee Harvey Oswald did

not act alone in killing John F. Kennedy (Goertzel, 1994). Perhaps more surprising is the

prevalent belief, particularly among African American and gay communities, that the HIV/

AIDS epidemic is a form of genocide perpetuated by government officials (e.g. Douglas,

1989; Ross, Essien, & Torres, 2006; Thomas & Quinn, 1991).

9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Given the breadth of beliefs in conspiracy theories, the dearth of empirical research on the

psychological factors associated with such beliefs remains an anomaly (Abalakina-Paap,

Correspondence to: Viren Swami, Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street,ondon W1B 2UW, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

opyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

750 V. Swami et al.

Stephan, Craig, & Gregory, 1999). This is particularly true in relation to the phenomenal

growth and dissemination of conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11 (9/11),

2001 attacks on theWorld Trade Centre and Pentagon (see Goldberg, 2004). Although 9/11

conspiracy theories are varied and multitudinal, they share a disbelief of mainstream

accounts of those events (see, for example, Hufschmid, 2002; Marrs, 2005; Meyssan,

2002). Typical commentaries are centred around the related ideas that the US (and other)

governments either had foreknowledge of, or planned and perpetrated, the 9/11 attacks, for

the furtherance of domestic (clamping down on civil liberties) and foreign (wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq) aims.

Although repeatedly disputed in the mainstream press and empirical research, 9/11 con-

spiracist beliefs continue to find relatively widespread appeal, both in the US and elsewhere.

The dissemination of such beliefs has been aided, in part, by the following attracted by

groups such as the 9/11 Truth Movement, whose members convene through online media,

and national and international conferences. From an empirical point of view, however, it is

notable that no prior research has examined predictors in 9/11 conspiracist beliefs,

mirroring the general dearth of research in conspiracy theories. The present study,

therefore, sought to overcome this lack of prior research by investigating personality and

individual difference predictors of beliefs in 9/11 conspiracy theories.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE

There is little relevant psychological work in this area. Some early commentary traced beliefs

in conspiracy theories to feelings of powerlessness, particularly among people who believe

they have becomevoiceless (Hofstadter, 1965). In this view, conspiracy theories help individuals

to make sense of a world beyond their control, offering seemingly coherent explanations for

complex social events (see Miller, 2002). Believing, for instance, that the 9/11 attacks were

perpetrated by the US government simplifies the complexity of understanding contemporary

politics, particularly in the face of great tragedy. Moreover, by locating beliefs in conspiracies

within feelings of powerlessness, some researchers have further suggested that such beliefs lead

eventually to a distrust of others, especially those in authority (Goertzel, 1994; Kramer, 1994).

Recent work, however, has suggested that political powerlessness that results from

experiences with disadvantage and discrimination may not account for conspiracist beliefs,

or at least belief in American government conspiracies against African Americans

(Crocker, Luhtanen, Broadnax, & Blaine, 1999). Rather, Crocker et al. (1999) suggest that

belief in conspiracies against African Americans may reflect an externalisation of

problems facing African Americans as a group, that is a ‘system blame’ interpretation. In

this view, conspiracist beliefs may be rooted in cultural and group understandings of, and

attributions of blame for, problems faced by specific groups.

Other early work suggested that beliefs in conspiracy theories serve self-esteem

maintenance purposes (Robins & Post, 1997; Young, 1990), while affording believers an

outlet for reasserting their individualism (Melley, 2000) or for the expression of negative

feelings (Hofstadter, 1965; Ungerleider & Wellisch, 1979). For instance, people who

believe theworld is filled with malevolence may subscribe to conspiracist beliefs that allow

them to direct their anger at specific individuals who they feel are responsible for their

condition (governments, immigrants, secret groups). Certainly, this was the conclusion of a

study on cult movements, which found cult members to score highly on a measure of

hostility (Ungerleider & Wellisch, 1979).

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 24: 749–761 (2010)

DOI: 10.1002/acp

Conspiracy theories 751

Finally, a number of authors have approached the topic of conspiracist beliefs from a

cognitive psychological approach. Clark (2002), for example, has argued that conspiracy

theories are a reflection of a fundamental attribution error, such that conspiracy theorists

turn to dispositional explanations for events even when there are adequate situational

explanatory variables. Miller (2002), on the other hand, suggests that conspiracy theories

fulfill two essentially cognitive roles:An argumentative role and a social critique role.Moreover,

Miller (2002) views the popularity of conspiracy theories in contemporary Western culture

as a function of diminishing faith in governments, a process that may be exacerbated by

some modes of media such as the Internet (see also Moy & Scheufele, 2000).

To our knowledge, however, only a handful of previous studies have attempted to

examine the individual difference correlates of beliefs in conspiracies (Abalakina-Paap

et al., 1999; Crocker et al., 1999; Goertzel, 1994). In general, these studies showed that

belief in conspiracist ideas were correlated with anomia, low levels of interpersonal trust,

feelings of social and political alienation and perceptions of being disadvantaged.

Moreover, such beliefs may have significant behavioural outcomes: For instance, the

conspiracy beliefs held by some African Americans (e.g. the belief that birth control is a

plot against Blacks) has been identified as an important barrier to pregnancy prevention

(Bird & Bogart, 2003; Thorburn & Bogart, 2005). Clearly, then, there is a pressing need for

further empirical research on the factors associated with beliefs in conspiracy theories.

Such work may provide an insight into the reasons why individuals may come to hold

conspiracist beliefs and allow for a redressing of their diminished faith in governance.

THE PRESENT STUDY

The present study was conceived as a preliminary attempt to investigate the psychological

factors that may be associated with 9/11 conspiracist beliefs. Clearly, there are multiple

ways to examine conspiracist beliefs, variously focusing on conspiracist narratives, agentic

factors or psychological variables that help explain the existence of such beliefs. In the

present study, our focus was on personality and individual difference variables, in the

expectation that general psychological traits allow for the construction of a profiling model

of conspiracist individuals. Doing so may help researchers better understand the needs of

individuals that conspiracy theories accommodate, while also allowing for a better

conceptualisation of the positive (e.g. by providing alternative histories in periods of

declining faith in traditional authorities) and negative (e.g. weakening the ability of

authorities to govern) aspects of conspiracy theories.

Certainly, a number of studies have examined psychological correlates of conspiracist

beliefs (e.g. Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Crocker et al., 1999; Goertzel, 1994), but this

literature is limited in that the focus on certain psychological variables (e.g. political

alienation, attitudes to authority) may have obscured other potentially-relevant factors that

mediate reported associations (e.g. personality-related variables). In addition, available

studies have typically relied on bivariate methods that cannot account for overlap among

predictors. These limitations can be overcome by using structural equational modelling

(SEM; Byrne, 2001) to deal with factors that inter-correlate and to develop more

sophisticated and structured models of conspiracist beliefs.

Specifically, our study examined, among a representative British sample, the association

of 9/11 conspiracist beliefs with exposure to 9/11 conspiracist ideas, belief in other


DOI: 10.1002/acp

752 V. Swami et al.

(general) conspiracy theories, political cynicism, democratic ideology, attitudes to

authority and the ‘Big Five’ personality factors. Our decision to focus on these variables to

the exclusion of others (e.g. anomia, interpersonal trust, system blame and so on) was based

partly on past research (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Goertzel, 1994) and partly on intuition

(that is, the factors that we, as researchers, deemed most relevant). As such, we stress the

preliminary nature of our work, while also highlighting the ways in which our study

advanced current knowledge of conspiracist beliefs in a psychological framework.

Moreover, a number of hypotheses guided the selection of variables in the present work.

First, it seemed clear that 9/11 conspiracist beliefs would be related to an individual’s

exposure to such ideas, either directly (e.g. through online media or attending relevant

events) or indirectly (e.g. through other individuals who hold such beliefs). Second, we

expected that belief in 9/11 conspiracy theories would be positively associated with belief

in other conspiracy theories. This hypothesis stems from Goertzel’s (1994) assertion that

conspiracy beliefs form part of a ‘monological belief system,’ in which each conspiratorial

idea serves as evidence for other conspiratorial beliefs. Goertzel (1994) believed that

monological belief systems allow individuals to easily explain new phenomena that are

otherwise difficult to comprehend or that threaten existing belief systems. As such, we

expected 9/11 conspiratorial ideas to form part of a monological belief system that

accommodates other conspiratorial ideas.

Third, we expected greater support for democratic principles and political cynicism to

both be positively associated with 9/11 conspiracist ideas. In the first instance, support for

democratic principles was expected to be associated with a greater questioning of official

governance and possibly also an acceptance of alternative, non-mainstream or opposition

political positions and of greater questioning of official accounts of the 9/11 attacks.

Similarly, political cynicism was expected to be associated with a distrust of entrenched

political systems and their explanations for geopolitical events (cf. Abalakina-Paap et al.,

1999; Goertzel, 1994). Similarly, we expected that more negative attitudes to authority

would be associated with 9/11 conspiracist ideas, predicated on a distrust and suspicion of

those in positions of power.

Finally, we examined the association between 9/11 conspiracist ideas and the Big Five

model, that is, a hierarchical framework of personality with five bipolar traits or factors

(Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness and Extraversion)

representing personality at the broadest level of abstraction (Goldberg, 1993; McCrae &

Costa, 1997). A great deal of work has shown that the Big Five framework has strong

predictive ability in relation to a variety of real-world outcomes (see, for example,

Chamorro-Premuzic, 2007), but to date it has not been examined in relation to conspiracist

ideas. Nevertheless, we expected that conspiracist ideas would be negatively associated

with Agreeableness (due to the association between Disagreeableness and suspicion and

antagonism towards others) and positively associated with Openness to Experience

(associated with an appreciation of unusual or unique ideas).

Method

Participants

Two hundred and fifty-seven individuals took part in the present study, of whom 134 were

women and 123 were men. The sample was representative of the British population and its

demographic details are presented in Table 1.


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Table 1. Demographics and descriptive statistics for the study sample (in percentages unlessotherwise stated)

ItemTotal

(n¼ 257)Women(n¼ 134)

Men(n¼ 123)

Age M 43.07 42.14 44.08SD 13.11 11.95 14.26

Ethnicity European Caucasian 88.7 87.3 90.2Asian 2.7 3.0 2.4Other 7.8 8.9 6.5Prefer not to say 0.8 0.7 0.8

Religion Christian 58.8 61.2 56.1None/atheist 30.7 26.1 35.8Other 7.0 8.9 4.9Not sure 3.5 3.7 3.3

Education No formal education 8.2 11.2 4.9GCSE/O-levels 30.7 29.1 32.5A-levels/equivalent 34.2 32.1 36.6Bachelors degree 21.4 24.6 17.9Masters/higher 5.4 3.0 8.1

Marital status Single 18.3 15.7 21.1In a relationship 17.5 18.7 16.3Married 52.9 54.5 51.2Separated/divorced 10.5 10.4 10.6Widowed .8 .7 .8

Income <£15 k 22.2 26.1 17.9£15 k–22 k 24.1 21.6 26.8£22 k–30 k 19.5 20.1 18.7£30 k–40 k 11.7 11.9 11.4£40 k–50 k 4.3 1.5 7.3>£50 k 4.7 3.7 5.7Not sure 6.2 5.2 7.3Prefer not to say 7.4 9.7 4.9

Religiosity M 2.86 3.05 2.66SD 1.83 1.87 1.77

Political orientation M 4.03 3.97 4.09SD 1.18 1.09 1.27


Measures

Support for democratic principles. Support for Democratic Principles (SDP; Kaase, 1971)

is a 9-item scale tapping attitudes on a number of principles common to democratic

systems, including basic democratic values. All items are rated on a 6-point scale (1¼Full

agreement, 6¼Complete rejection) and scores ranged from 9 (most democratic) to

54 (least democratic). Cronbach’s a for this scale was 0.72.

Belief in conspiracy theories inventory. This is a 15-item, novel scale devised for the

present study, consisting of items describing prominent conspiracy theories (sample item:

‘The assassination of John F. Kennedy was not committed by the lone gunman, Lee Harvey

Oswald, but was rather a detailed, organised conspiracy to kill the President’). Participants

rated whether they agreed each statement was true or false on a 9-point scale

(1¼Completely false, 9¼Completely true). A principal components analysis using Direct

Oblimin (oblique) rotation revealed a single factor onto which all but one of the items

loaded (eigenvalue¼ 5.20, 34.6% of the variance accounted for). Dropping the single item


DOI: 10.1002/acp

754 V. Swami et al.

(which pertained to the belief that Elvis Presley was still alive) allowed us to compute a

single factor score (henceforth ‘General Conspiracist Beliefs’) by taking an average of

responses across the 14 items associated with the extracted factor. Cronbach’s a for the

resulting scale was high at 0.86.

Abbreviated, 15-item big five questionnaire. The abbreviated, 15-item Big Five

questionnaire (e.g. Furnham, McManus, & Scott, 2003) is a brief scale for assessing

the Big Five personality factors, suitable for looking at population-level correlations.

Ratings were made on a 5-point scale (1¼ Strongly agree, 5¼ Strongly disagree). The five

personality factors were arrived at by summing certain items, and a coefficients were as

follows: Openness a¼ 0.61, Conscientiousness a¼ 0.60, Extraversion a¼ 0.62, Agree-

ableness a¼ 0.55 and Neuroticism a¼ 0.61. Although these a coefficients are less than

ideal, it should be remembered that they were calculated using three items each and that

they are in line with population norms reported in previous work (e.g. Furnham et al.,

2003).

9/11 conspiracist beliefs scale. For the present purposes, we designed a novel 17-item

scale based on a review of the available 9/11 conspiracy literature (see Table 2).

Participants rated whether they agreed each statement was true or false on a 9-point scale

(1¼Completely false, 9¼Completely true). Items for inclusion in the scale were chosen

from a review of the available conspiracist literature and we report on the factor structure

and reliability of this scale below.

Attitudes to authority scale. A slightly modified version of the Attitudes to Authority

Scale (AA; Reicher & Emler, 1985) was used, where participants rated on a 5-point scale

(1¼ Strongly disagree, 5¼ Strongly agree) items relating to institutional authority, bias by

those in authority and the absolute priority of rules. Items relating to the fairness of school

rules were not used in the present study. The internal consistency of the 10 items was good

(a¼ 0.66).

Political cynicism scale. The Political Cynicism Scale (PCS; Citrin & Elkins, 1975) is a

13-item scale measuring concern for public interest, idealism and political determination,

with all items on an agree–disagree format and with higher scores indicating greater

political cynicism. The internal consistency of the scale was good (a¼ 0.80).

9/11 conspiracist exposure. This is a novel scale that taps exposure to 9/11 conspiracist

ideas. Participants rated the extent to which five statements describing such exposure was

true about themselves (1¼False, 9¼ True). Four of the five items asked related to

exposure to 9/11 conspiracist beliefs in the past year from public meetings or rallies, films

or television programmes, books or articles and websites, respectively. A fifth item related

to exposure to friends or family who disbelieve official accounts of the 9/11 attacks. A

principal components analysis using Direct Oblimin (oblique) rotation revealed a single

factor onto which all items loaded (eigenvalue¼ 2.51, accounting for 50.1% of the

variance). We, therefore, computed a single factor (henceforth ‘9/11 Conspiracist Exposure’)

score by taking the mean of responses across all five items (Cronbach’s a¼ .74).

Demographics. Participants reported their religiosity (1¼Not at all religious, 7¼ Strongly

religious) and political orientation (1¼ Strongly right-wing, 7¼ Strongly left wing). These

data are reported in Table 1 and were not further analysed. They also reported their sex, age,

ethnicity, religion, marital status, highest educational qualification and annual income

(see Table 1).


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Table 2. Means and standard deviations of responses to the 9/11 conspiracist beliefs scale, andprincipal components and loadings

Itema

Rating Component

M SD 1 2

(10) The World Trade Centre towers werebrought down by a controlled demolition

2.90 2.45 .88 .19

(2) The World Trade Centre was destroyed,not by planes that crashed into it, nor by thefires that followed, but by explosives orother devices planted in the building

2.81 2.28 .79 .20

(8) If aircraft struck the Pentagon and theWorld Trade Centres, they were probablycontrolled by the US military

2.93 2.19 .79 .31

(13) Because successful air-ground connectionsare near impossible, mobile phone calls frompassengers on allegedly hijacked planes werelikely fabrications or never made at all

3.27 2.40 .76 .36

(11) Intact windows at the Pentagon and a lackof debris prove that the Pentagon was not hitby an aircraft

3.51 2.48 .72 .44

(3) The Pentagon was not hit by a passengeraircraft but something smaller, possibly a missile

3.50 2.41 .70 .43

(14) Government and military exercises(or ‘war games’) were intentionally held onSeptember 11, 2001 to deliberately confusemilitary personnel and therefore to allow theattacks to take place

3.29 2.39 .67 .56

(12) United Airlines Flight 93, which is said tohave crashed in Pennsylvania, was actuallydowned by the US military

3.76 2.48 .66 .36

(9) The US military were ordered to ‘stand down’(that is, not to respond) prior to the 9/11 attacksso as to allow the attacks to occur

3.44 2.28 .65 .56

(17) Reports that some of the 9/11 plane hijackersare still alive prove that others were responsiblefor the attacks

3.51 2.44 .62 .44

(7) The fact that the US government is withholdinginformation about the 9/11 attacks is evidence ofa cover-up

4.74 2.63 .27 .86

(16) Officials investigating the 9/11 attacks havesought to suppress the emergence of evidence thatmight contradict the ‘official account’

4.39 2.67 .40 .80

(6) Because they had foreknowledge of the attacks,a number of individuals and/or companies were ableto make a profit by selling shares in trades likely tobe affected the attacks (e.g. airline companies)

4.01 2.54 .42 .76

(1) Individuals within the US government knew ofthe impending attacks and purposely failed to acton that knowledge

4.81 2.57 .31 .75

(5) The US government agencies, includingthe military and intelligence, dealt incompetentlywith the 9/11 attacks and sought to cover upits failures

5.19 2.58 .16 .75

(Continues)


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Table 2. (Continued)

Itema

Rating Component

M SD 1 2

(4) The US government allowed the 9/11 attacksto take place so that it would have an excuse toachieve foreign (e.g. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq)and domestic (e.g. attacks on civil liberties) goalsthat had been determined prior to the attacks

3.71 2.69 .52 .70

(15) The fact that neither George W. Bush nor hissecurity personnel responded to the 9/11 attacks ina manner that indicated the President might be indanger is proof that they had privileged access tothe planning and execution of the attacks

3.93 2.64 .58 .67

a1¼Completely false, 9¼Completely true.

756 V. Swami et al.

Procedure

Participants were recruited by an online marketing research company based in Oxfordshire

from a consumer panel company. These were individuals who had opted to take part in

online surveys, and were recruited from a variety of different sources (e.g. e-mail, web

sources, advertising). Participants were representative of the British population in terms of

age, sex, socioeconomic class and educational qualifications, although this sample may

also be more aware of new media and technology compared with the general population.

Participants were invited to take part in the survey by e-mail. The panel was managed to

ensure that respondents only receive a certain number of surveys per month. In addition,

the subject matter of surveys is strictly managed. This ensures, firstly, that the panel are not

completing the surveys as ‘professional respondents’ (i.e. doing as many surveys as

possible to earn money), and, secondly, that the panel do not complete more than one

survey on the same topic. Participants were offered ‘points’ that could be redeemed for

store credit in return for participating in the survey. The survey was completed in the order

described above.

Results

9/11 conspiracist beliefs

To examine the factor structure of the 17-item 9/11 Conspiracist Beliefs Scale, we

conducted a principal components analysis using Varimax (orthogonal) rotation.

Subsequent analyses with Direct Oblimin (oblique) rotation yielded similar results. Both

visual inspection of the scree test (Cattell, 1966) and maximum criterion for the ratio of

differences of successive eigenvalues (Roznowski, Tucker, & Humphreys, 1991) indicated

the existence of two factors onto which all items loaded at an extraction criteria of 0.40 (see

Table 2). The first factor contained 10 items that referred to general 9/11 conspiracist

beliefs (eigenvalue¼ 6.44, 37.9% of the variance accounted for; a¼ .95). The second

factor contained 7 items that referred to a governmental cover-up of a 9/11 conspiracy

(eigenvalue¼ 5.65, 33.2% of the variance accounted for; a¼ .94).

For each participant, two factor scores were computed by taking the mean of responses

to scale items associated with each factor. Both factor scores showed very good internal


DOI: 10.1002/acp


reliability (Kline, 1986), but were also highly correlated with one another (r¼ .81,

p< .001). We, therefore, computed an overall 9/11 conspiracist beliefs factor for SEM by

taking the mean of responses across all 17 items (that is, the mean of the two components

described above; henceforth referred to as ‘9/11 Conspiracist Beliefs’). In general,

participants did not show strong 9/11 conspiracist beliefs, as inferred from the low scores

on the overall mean and standard deviation (M¼ 3.84, SD¼ 1.99).

Structural equation modelling

SEMwas used to develop a tentative conceptual integration of the different predictors of 9/

11 Conspiracist Beliefs). The hypothesised model included age and sex as exogenous

variables (on the left), Political Cynicism, Agreeableness, Openness, Support for

Democratic Principles and Attitudes to Authority as mediators (to the right), General

Conspiracist Beliefs and 9/11 Conspiracist Exposure as less distal mediators (to the right

of the previously mentioned mediators and the left of the endogenous variables) and

9/11 Conspiracist Beliefs as the endogenous variable. Saturated paths were added from one

block to the next only (without any paths going through the mediators to the less distal set

of mediators or the endogenous variables). Thus, the hypothesised model included 10 paths

from age and sex to the more distal mediators, 10 paths from the more distal to the next

mediators, and two paths from the less distal to the endogenous variable. The model’s

goodness-of-fit was assessed via the x2 statistic, the goodness-of-fit index (GFI) and its

adjusted version (AGFI), as well as the root mean-square residual (RMSEA) and the parsi-

mony goodness-of-fit index (PGFI) (Kelloway, 1998; Loehlin, 1987; Maruyama, 1998).

The hypothesised model did not fit the data well x2 (df¼ 20, N¼ 259)¼ 63.4, p< .01,

GFI¼ .95, AGFI¼ .83, RMSEA¼ .09 (low¼ .06, high¼ .11), PGFI¼ .35. Accordingly,

non-significant paths were removed and direct paths (from exogenous to less distal mediators

and more distal mediators to endogenous) were added in line with the modification indices.

In addition, Attitude to Authority was allowed to correlate with Political Cynicism,

9/11 Conspiracist Exposure with General Conspiracist Beliefs and Agreeableness with

Openness. The modified model, with dashed lines representing added paths, is shown in

Figure 1 and fitted the data well: x2 (df¼ 28, N¼ 259)¼ 48.1, p< .05, GFI¼ .96,

AGFI¼ .94, RMSEA¼ .05 (low¼ .02, high¼ .07), PGFI¼ .49. The correlations (not

shown for the sake of simplicity) were r¼�.38 for Attitudes to Authority and Political

Cynicism, r¼ .23 for 9/11 Conspiracist Exposure and General Conspiracist Beliefs and

r¼ .20 for Openness and Agreeableness. In all, the combined predictors explained 53.1%

of the variance in 9/11 Conspiracist Beliefs, 14.4% of the variance in General Conspiracy

Beliefs and 12.6% of the variance in 9/11 Conspiracist Exposure. None of the added paths

could be removed without significantly worsening the model fit.

Discussion

The results of this preliminary examination of 9/11 conspiracist theories can be predicted

by a number of personality and individual difference variables, which together explained

just over half of the variance in the former. As shown in Figure 1, General Conspiracist

Beliefs had the strongest effect on 9/11 Conspiracist Beliefs, which not surprisingly was

also affected by 9/11 Conspiracist Exposure. Of the more distal predictors, only Political

Cynicism, Attitudes to Authority and Agreeableness had significant effects on 9/11

Conspiracist Beliefs when the less distal predictors were taken into account; however, there

were several significant effects of the more distal on the less distal predictors, namely


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Figure 1. Modified model of predictors of 9/11 conspiracist beliefs. Note: �p< .05, ��p< .001.Dashed paths added to the hypothesised model. All coefficients are standardised b values. Sex coded1¼Men, 2¼Women. PCS¼ Political Cynicism Scale; SDP¼ Support for Democratic Principles;

AA¼Attitudes to Authority. Bivariate correlation coefficients reported in the text

758 V. Swami et al.

Attitudes to Authority and Openness on 9/11 Conspiracist Exposure, and Political Cynicism,

Support for Democratic Principles and Openness on General Conspiracist Beliefs. Age and

sex differences were found for Agreeableness and Support for Democratic Principles,

though age also affected 9/11 Conspiracist Exposure when the more distal mediators were

taken into account.

The finding that exposure to 9/11 conspiracist ideas was positively associated with

holding 9/11 conspiracy beliefs is perhaps not surprising. It seems likely that coming into

contact with such ideas (either directly or indirectly) increases an individual’s under-

standing and, consequently, acceptance of such ideas (alternatively, it is also possible that

individuals who already believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories seek out such information).

More interesting was the finding that General Conspiracist Beliefs was positively

associated with 9/11 conspiracist ideas, a result that fits with Goertzel’s (1994) assertion

that conspiracy beliefs form part of a monological belief system, in which each con-

spiratorial idea serves as evidence for other conspiratorial beliefs. For example, believing

that John F. Kennedy was not killed by a lone gunman, or that the Apollo moon landings

were staged, increases the chances that an individual will also believe in 9/11 conspiracy

theories. As Goertzel (1994) highlights, monological belief systems provide accessible

explanations for new phenomena that are difficult to comprehend or that threaten existing

belief systems (Goertzel, 1994).

Moreover, Goertzel (1994) points out that, often, the proof offered as evidence for a

conspiracy is not specific to one incident or issue, but is used to justify the general pattern.

That a government is covering-up its involvement in the 9/11 attacks, for instance, goes to

show that it is also covering-up the fact that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth, or that

national governments are involved in political assassination. Thus, the more conspiracy

theories a monological thinker agrees with, the more she or he will accept and assimilate

any new conspiracy theory that is proposed. Of course, some belief systems generate new


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patterns of thought and gather evidence to test new hypotheses. To be sure, this appears to

be true of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, who have been keen to test alternative hypotheses and

encourage debate among their peers. However, the interest of researchers will be on the

cognitive processes that lead to such conspiracist beliefs (Goertzel, 1994). Understanding

how people become conspiracy theorists in the first place, and whether conspiratorial ideas

can be reduced remain unanswered questions for future research.

In addition to beliefs in other conspiracy theories, 9/11 conspiracist beliefs were also

related to political cynicism and attitudes to authority. It is possible to relate these measures

with a general index of anomie, which has been associated with beliefs in conspiracy

theories in previous work (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Goertzel, 1994). That is, the

participants who were most likely to believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories were those who

were disaffected and disengaged with the political system, possibly leading to more cynical

attitudes and defiance towards politicians. It is these individuals who are least likely to

accept prevailing, or mainstream, views on a wide variety of topics, which may feed into

their beliefs systems. Moreover, politically cynical individuals who support democratic

principles were also more likely to believe in other conspiracy theories, again suggesting

that conspiracist ideas are predicted by an alienation from mainstream politics and a

questioning of received truths.

That is, for participants who reject the political system, believing it to be undemocratic

or cynical, mainstream explanations of an event do not suffice, because they are provided

by the very sources (political authorities) that these participants doubt. These individuals

may also feel powerless to confront political authorities, and in such a scenario, beliefs in

conspiracy theories (either 9/11 conspiracist ideas or other conspiracy theories) allows

them to exert some control over their lives (Hofstadter, 1965). That is, by believing that an

event has a simple explanation, it becomes possible to understand why the event has

occurred and how it fits with the rest of the individual’s monological belief system

(Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999).

In the present study, we also found that 9/11 conspiracist ideas were negatively

associated with Agreeableness, which likely stemmed from the association between

disagreeableness and suspicion and antagonism towards others. Moreover, Openness to

Experience was positively associated with general conspiracist beliefs and exposure to 9/

11 conspiracist ideas. In both these cases, it seems likely that the uncovered relationships

were underscored by the association between Openness and an appreciation of unusual or

unique ideas. That is, intellectual curiosity, and active imagination, and a proclivity for new

ideas may result in greater exposure to conspiracist ideas, which in turn enhance

monological belief systems. To our knowledge, this is the first study to have examined the

relationship between conspiracist beliefs and the Big Five personality framework, and our

results suggest that Agreeableness and Openness in particular may have satisfactory

predictive ability in relation to conspiracy theories.

The main limitation of this study is that we employed a British sample to study beliefs

about an event in the United States. It is certainly true that the 9/11 attacks had an

international impact, perhaps felt more strongly than most by the British, who became

targets for terrorist attacks following the events of 9/11 and the Iraq war. Nonetheless, a

legitimate question would be whether our findings can be generalised to Americans, and

future research should certainly seek to extend the framework used in the present study to

other national settings. In addition, the manner of presenting the questionnaire online may

have introduced order effects, and were we to repeat this study, it would be beneficial to

randomise the order of presentation of the various scales.


DOI: 10.1002/acp

760 V. Swami et al.

It is also important to note that there may be other individual difference correlates of

conspiracy theories that we have not examined here. For example, a recurrent theme within

sociological discussions of conspiracy theories is that they partly reflect ‘masculinist’

solutions to feelings of powerlessness or the threat of social dominance (e.g. Melley, 2000).

Future research could also improve on the present design by examining to what extent 9/11

conspiracy beliefs reflect political paranoia (or elaborate and bogus theories about sinister

groups controlling the course of world events) or political realism (beliefs that have, at

least, some basis in fact) (cf. Bale, 2007). It may also be fruitful to examine the socio-

cognitive changes that occur when exposed to conspiracist beliefs (e.g. Douglas & Sutton,

2008; Leman & Cinnirella, 2007).

Despite these limitations, the present study has begun the task of examining psycho-

logical correlates of 9/11 conspiracy theories. It has been suggested that the popularity of

such beliefs may reflect an incapability among politically-motivated individuals of

exercising sufficient critical judgements (see Bale, 2007), but they may also reflect a

diminished faith in governance (Goldberg, 2004). Thus, in terms of the latter, studying

conspiracy theories may provide an insight into popular discontent and, should the target of

that discontent be addressed, allow for a reduction in the number and veracity of conspiracy

theories. Concurrently, the focus on personality and individual differences in this study

contributes to this aim by identifying the 9/11 conspiratorial individual as a believer of

other conspiracy theories, exposed to 9/11 conspiracist ideas, politically cynical, agreeable,

defiant of authority, supportive of democratic practice and inquisitive.

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