Two studies conducted in Canada found that subconscious memories of frustration with autonomy made people more likely to endorse, be angry about, and express a desire to spread false conspiracy theories. The study was published in the Journal of Personality.
A conspiracy theory is the belief that important events or situations are secretly controlled by powerful groups acting in covert and harmful ways. They usually assume that official explanations are false or incomplete and that the real truth is being deliberately suppressed.
People may develop conspiracy theories when they feel anxious, threatened, helpless, or unable to make sense of confusing events. These beliefs can also be reinforced by distrust of government, institutions, science, and the media. The strong need for certainty, control, and simple explanations can make conspiracy theories particularly appealing.
Social impact is also important. This is because people are more likely to adopt these beliefs if they are common within their social group or if they are repeatedly encountered online. Emotional factors such as fear, anger, loneliness, and resentment can further increase receptivity to conspiracy theories.
Several personality traits and thinking styles can also contribute, such as skepticism, intuitive thinking, and a tendency to see patterns that don’t exist. Conspiracy theories can provide people with meaning and psychological comfort, even if their beliefs are inaccurate. While they may satisfy emotional needs, they can also reduce trust, increase social division, and inhibit constructive behavior.
Study authors Marie-Jeanne Leonard and Frédéric L. Philippe reasoned that if current events trigger memories of frustration, those events would also be interpreted as frustrating. If we interpret it this way, people will try to compensate for the lack of fulfillment of their needs as a defensive reaction. This compensation manifests itself as minimizing or denying the external reality of current events and finding explanations that justify both past and present frustrations. Such an explanation could be one offered by conspiracy theories.
To demonstrate this psychological mechanism, researchers conducted two studies during the COVID-19 pandemic (between 2021 and 2022). They wanted to show that memories of frustration caused by situations that restrict freedom predict support for conspiracy theories. Furthermore, they expected that simply activating these memories would make people more likely to support conspiracy theories.
The first study investigated the association between memories of frustration and belief in conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. Participants were 141 people from the general population of Quebec, Canada. Their average age was 40 years.
Participants were randomly assigned to read one of three stories. Each story was about a person named Alex who walks into a grocery store without a mask to buy flour. At the time of the survey, masks were mandatory in indoor public spaces. Depending on the group, the story concluded in one of three ways. A grocery store employee yells and harasses Alex while refusing to sell him flour (severe restrictions). The employee refused the sale and took Alex outside (moderate restrictions). Alternatively, Alex could buy flour without any repercussions (no restrictions).
After reading the story, participants were asked to recall a personal memory that immediately came to mind and rate its emotional value and frustration. In another survey a week later, they completed assessments of basic psychological need satisfaction (a measure of basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration), psychological reactance (Hong’s measure of psychological reactance, e.g., “I consider advice from others to be an intrusion”), and endorsement of seven different coronavirus-related conspiracy theories (e.g., “The government is exaggerating the number of detected coronavirus cases and coronavirus-related infections”). death”).
Study 2 involved 213 Quebec residents with an average age of 45 years. This study investigated the real-time impact of autonomy-stimulating and frustrating memories on people’s reactions to new and completely false COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
All participants in Study 2 first read the most restrictive version of the grocery store story from the previous study (in which Alex was denied flour, harassed, and yelled at). They then recalled and described what their own memories had been triggered. One week later, they completed a fast-paced computer visual task designed to act as a subliminal prime. During the game, participants were flashed with previously described neutral keywords extracted from their own memory (experimental group) or another participant’s memory (control group). These words flashed for just 60 milliseconds. Too fast to read consciously, but long enough to activate the memory subconsciously.
Following this subliminal priming task, participants read a fake Twitter post outlining a fake conspiracy theory. They then rated their level of agreement with the content, how angry it made them, and how motivated they were to spread the word.
The results of the first study showed that there is a significant interaction between restrictive narratives and memory. Specifically, participants who read moderately or highly restrictive articles predicted greater support for COVID-19 conspiracy theories one week later by experiencing greater frustration with autonomy in their recalled memories. This association was completely absent for patients in the non-restrictive control group. Furthermore, participants who were high in trait reactance and high in general (everyday) autonomy frustration tended to report higher support for conspiracy theories. Interestingly, lower levels of frustration with need for competence (the desire to feel competent and effective) also predicted higher levels of support.
Results from the second study showed that participants who were subconsciously primed with autonomy-satisfying memories were more likely to endorse, be angry about, and try to spread false conspiracy theories than participants who were primed with memories of others or those who were primed with autonomy-satisfying memories.
“This study highlights the role of memory in frustrating autonomy in endorsing conspiracy theories and suggests that such support can emerge from the interaction of the individual (memories) and the environment (cues),” the study authors concluded.
This study reveals the psychological mechanisms underlying support for conspiracy theories. However, the authors note that there may have been selection bias in the selection of participants, as people who strongly support COVID-19-related conspiracy theories may have had too much distrust of the scientific community to participate in the study. Additionally, the study authors only investigated conspiracy theories related to COVID-19, which may limit the generalizability of the results to other types of conspiracies.
This paper, “Priming Need – Frustrated Memories Sparks Conspiracy Beliefs: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective” was authored by Marie-Jeanne Leonard and Frederick L. Philippe.
