Individuals differ in their general propensity to believe in conspiracy theories, often referred to as conspiracy mentality. Because prototypical conspiracy theories exhibit a conspiratorial content (i.e., they claim that a conspiracy occurred) and an alternative status (i.e., they are rejected by authorities), it is unclear if conspiracy mentality captures a general tendency to believe in conspiracies, to endorse alternative narratives, or to believe in conspiratorial alternative narratives. To adjudicate between these interpretations, we carried out three experimental studies ( = 364, 772, 629) in which we experimentally manipulated the respective statuses (endorsed by authorities vs. rejected by the authorities) of competing conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial explanations for fictitious controversial events. Overall, conspiracy mentality predicted the endorsement of conspiratorial explanations and the rejection of non-conspiratorial explanations. However, these relationships were moderated by the respective statuses of these explanations. When authorities endorsed the conspiratorial explanation and rejected the non-conspiratorial explanation, the relationships were either nullified (in Studies 1 & 3) or attenuated (in study 2). These effects were driven by participants scoring low on the conspiracy mentality measures, who reported a lower endorsement of the conspiratorial explanation when it was rejected by authorities. They also reported a stronger endorsement of the non-conspiratorial explanation when it was presented as endorsed by authorities. By contrast, conspiracy believers' endorsement of the explanations was unaffected by their status. These findings are informative of what conspiracy mentality scales capture and highlight the need to adopt more specific definitions in psychological research on conspiracy theories.

中文翻译：

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阴谋论信徒是否会被阴谋论解释、替代解释或两者所吸引？


每个人对阴谋论的普遍倾向不同，通常被称为阴谋心态。由于典型阴谋论表现出阴谋论内容（即，他们声称发生了阴谋）和另类状态（即，他们被当局拒绝），因此尚不清楚阴谋论心态是否抓住了相信阴谋、支持另类阴谋的普遍倾向。叙述，或相信阴谋论的替代叙述。为了在这些解释之间做出裁决，我们进行了三项实验研究（= 364、772、629），在这些研究中，我们通过实验操纵了虚构争议事件的相互竞争的阴谋论和非阴谋论解释的各自状态（得到当局认可与被当局拒绝）。事件。总体而言，阴谋心态预测了对阴谋性解释的认可和对非阴谋性解释的拒绝。然而，这些关系受到这些解释各自状态的调节。当当局认可阴谋论解释并拒绝非阴谋论解释时，这种关系要么被取消（在研究 1 和 3 中），要么被削弱（在研究 2 中）。这些影响是由在阴谋心态测量中得分较低的参与者造成的，当当局拒绝阴谋解释时，他们对阴谋解释的认可度较低。他们还报告称，当非阴谋论解释得到当局认可时，他们得到了更强烈的认可。相比之下，阴谋论信徒对这些解释的认可并不受其地位的影响。 这些发现为阴谋心态量表所反映的内容提供了信息，并强调了在阴谋论的心理学研究中采用更具体的定义的必要性。