In this study, we took a snapshot of Americans’ paranormal and conspiratorial beliefs. We surveyed people about all sorts of topics (e.g., QAnon, election conspiracies, the Loch Ness monster, astrology). As usual, we also have a host of variables that might be related in interesting ways to such beliefs, things like trust in media, emotional stress, and social belonging. Across a dozen research reports, we will delve into our most surprising results about who believes what and (perhaps) why.
The more than 3,000 people that took our 15-minute survey were reflective of the U.S. adult population in terms of educational attainment, gender, and age when data were collected in July and August 2021. The principal investigators of this study were Dr. Kevin McCaffree and Dr. Anondah Saide. They designed the study, oversaw data collection, and will be analyzing it.
For additional information (e.g., measures used, codebook, participant details) on this study, please feel free to contact the Skeptic Research Center by email: [email protected].
REPORT (PCIS-006)
Conspiracy Theory Endorsement by Media Viewership
Sixth report in the Paranormal & Conspiratorial Ideation Study (PCIS)
Cable news media in the United States has been playing to partisan audiences since at least the 1990s (Hollander, 2008). If conspiratorial thinking is sometimes partisan — as it seems to be given our prior reports on this topic — it is worth investigating whether cable news media viewership is itself associated with conspiracy belief. To do so, we divided our sample into those who reported watching CNN only (a politically left-skewed cable news channel) and those who reported watching Fox News only (a politically right-skewed cable news channel) and then asked the question: “Does cable news viewership impact conspiracy belief?”
Technical and statistical information on this data and analysis is available in the Supplemental Materials for Report PCIS-006.
REPORT (PCIS-005)
Conspiracy Theory Endorsement by Generation
Fifth report in the Paranormal & Conspiratorial Ideation Study (PCIS)
Across the last four reports, we’ve tried to uncover which demographic groups in the United States most believe in a variety of conspiracies. In this report, we investigated how belief in conspiracy theories differs across generations. This is important because peoples’ tendency to endorse conspiracy theories might ebb and flow across time as public trust in institutions rises or falls. Consider the “Birds Aren’t Real” satire conspiracy, promulgated by those born in the mid-late 1990s and early 2000s (“Gen Z”) which insists that birds are not what we see flying above our heads, but rather, government drones designed to fool us (Byrne, 2021). The ridiculousness of this conspiracy is exactly the point — conspiratorialism, itself, is being critiqued. So, here, we ask: is there any indication that younger generations are becoming more conspiratorial?
Technical and statistical information on this data and analysis is available in the Supplemental Materials for Report PCIS-005.
REPORT (PCIS-004)
Who Endorses Conspiracy Theories about Government Elites?
Fourth report in the Paranormal & Conspiratorial Ideation Study (PCIS)
In this report we delve into a new group of conspiracy theories, this time regarding the alleged nefarious influence of government elites. We focus here on QAnon, Deep State, and Jeffrey Epstein. QAnon has been branded a “viral, pro-Trump conspiracy theory” (Roose, 2021) that came to light after Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, had his emails hacked. Proponents of the conspiracy theory insisted that hidden messages in the emails revealed an extensive network of Satan-worshipping pedophiles amongst the Democrat political elite. Deep State conspiracy theories are typically more general. Here, the contention is that elections only swap out public-facing political representatives, while the real political decision-making process takes place amongst an unelected secret group. Finally, we turn to a very specific conspiracy theory regarding the apparent suicide of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Was Epstein murdered by his elite clientele to silence him? As with our other reports in this series, we ask: who in the United States most endorses these conspiracy theories?
Technical and statistical information on this data and analysis is available in the Supplemental Materials for Report PCIS-004.
REPORT (PCIS-003)
Who Endorses Election Conspiracies?
Third report in the Paranormal & Conspiratorial Ideation Study (PCIS)
In this report, we consider a new set of conspiracies related to the last two presidential elections. When Donald Trump was elected to the presidency in 2016, a chorus of Democrat journalists, academics and politicians insisted the election was fraudulent due to Russian interference (Adams, 2019). Then, when Joe Biden was elected to the presidency in 2020, a chorus of Republican journalists, academics and politicians insisted the election was fraudulent due to the interference of activist progressives (Yang, 2022). It would appear, then, that election conspiracies exist on both sides of the political aisle. Given this, a reasonable question to ask is: who in the US most doubts the legitimacy of elections?
Technical and statistical information on this data and analysis is available in the Supplemental Materials for Report PCIS-003.
REPORT (PCIS-002)
Who Endorses Race and Gender Conspiracies?
Second report in the Paranormal & Conspiratorial Ideation Study (PCIS)
In our last report, we examined rates of belief in various conspiracies related to COVID-19. In this report, we consider a new set of conspiracies related to particular demographic groups. We focus here on white people, men, and Jews — white people and men because both have recently been portrayed as coercive, powerful, and Machiavellian in popular mainstream journalism and academic scholarship (e.g., DiAngelo, 2018; Higgins, 2018; Kendi, 2016; Morris, 2022; and see Goldberg, 2020). We asked about Jews because of a rise in recent concerns about anti-Semitism (e.g., Rosenblatt, 2020). To explore how Americans are thinking about these issues, we report peoples’ level of agreement with the notion that white, male, or Jewish dominance exists in contemporary society.
Technical and statistical information on this data and analysis is available in the Supplemental Materials for Report PCIS-002.
REPORT (PCIS-001)
Who Endorses COVID-19 Conspiracies?
First report in the Paranormal & Conspiratorial Ideation Study (PCIS)
Institutional responses to COVID-19 have been global in scope and have impacted nearly every aspect of peoples’ lives, from travel to schooling to business. Before too long, a cacophony of opinions — informed, semi-informed and uninformed — soon took off and spread throughout our information ecosystem. In this report, we look at the prevalence of differing conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19, from the unconfirmed but possible to the highly unlikely. Based on the summary report of the US National Intelligence Council (2021), we here assume the “lab leak” and coverup conspiracy to be relatively possible and juxtapose this with two fringe conspiracies: (1) that the COVID vaccines contain computer chips that aid government surveillance and (2) that officials are hiding that the vaccine causes magnetic reactions.
Technical and statistical information on this data and analysis is available in the Supplemental Materials for Report PCIS-001.
