Fictitious Conspiracy, Paranormal, and Pseudoscience Beliefs Are Closely Related To Their Regular Counterparts

Abstract

Belief in various types of Epistemically Suspect Beliefs (ESBs), such as conspiracy theories, paranormal phenomena, and pseudoscientific claims, tends to strongly correlate. However, the use of ESB scales in the literature, which often include phenomena frequently encountered in daily life with familiar content, challenges the clarity of inferences about this relationship. To address this issue, we developed a scale for Fictitious Epistemically Suspect Beliefs (FESBs), composed entirely of novel and fabricated statements related to conspiracy, paranormal activity, and pseudoscience. In Study 1, with a Turkish sample of 448 participants, we found that FESBs positively correlated with ESBs, despite consisting of less familiar claims. Moreover, both FESBs and ESBs showed similar associations with individual differences in worldview and cognition. These findings were replicated in a larger Turkish sample (N = 786) in Study 2, and a UK sample (N = 746) in Study 3. The results indicate that individuals with higher ESBs are more likely to endorse FESBs, despite having never encountered these claims before.