Year: 2023 | Month: September | Volume: 10 | Issue: 9 | Pages: 38-43
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20230905
Susceptibility to Conspiracy Theories: The Relationship between Conspiracy Mentality and Need for Cognition
Dr. Frederick Edward T. Fabella
FEU Roosevelt, Cainta, Rizal, Philippines
ABSTRACT
Interest in conspiracy theories is growing in both scholarly and popular discourse. Much research has been undertaken to discover the personality traits of those who are prone to believing conspiracy theories. This study attempted to investigate another possible factor that could influence this. 117 adults volunteered to take part in this study. The Need for Cognition Scale (NCS-6), which measures an individual’s desire to engage in challenging cognitive activity, was administered on the respondents as well as the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ) intended to measure a person’s susceptibility to explanations offered by conspiracy theories about societal phenomena. The respondents NCS-6 total weighted mean indicated that a need for challenging cognitive activity was neither characteristic nor uncharacteristic of them. However, their CMQ total weighted mean showed that they believe conspiracy theories very likely explain societal phenomena. The results also indicated a statistically significant low positive relationship between the respondents’ NCS-6 scores and CMQ scores. This implies that as the respondents’ need for challenging cognitive activity rises, their susceptibility to explanations offered by conspiracy theories about societal phenomena slightly increase as well. In addition, a significant difference was also established between the respondents’ Need for Cognition Scale scores when grouped according to presence or absence of romantic involvement.
Keywords: Need for Cognition Scale, Conspiracy Theory, Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire
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