Why Do People Find Conspiracy Beliefs Meaningful? A Mixed Methods Investigation of Conspiracy Beliefs about the COVID-19 Pandemic and the War in Ukraine

Conspiracy beliefs as explanations of events by someone’s secret malevolent intentions have been linked to numerous individual and social factors. However, past research relied widely on self-report scales that could mask subtle effects and omit people who strongly endorse conspiracy beliefs. We report two studies involving participants who endorsed conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We contribute to mixed method research by combining quantitative scales, qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, and the Repertory Grid Technique (that enabled both quantitative and qualitative analysis). We identified groups of participants who considered conspiracy explanations as probable based on different underlying mechanisms: monological reasoning, distrust, resignation on the possibility of making sense of global events, and disinterest in global events.