Conspiracy Theories and Strategic Sophistication: an Online Study

Erika Domotor, Adrien Fillon, Kenzo Nera and Zacharias Maniadis

University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics from University of Cyprus Department of Economics

Abstract: The prevalence of conspiracy theories is a concern in western countries, yet the phenomenon is rarely addressed in experimental economics. In two preregistered online studies (NStudy 1 = 97, NStudy 2 = 203) we examine the relationship between exposure to conspiracy modes of thinking, self-reported conspiracy mentality, and behaviour in an economic game that measures strategic sophistication. Part of our design was based on Balafoutas, Libman, Selamis, and Vollan (2021), who found a positive relationship between exposure to conspiracy modes of thinking and strategic sophistication. Our results did not corroborate their findings in an online setting. Our measures of conspiracy mentality were modestly correlated with strategic sophistication in Study 2, but not in Study 1. Conspiracy mentality was also correlated with manipulativeness.

Keywords: Conspiracy theory; k-level reasoning; trust; strategic sophistication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C90 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2024-03-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-gth
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.econ.ucy.ac.cy/RePEc/papers/01-2024.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucy:cypeua:01-2024

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics from University of Cyprus Department of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().