Free from conspiracies: The negative relationship between societal freedom and belief in generic and content-specific conspiracy theories

Through five studies, this research examined how objectively measured societal freedom and individual perceptions of it are related to reduced belief in conspiracy theories. Study 1 (N = 6,353 participants from 36 countries) examined the negative relationship between societal freedom (as measured by the Human Freedom Index) and generic conspiracy beliefs. Study 2 (N = 44,458 participants from 52 countries) focused on interest groups-related COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs - a measure not explicitly refering to government actors. Moving to the individual level, Study 3 (N = 278) examined relationships between perceived societal freedom and various conspiracy beliefs, while Study 4 (N = 246) experimentally tested whether manipulating perceptions of societal freedom affected belief in generic conspiracist beliefs as well as those related to vaccines and financial crises. Results indicated that both greater societal freedom and higher perceived societal freedom are associated with lower levels of conspiracy beliefs. In Study 5 (N = 592), we examined the psychological mechanisms mediating the relationship between perceived societal freedom and conspiracy beliefs and found the significant indirect effect of political anger. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of how both macro-level conditions can be incorporated into efforts to reduce the prevalence of conspiracy theories.