Conspiracist ideation is associated with generalized prejudice: An investigation with three measures of conspiracist ideation and twenty measures of prejudice

Researchers have long argued that conspiracist ideation and prejudice are intimately linked, but the empirical research supporting this notion is relatively limited. Past studies have shown that conspiracist ideation is associated with Islamophobia, antisemitism, and xenophobia but few other forms of prejudice. The present project expands the scope of this research by examining the associations of three measures of conspiracist ideation with twenty measures of prejudice. Across two studies—one using a sample of undergraduate students (N = 299) and one using a sample of CloudResearch Connect participants demographically matched to the US population (N = 538)—we found that conspiracist ideation is associated with a diverse array of prejudicial beliefs, including hostile sexism, modern homonegativity, transnegativity, modern racism towards Black people, antisemitism, and classism, among many other forms of prejudice. We also found that conspiracist ideation is highly associated with generalized prejudice, represented by a latent factor capturing the shared variance among the twenty prejudice measures. Taken together, these findings indicate that there is a close relationship between conspiracist ideation and prejudice.