Anyone who’s been sent a “forwarded many times” conspiracy theory Whastapp by an increasingly off-the-rails relative will know how pervasive the beliefs can be.
But what if they’re held by your partner or date?
Well, a recent study published by the Journal of Applied Social Psychology this September thought they’d look into “anecdotal” claims that conspiracy theories negatively affect their believers’ love lives and relationships with friends and family.
“As a member of the CONSPIRACY_FX research group, my current research interests are mainly focused on the consequences of conspiracy beliefs,” the study’s lead author Dr Daniel Toribio-Flórez said.
So, he and his team looked into whether assumptions that conspiracy theories harm relationships are backed up.
The researchers conducted two pilot studies and five bigger studies.
The first two studies, which involved 447 UK participants, got people to think of two people in their social network as “believers” and “non-believers” in conspiracy theories.
They reported significantly lower relationship satisfaction with the “believers” than the non-believers.
The results of these pilot studies bore out in the first larger one.
Further, larger studies sought to prove causation between relationship dissatisfaction and conspiracy theory beliefs.
“In our studies, we found that if a person perceives the other person in the relationship to believe in or to explicitly endorse conspiracy theories, the former will likely perceive lower relationship satisfaction and the other person as less close, relationally and attitudinally,” Dr Daniel Toribio-Flórez told PsyPost.
“However, if the two people within the relationship share a belief in conspiracy theories, the perceived relationship satisfaction will likely be similar, and it can even improve, accompanied by the perception of the other person as relationally and attitudinally closer.”
The researchers also found that “participants expected lower relationship satisfaction with a stranger who endorsed (vs. opposed) a conspiracy theory in their online dating profile.”
“The first and clearest change referred to the perception of closeness, and more specifically, of attitudinal closeness between the two members of the relationship,” the paper reads.
In other words, people thought that those who’d developed conspiracy theories had changed their attitude in a way that made it harder to relate to them.
Non-believers in conspiracy theories also expect trust to break down in their relationship with a believer, the research adds. They also anticipated reaching out to and spending time with a believer of conspiracy theories.
The scientists add that while “the average effects of conspiracy beliefs on relationship satisfaction were mainly driven by participants who held moderate to weak conspiracy beliefs,” this is different for more extreme cases.
“For strong conspiracy believers, perceiving that others also believed in conspiracy theories was associated with higher relationship satisfaction, higher perceived attitudinal closeness, higher expectations of interpersonal trust, and higher intentions to become closer and interact more,” they say.
They add that participants did not necessarily assume those with conspiracy beliefs were more politically conservative, which had been suggested by previous research.
