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

This research examined the relationship between societal freedom and conspiracy beliefs through four studies that tested how both objectively measured societal freedom and individual perceptions of it are related to reduced conspiracy theory endorsement. 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) extended these findings by focusing on interest groups-related COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs - a measure that does not explicitly refer to government actors. Moving from the country to the individual level, Study 3 (N=278) examined correlational 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 consistently indicated that both greater societal freedom and higher perceived societal freedom are associated with lower levels of conspiracy beliefs. They also contribute to a broader understanding of how both macro-level conditions and perceptions of them can be incorporated into efforts to reduce the prevalence of conspiracy theories through the context of democratic values and freedoms.