“A community of unknowledge”: A Social-Psychological Model of the Self-Reinforcing Cycle of Social Identity-Driven Willful Ignorance and Conspiracy Beliefs

Willful ignorance has drawn a growing interest in psychology and beyond, with empiricalresearch focusing on numerous cognitive reasons (e.g., avoiding distressing information,pursuing self-serving goals, or maintaining fairness) that drives willful ignorance. Recentand emerging research situates willful ignorance in intergroup contexts. A significanttrend of research construes conspiracy theories as a power challenging phenomenon. Yet,there is evidence that conspiracy theories are sometimes promoted by members ofrelatively powerful groups (e.g., a national majority) in order to target relativelypowerless groups (e.g., immigrants). Thus, conspiracy theories are not necessarily beliefsheld by the relatively powerless. On the contrary, they always attribute power to theallegedly conspiring parties. As a matter of fact, without such power, the groups accusedof conspiring would be unable to carry out their plans. In contrast to assuming conspiracytheories reflect objective power imbalances, we propose that they may be construed asopportunistic attributions of power that allow individuals to advance their interests (e.g.,validate their worldview, strengthen or challenge social hierarchies).