Political Psychology, Vol. 44, No. 1, 2023 doi: 10.1111/pops.12822 On the Relation Between Religiosity and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories: The Role of Political Orientation Marius Frenken Johannes Gutenberg- University Mainz Michał Bilewicz University of Warsaw Roland Imhoff Johannes Gutenberg- University Mainz Religious and conspiracy beliefs share the feature of assuming powerful forces that determine the fate of the world. Correspondingly, they have been theorized to address similar psychological needs and to be based on similar cognitions, but there exist little authoritative answers about their relationship. We delineate two theory- driven possibilities. If conspiracy theories and religions serve as surrogates for each other by fulfilling similar needs, the two beliefs should be negatively correlated. If conspiracy and religious beliefs stem from the same values and cognitions, this would speak for a positive correlation that might be diminished— for example—b y controlling for shared political ideologies. We approached the question with a meta-a nalysis (N = 10,242), partial correlations from large Christian-d ominated datasets from Germany, Poland, and the United States (N = 12,612), and a preregistered U.S. study (N = 500). The results indicate that the correlations between religiosity and conspiracy theory endorsement were positive, and political orientation shared large parts of this covariance. Correlations of religiosity with the more need-r elated conspiracy mentality differed between countries. We conclude that similarities in the explanatory style and ideologies seem to be central for the relation between intrinsic religiosity and endorsing conspiracy theories, but psychological needs only play a minor role. KEY WORDS: conspiracy theories, conspiracy mentality, intrinsic religiosity, political ideology, political orientation, spirituality Headlines like “Are conspiracy theories really ‘a new religion’?” (Ayed, 2020) point at a grow- ing public body of discussions about religious elements in conspiracy theories (CTs). Also, the sci- entific literature ascribes CTs “quasi-r eligious qualities” (Franks et al., 2013, p. 10) and outlines shared elements of CTs with religions regarding the content and structure; other comparisons shed a light on psychological similarities (Robertson & Dyrendal, 2018; Wood & Douglas, 2018). The joint characteristics allow opposing conclusions about the relationship between religions and CTs, depending on the focus of the argument. To the extent that conspiracy beliefs can satisfy needs that have traditionally been satisfied by religions (e.g., facing uncertainty, Barber, 2011; van Prooijen & 139 0162-895X © 2022 The Authors. Political Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, and PO Box 378 Carlton South, 3053 Victoria, Australia This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 140 Frenken et al. Highlights • Religiosity and the belief in specific conspiracy theories are positively correlated • This association is largely due to their shared covariance with political orientation • Only weak evidence for a function of a generalized conspiracy mindset as a substitute for religion Douglas, 2017), one would expect people to endorse either religious beliefs or conspiracy beliefs, resulting in a negative correlation. In contrast, if both reflect basal underlying cognitions (e.g., there are hidden powers; there is more in the world than is visible) or other shared ideologies, then the same individuals should be prone to endorse both beliefs, resulting in a positive correlation. The present study empirically addresses the question of how the endorsement of CTs relates to religiosity. Importantly, both the previous literature and our current investigations are largely con- fined to contexts with a predominance of Christian faith, but there are good reasons to assume similar features (e.g., providing meaning and belongingness; Saroglou, 2011) and similar results also for other denominations (see Muslim majority contexts in Study 1). After delineating competing hypoth- eses, we will present a meta-a nalysis of previously published studies as well as reanalyses of large datasets from three countries with different average religiosity and cultural contexts. Throughout our studies, we control for political orientation on the left- right continuum to elucidate whether the asso- ciation between religiosity and CT endorsement might be due to shared variance with political worl- dviews. The empirical section concludes with a preregistered study that additionally takes a closer look at different religious orientations (intrinsic, extrinsic, and religious quest) and spiritual beliefs. COMPARISON BETWEEN RELIGIOSITY AND CTs Clearly, religions and CTs are not the same concepts. For example, many religions impart beliefs that the world is a just place (Jost et al., 2013), whereas CTs assume that many important (and espe- cially negative) events are intentionally brought about by hostile groups (Jolley et al., 2018). The so- cial dimensions of religions and CTs also reveal differences as CTs do not share the institutionalized and organized structures of religions that promote a sense of community and social structures to the same degree (Franks et al., 2013). Nevertheless, several similarities have been noted of which some refer to needs fulfilled by both (competing) concepts, whereas others point to overlapping cognitive styles and ideologies suggesting that religiosity and CTs complement each other. Psychological Needs as Similarities From a psychological perspective, religions and CTs address similar needs and thus might constitute competing concepts that could reduce the motivation of religious individuals to question official narratives and vice versa. If a need is already satisfied, the status of saturation limits the attraction of another belief with the same promise. One of them is the social need to keep a positive image of the self and the ingroup. Religiosity and endorsing CTs can both satisfy the social need for the self (van Prooijen, 2016; Ward & King, 2021) and the ingroup (Cairns et al., 2006; Cichocka et al., 2016) by promoting feelings of morality and belongingness (considered as cross-c ultural fea- tures, Saroglou, 2011). The epistemic function is another shared feature of both concepts by presenting stories about causal relationships (Wood & Douglas, 2018) as cross-c ultural phenomena to reduce uncertainty (Barber, 2011; van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017). Sense- making processes and the detection of pat- terns and agencies have been linked to (predominantly Christian) religiosity (van Elk et al., 2016; Inzlicht et al., 2011) and the endorsement of CTs (Douglas et al., 2016; Marchlewska et al., 2018; 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License Religiosity and Conspiracy Theories 141 van Prooijen et al., 2018), partly depending on contexts like experiencing uncertainty or lacking control (Andersen, 2019; Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). According to the existential motive (e.g., need of control), lacking control reinforces compen- satory mechanisms that structure the environment and attribute agencies to restore control (Landau et al., 2015), for example, after natural disasters or other societal crises (van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017). Previous studies have demonstrated that conspiracist ideation (Abalakina- Paap et al., 1999) and religiosity (Coursey et al., 2013) are associated with higher external loci of control and that both concepts can be defensive strategies for compensatory control (Federico et al., 2018; Kay et al., 2010; Shepherd et al., 2011), depending on personal responsibilities that the religious persuasion promotes (Wood & Douglas, 2018). Despite these competing need-b ased similarities, we also iden- tified complementing cognitive ones. Cognitive and Explanatory Similarities Religions and CTs are associated with similar cognitions and might speak as complementing concepts to the same individuals. The general structure and appeal of both accounts can be consid- ered as similar by representing “grand explanatory narratives” (Robertson & Dyrendal, 2018, p. 8) that offer explanations for events that are anchored in commonsense contents but also violate these in a few aspects (Boyer & Ramble, 2001; Franks et al., 2013). For example, the CT that 9/11 was an inside job adopts commonly accepted facts about the event and adds the (deviating) idea of a blasting by the U.S. government. The synergy of common sense and alternative elements increases the recall (and probably the appeal) of a narrative (Barrett & Nyhof, 2001). In terms of content, the violation of common sense in (especially monotheistic) religions and CTs often includes invisible forces at play (e.g., God or intelligence services), and the explanatory style suggests further similarities like using anomalies as explanatory starting points and offering explanations that tend to be unfalsifiable (Keeley, 2018). The cognitive style is assumed to be another similarity between religiosity and conspiracy ide- ation as both are related to reduced analytic thinking (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012; Pennycook et al., 2013, 2016; Pytlik et al., 2020; Swami et al., 2014), also cross- culturally (Stagnaro et al., 2019). Importantly, this is due to spontaneous preferences of thinking styles but not due to a general lack of cognitive abilities (Jastrzębski & Chuderski, 2017; Pennycook et al., 2013). In a similar vein, religiosity and conspiracy thinking are associated with a higher reception to pseudo-p rofoundness (i.e., content-f ree but profound-a ppearing sentences, Pennycook et al., 2015). Also, ideological fac- tors are shared by religiosity and CT endorsement that could explain why religious individuals might tend to engage more in CTs. Ideological Political Overlaps As central ideological similarities and possibly overlapping societal groups, religiosity and CT endorsement are rooted in similar political contexts that might contribute to the relation of interest and pull it into a positive direction. Particularly, political orientation appears to play a key role ac- cording to previous studies. They yielded significant positive correlations between the endorsement of CTs and conservatism (Douglas et al., 2016; Miller et al., 2016) and right political orientation (Enders et al., 2018; Galliford & Furnham, 2017). Although this relation with political orientation is basically curvilinear in many countries, there is an increase in the political right averaged across all countries and especially in the countries investigated in the present study (i.e., Poland, Germany and the United States; Imhoff et al., 2022; van der Linden et al., 2021). Religiosity is cross-c ulturally linked to political attitudes as well (Caprara et al., 2018; Ksiazkiewicz & Friesen, 2021). Similar correlation patterns as for CTs also emerge for religiosity 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 142 Frenken et al. with conservatism (Malka et al., 2012; Pennycook et al., 2012; Piazza & Sousa, 2014) and right political orientation (Dirilen-G ümüş, 2010; Saribay & Yilmaz, 2018). System justification might be one of the shared mechanisms between political attitudes, religiosity, and CT endorsement (Jolley et al., 2018; Jost et al., 2013; Osborne & Sibley, 2014). DIFFERENTIATING MEASURES AND CONTEXT When examining the correlation between religiosity and CT endorsement as well as the role of political orientation, the measures of religiosity and the (country- specific) religious contexts can lead to different conclusions. Another empirical angle is to compare ideologically enriched, content- laden specific conspiracy beliefs on the one hand, and a more abstract tendency to suspect secret forces at play (conspiracy mentality) on the other hand. Mentality vs. Specific Beliefs As the associations with religiosity can vary between the different measures of CT endorse- ment and thus indirectly might suggest different implications for the underlying processes, we also differentiated between the belief in specific CTs and a generalized conspiracy mentality (see Imhoff & Bruder, 2014). The mentality concept grounds on the empirical finding that the beliefs in different CTs are interrelated (Swami et al., 2011) and describes a content- free general tendency to see the world governed by hidden forces. This might indirectly be more reconcil- able with the competing need-b ased account, whereas specific theories might translate more into complementing ideological directions and political attitudes (Smallpage et al., 2017). It is thus conceivable that the correlation of religiosity and conspiracy mentality is smaller compared to presumably higher correlations with specific conspiracy beliefs. However, generalizing from specific CTs might also be more biased compared to the less content- laden conspiracy mentality as specific CTs are more susceptible to other situational or elite cues, for instance from religious and political leaders. Different Types of Religiosities In addition to the focus of both prior work and our current studies on predominantly Christian traditions of religiosity, we also took more fined-g rained inner differentiations into three orientations of religiosity: intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest (Batson & Schoenrade, 1991). Whereas the extrinsic and the quest dimensions are compatible with the need-b ased account (fulfilling social and epistemic needs), intrinsic religiosity is more in accordance with the cognitive and ideological similarities between religiosity and CT endorsement. Accordingly, intrinsic religiosity might be positively cor- related with CT endorsements, but extrinsic religiosity and religious quest might be negatively cor- related with them. Role of the Cultural Context Results might also differ between countries depending on their cultural context and the role reli- gion plays in the public sphere as well as the relation between church and state (Roccas & Schwartz, 1997). The associations of religiosity with right- wing and conservative attitudes are especially sub- stantial in countries where religion is more apparent in the public (Caprara et al., 2018). This might translate into more substantial correlations between religiosity and CT endorsement (and more pro- nounced roles of political orientation) in countries with higher religiosity and where religion is more politically laden. 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License Religiosity and Conspiracy Theories 143 THE PRESENT STUDY In the present study, we examined how religiosity and the endorsement of CTs are interrelated in Christian- dominated countries and thereby put the theory-d riven accounts of need-b ased versus cognitive-i deological similarities between religiosity and CTs indirectly to a large-s cale test. H1 (surrogate hypothesis): A negative correlation might indicate that the personal needs are already satisfied by religiosity or CTs prohibiting the support of the other (for the perspective of CTs as secularized religious superstitions, see Popper, 1945); H2 (complement hypothesis): A positive correlation could be explained by overlaps in cognitive preferences and ideologies. If both hypotheses play out simultaneously, the direction of correlation might still indicate the dominating part. To address ideological overlaps and their positivizing impact on the correlation, we controlled for political orientations (left- right) in the analyses. The effect is informative for testing the surrogate (no influence of political orientation) versus the complement hypothesis (potentially attributable to shared variance with political orientation). Additionally, we separated specific CT endorsements and conspiracy mentality as measurements with different conceptual backgrounds. Higher correlations for specific CTs than for conspiracy mentality would indicate unspecific support for at least one or both hypotheses. We thus expected the correlation with religiosity to be higher for specific CTs than for conspiracy mentality. We reanalyzed large datasets of countries with different cultural contexts but with Christianity as the main denomination: Germany (Study 2) as Western-E uropean country with a comparably low religiosity, Poland (Study 3) as Eastern-E uropean country with a rather high religiosity, and the United States (Study 4) as non-E uropean country with rather high religiosity (Joshanloo & Gebauer, 2020). The preregistered Study 5 comprises a new dataset from the United States to replicate the findings of the previous studies and to explore different religious orientations as well as spiritual and supernatural beliefs. The examination begins with a meta-a nalysis of previously reported studies on the correlation between religiosity and the endorsement of CTs (Study 1). STUDY 1: META- ANALYSIS Methods and Sample The literature review for the meta-a nalysis included the first 70 results sorted by relevance that were listed on Google Scholar when entering “religiosity and conspiracy.” We selected peer- reviewed studies that reported the correlation index between self- reported religiosity and a measure of specific conspiracy beliefs or a general conspiracy mindset. Of the search results, 18.5% were included in the meta-a nalysis, 65.7% were excluded because they did not report the relevant variables or cor- relations, and 15.7% were excluded due to other reasons like mixing up religiosity and spirituality. The meta-a nalysis was conducted separately for specific conspiracy beliefs and general conspiracy mindset scales by applying the meta package in R (Schwarzer, 2021). We used the inverse variance method, the Sidik- Jonkman estimator for τ2, Q-p rofile method for the confidence interval of τ2, and Fisher’s z- transformation of correlations. The nine studies including specific CTs (see Figure  1; N  =  5,438) and the nine studies reporting correlations of religiosity with scales measuring a general conspiracy mindset (see Figure 2; total N = 4,804) based on samples predominantly from the United States, but also on non-C hristian samples from Iran and Turkey (for further sample descriptions, see the online sup- porting information). 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 144 Frenken et al. Weight Weight Study N Correlations r 95%−CI (fixed) (random) Alper et al., 2020 1088 0.23 [ 0.17; 0.29] 20.1% 13.3% Atari et al., 2019 544 0.15 [ 0.07; 0.23] 10.0% 12.4% Bost et al., 2010 104 0.20 [ 0.01; 0.38] 1.9% 7.8% Douglas et al., 2016, s1 202 −0.09 [−0.23; 0.05] 3.7% 10.1% Douglas et al., 2016, s2 330 0.19 [ 0.08; 0.29] 6.0% 11.4% Freeman et al., 2020 2501 0.32 [ 0.28; 0.35] 46.2% 13.9% Green & Douglas, 2018 230 0.12 [−0.01; 0.25] 4.2% 10.4% Marchlewska et al., 2019 223 0.29 [ 0.16; 0.41] 4.1% 10.4% van der Wal et al., 2018 216 0.15 [ 0.02; 0.28] 3.9% 10.3% Fixed effect model 5438 0.25 [ 0.22; 0.27] 100.0% −− Random effects model 0.18 [ 0.10; 0.26] −− 100.0% −0.4 −0.2 0 0.2 0.4 Figure 1. Correlations between religiosity and specific CTs (Study 1). Weight Weight Study N Correlations r 95%−CI (fixed) (random) Alper et al., 2020 1088 −0.01 [−0.07; 0.05] 22.7% 12.3% Atari et al., 2019 544 0.10 [ 0.02; 0.18] 11.3% 11.5% Green & Douglas, 2018, s1 246 0.11 [−0.02; 0.23] 5.1% 9.8% Green & Douglas, 2018, s2 230 −0.10 [−0.23; 0.03] 4.8% 9.7% Hart & Graether, 2018 422 0.02 [−0.08; 0.12] 8.8% 11.0% Imhoff & Bruder, 2014 497 0.08 [−0.01; 0.17] 10.3% 11.3% Landrum et al., 2021 402 0.27 [ 0.18; 0.36] 8.4% 10.9% Leibovitz et al., 2021 797 0.18 [ 0.11; 0.25] 16.6% 12.0% Petrovic et al., 2019 578 0.23 [ 0.15; 0.31] 12.0% 11.5% Fixed effect model 4804 0.10 [ 0.07; 0.13] 100.0% −− Random effects model 0.10 [ 0.02; 0.18] −− 100.0% −0.3 −0.2 −0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 Figure 2. Correlations between religiosity and conspiracy mindset (Study 1). Results and Discussion The meta-a nalysis yielded a significant positive correlation between religiosity and the endorse- ment of specific CTs, rpooled = .182, p < .001, and a small, but significant positive correlation between religiosity and measures of the conspiracy mindset, rpooled = .101, p = .010. Although the substantial heterogeneity in the analysis of the dataset containing variables about specific CTs, I2  =  84.9%, τ2  =  0.012, p  <  .001, and of the dataset containing conspiracy mindset variables, I2  =  85.0%, τ2 = 0.012, p <  .001, supports the use of the random-e ffects model in both cases, the number of included studies is arguably too small to warrant the estimation of random effects. The estimated values from fixed effect models provide clearer differences with rpooled = .246, p < .001 for specific CTs and rpooled = .101, p < .001, for conspiracy mindsets. Previously published studies pointed at significant positive correlations between CT measures and religiosity that are descriptively higher for specific CTs than for conspiracy mindset. For the random effects models, these corresponding confidence intervals partially overlapped, but they do not overlap for the fixed effects models. These analyses thus provide tentative support for a positive 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License Religiosity and Conspiracy Theories 145 correlation (speaking against the surrogate hypothesis) and faintly for the idea that content does mat- ter. Both findings are more easily reconcilable with the complement hypothesis than the need-b ased one. In the following analyses of large-s ample datasets from three different countries (Studies 2 to 4), one of the goals was to bolster generalizability by exploring the relation separately for three different countries with markedly different roles of religiosity in public life and political discourse. The other goal was to control statistically for (political) worldviews in line with the assumption of the complement hypothesis that overlaps in worldviews might pull the correlation into a positive direction. STUDY 2: DATASET FROM GERMANY Sample and Methods The dataset from Germany was collected as part of the Mitte- Studie in 2012 among a large na- tional sample N = 2,348 (54.6% women, 45.4% men, Mage = 48.84, SDage = 18.18). The conspiracy mentality scale consisted of five items (short version from Imhoff & Bruder, 2014, α =  .80, e.g., “There are secret organizations that have great influence on political deci- sions.”; response options from 1  =  Do not agree at all to 7  =  Completely agree). Religiosity (“Do you consider yourself as rather religious or unreligious?” from 1  =  Not religious at all to 10 = Deeply religious) and left- right self- classification (from 1 = Left to 10 = Right) were recorded as single items. The analyses of all studies have been conducted in SPSS (IBM Corp., 2015). Results and Discussion The partial correlation between religiosity and conspiracy mentality with political orientation as a control variable yielded a significant negative, but very small partial correlation, rpart. = −.048, p = .020. The impact of the control variables was not substantial (bivariate correlation without con- trol variables r = −.042, Table 1) but significant according to the unstandardized indirect mediation effect (IE) and bootstrapped confidence interval, IE = 0.003, 95% CI [0.005, 0.052]. Indirect media- tion effects are only reported to test the indirect paths for significance, but we refrain from interpret- ing them causally. In Germany, a country with comparably low religiosity (Joshanloo & Gebauer, 2020), all in- terrelations between religiosity, conspiracy mentality, and political orientation were very small, and religiosity almost uncorrelated to conspiracy mentality. The observed (extremely weak) negative correlation and the fact that this was practically unaffected by controlling for political ideologies are more in line with the need- based (surrogate) than the cognitive- explanatory account. This is at odds with previous findings reported in the meta-a nalysis (Study 1). Therefore, we conducted similar analyses on datasets with participants from more religious countries (Poland and the United States, Joshanloo & Gebauer, 2020). Table 1. Correlations and Descriptive Values in the German Dataset Measures M (SD) (1) (2) (3) (1) Religiosity 4.08 (2.69) – (2) Conspiracy mentality 3.96 (1.31) −.042* – (3) Political orientation 5.21 (1.71) .056** .097** – *p < .05 **p < .01. 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 146 Frenken et al. STUDY 3: DATASETS FROM POLAND Sample and Methods The datasets from Poland were collected in 2013 (N  =  965, 54.3% women, 45.7% men, Mage = 46.05, SDage = 17.52; complete datasets 640) and 2017 (N = 1,019; 52.2% women, 47.8% men, Mage = 46.72, SDage = 17.03; complete datasets 600). The study was part of the two waves of the Polish Prejudice Survey, a nation- wide survey of intergroup attitudes. Concerning the 2013 dataset, religiosity (“Regardless of your participation in religious events, do you consider yourself religious?”; response options from 1 = Absolutely unbelieving to 7 = Strict believer) and political orientation (“Which of these points most closely aligns with your political beliefs?”; response format 1 = Far left to 7 = Far right) were single-i tem facets. Two scales mea- sured the endorsement of specific CTs, that is, Antisemitic CTs (6 items, α = .95, e.g., “Jews try to rule the world”; response format 1 = Completely disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) and the agreement to Smolensk CTs (4 items, α  =  .73, e.g., “Polish and Russian authorities together hide the truth about the Smolensk disaster.”; responses from 1 = Completely disagree to 5 = Definitively agree). Smolensk refers to the crash of a Polish military plane near the Russian city of Smolensk in 2010 with many Polish officials and politicians among the victims. In the dataset from 2017, the scales measuring religiosity, political orientation, and Antisemitic CTs were the same as in the study from 2013. Participants were also invited to answer questions about their conspiracy mentality (5 items, α =  .92, e.g., “There are many important things in the world that happen unreported”; responses were recorded on a scale from 1 = Completely disagree to 100 = Fully agree; cf. Imhoff & Bruder, 2014). Results and Discussion The specific CTs about Antisemitism and the Smolensk disaster were both positively correlated with religiosity in the 2013 dataset (Table 2) but statistically unrelated after controlling for political orientation, rpart. = .070, p = .073 (Smolensk), rpart. = .067, p = .085 (Antisemitic). The indirect effects were significant (Smolensk: IE = 0.023, 95% CI [0.012, 0.036]; Antisemitic: IE = 0.011, 95% CI [0.003, 0.020]). In the 2017 dataset, the endorsement of Antisemitic CTs was also positively associated with reli- giosity (Table 3) but statistically uncorrelated when controlling for political orientation, rpart. = −.004, p = .927, with a statistically significant indirect effect (IE = 0.122, 95% CI [0.079, 0.172]). The neg- ative correlation between conspiracy mentality and religiosity (Table 3) became more negative when including political orientation in the analysis, rpart. = −.135, p = .001. The indirect effect of political orientation was significant, IE = 0.002, 95% CI [0.001, 0.004]. In a nutshell, intercorrelations between variables were more pronounced in Poland than in Germany suggesting that religiosity is comparably more rooted in right- oriented sections of the Polish society. Specific CTs were positively correlated with religiosity but unrelated after controlling Table 2. Correlations and Descriptive Values in the 2013 Polish Dataset Measures M (SD) (1) (2) (3) (4) (1) Religiosity 2.96 (0.51) – (2) Smolensk conspiracy 2.51 (1.10) .129** – (3) Antisemitic conspiracy 3.61 (1.13) .089* .173** – (4) Political orientation 4.32 (1.53) .204** .313** .119** – *p < .05 **p < .01. 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License Religiosity and Conspiracy Theories 147 Table 3. Correlations and Descriptive Values in the 2017 Polish Dataset Measures M (SD) (1) (2) (3) (4) (1) Religiosity 4.87 (1.62) – (2) Conspiracy mentality 51.41 (25.10) −.094* – (3) Antisemitic conspiracy 3.59 (1.07) .084* .379** – (4) Political orientation 4.48 (1.62) .265** .130** .329** – *p < .05 **p < .01. for political attitudes. On the contrary, conspiracy mentality negatively correlated with religiosity, especially when considering the control variables. It thus seems that specific CTs follow a pattern predicted by the complement hypothesis: positive correlations that are substantially attenuated when controlling for political orientation. The results for conspiracy mentality, however, are more in line with predictions derived from the surrogate hypothesis: a negative correlation that is not diminished in size (but rather boosted) by controlling for political orientation. We examine in the next section if this pattern of results also holds in the United States context as U.S. citizens seem to be more re- ligious in many aspects than most other (Western) democracies (Gin, 2012; Joshanloo & Gebauer, 2020). STUDY 4: DATASET FROM THE UNITED STATES Sample and Methods The data from a U.S. national sample N  =  8,280 (53.7% women, 46.3 men, Mage  =  48.98, SDage = 20.81) was collected in 2020 by ANES (American National Election Studies, 2021). Two items measured conspiracy mentality by asking how well general conspiracy sentences described their view (“Much of what people hear in schools and the media are lies designed to keep people from learning the real truth about those in power.” and “Most business and politics in this country are secretly controlled by the same few powerful people.”; from 1 = Not at all to 5 = Extremely well, α =  .65). Participants were also invited to choose between binary competing narratives of which one contained a specific conspiracy or conspiracy-r elated belief contradicting the official narrative (4 items, α = .72, e.g., “The novel Coronavirus (COVID-1 9) was [not] developed intentionally in a lab.”; coded 1  =  official narrative, 2  =  nonofficial narrative/conspiracy; other topics: COVID- treatment, vaccination side effects, climate change). The score was weighted by the confidence of the rating (from 1 = Not at all to 5 = Extremely). Participants additionally rated the importance of religion in their life (from 1 = Not important at all to 5 = Extremely important) and their political orientation (from 0 = Left to 10 = Right). Results and Discussion Religiosity was positively correlated with conspiracy mentality and conspiracy- related beliefs with small-t o- medium effect sizes (Table  4). The partial correlations decreased markedly for the mentality, rpart. = .051, p < .001, and for specific beliefs, rpart. = .125, p < .001, after controlling for political orientation. The indirect effect was significant for the mentality (IE = 0.148, 95% CI [0.133, 0.162]) and for specific beliefs (IE = 0.921, 95% CI [0.840, 1.003]). In sum, all intercorrelations are more pronounced in the U.S. sample than in the European sam- ples. The substantial correlations between religiosity and both conspiracy measures are largely due to shared variance with political orientation. The central overlap between religions and CTs in the U.S. 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 148 Frenken et al. Table 4. Correlations and Descriptive Values in the U.S. Dataset (Study 4) Measures M (SD) (1) (2) (3) (4) (1) Religiosity 3.13 (1.50) – (2) Conspiracy mentality 2.91 (1.04) .152** – (3) Conspiracy beliefs 1.22 (0.25) .289** .426** – (4) Political orientation 5.54 (2.76) .382** .280** .490** – ** p < .01. sample thus speaks for the complement hypothesis (for both the general mindset and specific CTs). To further add to the robustness of this result, we collected new data in a U.S. sample and explored the roles of religious orientation and spirituality. STUDY 5: NEW DATASET FROM THE UNITED STATES The data collection, analysis procedure, and hypotheses of Study 5 have been preregistered (https://aspre dicted.org/jj68q.pdf). The main hypotheses of this novel study in the U.S. context were that (1) there is a positive correlation between religiosity and the two measurements of the endorsement of CTs, that is, conspiracy mentality and specific conspiracy beliefs, and (2) that po- litical orientation is a confounding variable that is at least partly overlapping with the correlation expected in Hypothesis 1. We also implemented a tripartite religious-o rientation scale in line with the typology of Batson and Schoenrade (1991) consisting of the dimensions of religious quest as well as extrinsic and intrinsic religiosity to explore which religious facet is most important for the relation with CT endorsement. Additionally, we included measures of spirituality as a related but conceptually different construct to examine its’ correlation with CT measures and political attitudes. Sample and Methods A total of 500 MTurkers (53.1% men, 46.3 women, 0.6% nonbinary; Mage  =  40.28, SDage = 12.03) completed the online questionnaire on the platform SoSciSurvey for an expense allowance of $1.40. The relative majority of 46.3% was Christian, and 41.3% were unaffiliated. All participants passed the control question, but one participant failed the attention check (see preregistration) and had to be excluded. The study was conducted in 2021 during a Democratic presidency that might have strengthened conspiracy attitudes in the political right (see Imhoff et al., 2022). Participants rated the importance of religion in their life on a 7-p oint Likert scale from “Not important” to “Extremely important” and categorized their political orientation on a slider scale (left-r ight, coded 0 to 100). The religious-o rientation scale by Francis et al. (2016) that we slightly adjusted for this study consisted of the three dimensions of extrinsic religiosity (8 items, α = .89, e.g., “A key reason for my interest in attending religious services is that it is socially enjoyable.”), intrinsic religiosity (8 items, α = .96, e.g., “My religious faith shapes how I live my daily life.”), and religious quest (8 items, α = .91, e.g., “I value my religious doubts and questions.”). The questionnaire also comprised 9 selected items from the New Age Orientation Scale (NAOS, Granqvist & Hagekull, 2001, α = 92, e.g., “Compared to most religious and non- religious people, I am probably somewhat of a spiritual seeker with an unusually open mind.”) and 11 selected items about supernatural beliefs adapted from Eckblad and Chapman (1983) and Tobacyk (2004) (α = .88, e.g., “Horoscopes are right too often for it to be a coincidence.”). We included the 5-i tem short version of the conspiracy mentality scale (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014, 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License Religiosity and Conspiracy Theories 149 Table 5. Correlations and Descriptive Values in the U.S. Dataset (Study 5) Measures M (SD) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (1) Importance religiosity 3.24 (2.29) – (2) Conspiracy mentality 3.72 (1.45) .272** – (3) Conspiracy beliefs 3.16 (1.59) .356** .752** – (4) Political orientation 41.26 (31.60) .486** .278** .328** – (5) Intrinsic religiosity 3.05 (2.06) .926** .259** .353** .448** – (6) Extrinsic religiosity 2.79 (1.55) .675** .205** .291** .327** .722** – (7) Religious quest 3.19 (1.64) .378** .128** .172** .029 .417** .560** – (8) NAOS 3.00 (1.50) .428** .388** .451** .150** .462** .566** .414** – (9) Supernatural beliefs 2.25 (1.15) .293** .407** .476** .093* .296** .460** .295** .718** *p < .05 **p < .01. α = .80) and 5 specific CTs items (α = .84, e.g., “The cure for cancer actually exists but is being suppressed.”; other topics: Coronavirus, Kennedy assassination, 9/11, power of nonelected of- ficials) into the questionnaire. All scales had a 7-p oint Likert response format from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree.” Results As predicted in Hypothesis 1, the intercorrelations between religiosity and conspiracy mental- ity as well as between religiosity and conspiracy beliefs were significant with medium effect size (Table 5). The study also yielded evidence in favor of Hypothesis 2: Correlations went substantially down when controlling for political orientation in case of the mentality, rpart. = .163 (formerly.272), p < .001, and in case of the conspiracy beliefs, rpart. = .239 (formerly.356), p < .001. The indirect effects of political attitudes were significant (mentality: 0.196, 95% CI [0.126, 0.268]; conspiracy beliefs: 0.196, 95% CI [0.135, 0.260]). The pattern of results concerning supernatural beliefs yielded important exploratory find- ings. When including political attitudes and supernatural beliefs as covariates, the partial correla- tion with religiosity breaks down to rpart. = .057 (p = .203) for the mentality and to rpart. = .123 (p = .006) for conspiracy beliefs. The overlapping constructs of New Age spirituality (β = .138, p = .025) and supernatural beliefs (β = .268, p < .001) are more strongly connected to conspiracy mentality than religiosity (β = .135, p = .003) in a joint regression (R2 = .20). The medium to high correlations between supernatural beliefs and conspiracy mentality, rpart. = .399 (formerly.407), p < .001, and conspiracy beliefs, rpart. = .478 (formerly.476), p < .001, are not significantly af- fected by political attitudes. The results further indicate that the single-i tem religiosity scale basically measures intrinsic religiosity (only significant predictor among all three facets, β = .92, p < .001, R2 = .86). Intrinsic religiosity was also the only significant dimension when using the three religious orientations to predict conspiracy mentality, β = .231, p < .001, R2 = .07, and to predict the endorsement of specific conspiracy beliefs, β = .298, p < .001, R2 = .13. Discussion Replicating the results from the previous study, Study 5 returned positive correlations of medium size between religiosity and measures of CT endorsement in the U.S. context. The correlation is largely due to overlaps with political orientation and supernatural beliefs. Thus, compared to the previously examined European countries, the relation between religiosity and 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 150 Frenken et al. CT endorsement in the United States appears to be more laden with political ideologies and shared spiritual/supernatural features (complement hypothesis) but less with need-b ased similar- ities (surrogate hypothesis). Among the three religious’ orientations (quest, intrinsic, extrinsic), intrinsic religiosity appears to be most important for the CT endorsement. Again, this speaks against the importance of social and epistemic psychological needs, indirectly represented by the extrinsic and quest dimensions. The exploratory analyses demonstrated that the spiritual/supernatural facet is more strongly re- lated but less politicized than the religious dimension in the context of CT endorsement. Correlations between supernatural beliefs and CT endorsement suggest ideological and cognitive overlaps on other levels than political ones. This is compatible with results from Jasinskaja-L ahti and Jetten (2019) who found a significant positive correlation between the general importance of worldview and conspiracy mentality only among those with a (supernatural) belief in God. GENERAL DISCUSSION The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between (mainly Christian) re- ligiosity and the endorsement of CTs and if this correlation can indirectly be better ascribed to cognitive and ideological overlaps (positively correlated; H2, complement hypothesis) or to competing beliefs fulfilling the same needs (negatively correlated; H1 surrogate hypothesis). Furthermore, we expected lower correlations for the rather need-b ased conspiracy mentality— a general tendency to see the world governed by hidden forces—c ompared to rather ideologically laden specific conspiracy beliefs and more pronounced correlations in countries with higher lev- els of average religiosity. The mere correlation of the endorsement of specific CTs with religiosity was significantly posi- tive according to a meta- analysis (Study 1) and datasets from Poland (Study 3) and the United States (Studies 4/5). These relations share covariance to a large extent with political orientation, that is, on the left- right continuum. After controlling for political orientation, correlations of conspiracy beliefs and conspiracy mentality with religiosity decreased substantially (the United States and Poland). Conspiracy mentality showed either modest negative (Poland and Germany) or modest positive cor- relations (the United States and meta-a nalysis) with religiosity. The conclusions from these findings are twofold. First, the study yielded predominantly evidence in favor of the cognitive- ideological comple- ment hypothesis. The positive correlations suggest that similarities in the cognitive and explanatory style— like assuming hidden powers behind events— speak to the same persons and dominate the relation between CT endorsement and religiosity. Also, only intrinsic religiosity was related to CT endorsement whereas the other religious orientations quest and extrinsic religiosity did not play a role in this context. Overlaps between religions and specific CTs appear to be manifested in deeper cognitions and convictions rather than on need-b ased social or superficial levels or a joint search for meaning (epistemic need). Furthermore, shared political attitudes between religiosity and the endorsement of specific CTs demonstrate that they are embedded in a complex and partly overlap- ping belief system. The suspicious answers to societal and political questions that are reflected in the endorsement of CTs are rather dominated by shared (political) ideologies than by other competing facets of religiosity (e.g., need based). However, results also supported the need-b ased surrogate hypothesis in some aspects, presumably due to already fulfilled needs making individuals more content and less skeptical or mistrusting. This implication was suggested by higher correlations for the ideologically driven and content- contaminated specific conspiracy beliefs than for the more needs-r elated and broader conspiracy mentality as well as by small negative correlations between re- ligiosity and the competing conspiracy mentality (for the European countries Poland and Germany), albeit not in the United States. 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License Religiosity and Conspiracy Theories 151 Second, national contexts are also important. We observed countries with comparably strong intercorrelations between religiosity, conspiracy beliefs/mentality, and political orientation (Poland and especially the United States), and another country (Germany) with very small or zero correla- tions between these constructs. Only if religiosity tends to be rooted in politically more right- oriented social groups (e.g., the United States), then the relation between religiosity and the endorsement of CTs is substantially pulled into a positive direction due to ideological overlaps. Interestingly, this could be interpreted in a broader ideological framework as the linear relationship (vs. curvilinear) be- tween political ideologies and CT endorsement emerges mainly in countries where the political right is also religious. It is further conceivable that the extent of religious fundamentalism explains some variance between countries (see control analyses for Study 4 in the online supporting information). Another important finding is that—e ven after controlling for political orientation—r eligiosity seems to differ culturally between the United States and Poland regarding conspiracy mentality and may be attributable to different functions of religions or different strengths of cognitions and ideologies that might dominate other similarities like needs. However, conventional religiosity should not be equated with spirituality or other modern reli- gions or belief movements like the esoteric New Age (for a comparison, see Zinnbauer et al., 1997). Although we demonstrated that they are positively correlated, spirituality seems to be less politicized and less rooted in political contexts. Spirituality and paranormal beliefs are indeed positively predic- tive of the endorsement of CTs (Enders & Smallpage, 2019; Gligorić et al., 2021; van Prooijen et al., 2018)— even after controlling for political orientation—a nd alternative religiosity is still a positive predictor of CT beliefs when controlling for religiosity (Ladini, 2022). The term Conspirituality summarizes the overlapping social groups with pronounced endorsements of CTs and spirituality combining political disillusionment and alternative worldviews (Ward & Voas, 2011). Presumably, conventional religiosity is an institutionalized mainstream phenomenon that does not appear to have as extreme alternative and stigmatized views as spirituality. But these are only tentative assumptions, and our study has some other limitations. Limitations One of the caveats of the present study is that the present data are collected in predominantly Christian nations that do not necessarily generalize to societies with other dominant religions. From a methodological perspective, it would have been desirable if the exact same variables would have been collected in all datasets for better comparability. However, the questions were highly similar, that is, religiosity was always measured as extent or importance of religiosity, questions about po- litical attitudes mainly differed only in the response formats, and conspiracy mentality items were adapted from the same scale (except for Study 4 measuring general suspicion towards powerful people, but the novel preregistered study in the same country including the mentality scale led to the same pattern of results). The specific conspiracy theories differed considerably between studies from denial of scientific results to (political) events, but the pattern of results was robust (see item analyses in the online supporting information). Furthermore, the correlational design of the study does not allow one to draw any causal in- ferences from the results. The temporal order and the causal relationship of the variables remains unclear. Despite not directly inferring theoretical validity from the data, the pattern of results allows us to qualify them as (un)compatible with the two theory- driven hypotheses or to conclude which hypothesis is dominating. Whether people believe in conspiracies and in God might not only follow from their needs for control and certainty on the one hand and their cognitive styles and attributions on the other hand. Both might also be influenced by cues from political and religious leaders and their potential overlap. Theoretically it merely moves the explanatory model from the recipients of such cue to their authors. Do leaders who communicate a worldview of a benevolent and almighty 14679221, 2023, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12822 by Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Wiley Online Library on [02/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 152 Frenken et al. God also communicate that hidden plots of sinister elites determine political decisions? Or do they tend to rely on either one in a surrogate principle? Although our studies were not set up to test this on the level of leaders, we would still argue that even in the unlikely case that individual beliefs were predominantly the product of a one-w ay communication by leaders, it is then still informative to test the hypotheses. Independently, the present study offers valuable insights into the research question by analyzing large, cross- national data. Implications and Conclusions Religiosity and CTs appear to share especially (political) ideological, but only to a small extent need-b ased similarities. Interrelations between political attitudes and religiosity as well as their con- sequences for conspiracy thinking appear to be partly specific for national contexts. It demonstrates that complex topics like religiosity and general worldviews are better investigated in cross-n ational studies and not only among frequently examined U.S. samples characterized by a special “intertwin- ing of cultural and religious elements” (Reimer, 1995, p. 456). Further, conventional religiosity needs to be clearly conceptually separated from spirituality and other forms of modern alternative beliefs that are also related to CT endorsement but less to political attitudes. 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