Process / pipelineideological-orientations
Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire
The Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire measures individual differences in generic conspiracy thinking—the tendency to attribute significant events to hidden, coordinated group actions by powerful actors rather than to incompetence, chance, or transparent public causes. Developed by Bruder et al. (2013), the five-item CMQ assesses a stable dispositional trait that predicts belief in diverse conspiracy theories (JFK assassination, 9/11 truthers, anti-vaccine narratives, QAnon) and distrust of institutions. It captures conspiracy mentality as a generalised political attitude distinct from specific beliefs.
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Sources
- Bruder, M., Haffke, P., Neave, N., Nouripanah, N., & Imhoff, R. (2013). Measuring individual differences in generic beliefs in conspiracy: Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 225. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00225 ↗
- Imhoff, R., & Bruder, M. (2014). Speaking (un-)truth to power: Conspiracy mentality as a generalised political attitude. European Journal of Personality, 28(1), 25-43. DOI: 10.1002/per.1930 ↗
- Swami, V., Coles, R., Stieger, S., Pietschnig, J., Furnham, A., Rehim, S., & Voracek, M. (2011). Conspiracist ideation in Britain and Austria: Validating a scale for the assessment of belief in conspiracy theories. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 46(12), 1189-1198. DOI: 10.1007/s00127-010-0295-y ↗