Conspiracy as a Defense: The Role of Defensive Styles in the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories

This study examined whether individual differences in defensive functioning help explain why people endorse conspiracy beliefs. A community sample of 516 adults completed measures of conspiracist ideation, contemporary conspiracy beliefs (CCB), and defense styles. Results showed that higher endorsement of conspiracy beliefs was associated with a more immature style, whereas the mature style showed no association, and the neurotic style yielded small, non-replicated effects. At the single defense mechanism level, splitting emerged as the only replicated predictor of conspiracist ideation. There was also a small education moderation effect, suggesting that contextual variables can shape how defenses relate to conspiracy thinking; these findings are exploratory and require replication. Furthermore, CCB was associated with general conspiracist ideation. Among socio-demographic characteristics, being left-wing and having a higher level of education were associated with lower levels of conspiracy ideation. Taken together, the findings suggest that conspiracy beliefs may, in part, serve defensive functions and that considering a continuum of defense maturity could enrich psychological accounts of conspiracist thinking. Speculative interpretations should be viewed solely as hypotheses and require confirmation in further independent samples.