43

Little empirical research about conspiracy theories (CT) has been conducted in psychology. By conspiracy theory we mean a lay theory about socially significant and negative events (i.e. assassinations, terrorist attacks, etc.), which often implies the intervention of one or more groups acting in secret, and contradicting the official account of the event. In this paper, we address two research questions : (1) Is the belief in conspiracy theories a single dimension, or is it possible to disentangle several subdimensions ? (2) Which variables are likely to predict this belief? In a questionnaire submitted to 198 university students, we identified two partially distinct categories of conspiracy theories : (1) CTs which blame authorities (“the system”) and (2) the CTs which accuse a minority (e.g. Jews, Muslim terrorists). Finally, we showed that fear and distrust predicted the two types of CTs. Moreover, irrationality specifically predicted the belief in the System CTs, whereas political conservatism predicted the belief in the Minority CTs.