Belief in conspiracy theories - claims that powerful groups secretly orchestrate harmful events - has long been associated with anxiety, stress, and feelings of powerlessness. Prior studies have consistently reported small positive correlations between psychological distress and conspiratorial thinking, leading many to assume a causal link. Yet correlation does not establish direction. Does anxiety drive people toward conspiratorial explanations, or do such beliefs themselves create distress?
To test these competing possibilities, researchers Nick D. Fox, Matt N. Williams, and Stephen R. Hill designed a longitudinal study using data from 970 participants across the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Conducted between October 2022 and March 2023, the study used seven monthly surveys to track within-person changes in distress and belief systems over time. By employing multiple-indicator random-intercept cross-lagged panel models - a robust statistical method for teasing apart directionality - the authors could examine whether fluctuations in stress, depression, or anxiety preceded changes in conspiratorial belief, or vice versa.
Participants answered standardized psychological scales, including the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) for depression, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7) for anxiety, and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Belief in conspiracy theories was measured through agreement with statements on topics such as chemtrails, vaccines, 5G networks, election fraud, and climate change denial. A separate five-item Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire assessed general predisposition toward conspiratorial explanations.
Across all measures, results revealed striking stability. Individual belief levels barely changed across the seven waves, showing an intraclass correlation of 0.92 - meaning that most differences were consistent traits rather than moment-to-moment shifts. Likewise, distress measures such as anxiety, depression, and stress showed moderate stability (ICCs between 0.79 and 0.84).
When analyzing directional effects, the researchers tested 15 preregistered hypotheses covering every plausible causal combination. Out of all models, only one significant cross-lagged effect emerged: a very small positive link between anxiety and later conspiracy belief (standardized b = 0.03, p = .042). Yet this result did not hold when the team used robust standard errors, suggesting it may reflect random variation rather than a true effect. All other predicted causal paths - from depression, perceived stress, or stressful life events toward conspiracy belief - were nonsignificant. Equally, the reverse direction showed no evidence that believing in conspiracies heightened subsequent distress.
To further test theoretical assumptions, the researchers examined whether the effect of stress on conspiratorial belief depended on perceiving a hostile out-group. This addressed a key claim in van Prooijen's existential-threat model, which posits that feelings of anxiety or uncertainty lead to conspiracy thinking only when an antagonistic agent seems salient. The team compared participants who viewed the Chinese government as threatening with those who did not, focusing on belief that "COVID-19 is a bioweapon created by China." The cross-lagged effects were indistinguishable between groups (b ? 0.00, p > .7), offering no support for the moderating role of out-group threat.
Bayesian analyses reinforced these conclusions, with Bayes factors exceeding 3 in favor of the null across nearly all models - strong evidence against meaningful causal effects. The authors note that while distress and conspiracy belief may correlate, the relationship appears to arise from stable personality or worldview traits rather than dynamic feedback between mood and belief.
The findings challenge the existential-threat hypothesis, which has been influential in explaining conspiratorial cognition. That model proposes that anxiety and loss of control trigger a compensatory drive for sense-making, often channeled into conspiratorial reasoning when clear villains are available. The current evidence suggests that while existential insecurity may correlate with conspiratorial worldviews, it does not appear to cause them - at least not in the gradual, measurable way captured by monthly surveys.
Interestingly, the study also found no support for the reverse idea: that adopting conspiratorial beliefs worsens mental health. Although such beliefs often involve narratives of malevolent hidden forces, they may not meaningfully alter individuals' day-to-day well-being. The authors propose that broader personal and socioeconomic factors - relationships, finances, genetic predispositions - likely dominate over abstract beliefs in determining emotional health.
Only one exploratory pattern hinted at possible indirect effects: a weak, non-preregistered link between conspiracy mentality and experiencing more stressful life events. The authors speculate that stronger conspiratorial outlooks might occasionally strain social or professional relationships, subtly increasing real-world stress exposure. However, this finding did not remain significant in robustness checks and requires replication.
Methodologically, the research represents one of the most rigorous tests to date of psychological-distress causality in conspiracy belief formation. The random-intercept cross-lagged panel model controls for stable individual differences - effectively separating enduring personality tendencies from short-term fluctuations. While this design strengthens causal inference, the authors acknowledge limitations. Effects operating on shorter or longer timescales might go undetected, and the online sample may not perfectly represent national populations. Still, the narrow confidence intervals surrounding the estimates allow the researchers to rule out any large effects of distress on conspiratorial thinking.
From the standpoint of Seven Reflections' Dimensional Systems Architecture (DSA) framework, the study highlights a cognitive equilibrium principle: belief systems behave as semi-stable structural fields that resist short-term perturbation. Anxiety or stress may introduce transient noise into the field but rarely reorganize its deeper architecture. Conspiratorial cognition, in this sense, reflects an established interpretive geometry - an internally coherent structure maintained by feedback between perception and meaning. Unless the system's underlying structural parameters shift (for instance, through new context or prolonged cognitive resonance), momentary affective changes will not collapse or reshape it.
In DSA terms, this stability indicates high structural inertia within the belief field. The mind's architecture prioritizes coherence over correction, conserving its internal mapping of "who acts against whom" despite emotional turbulence. Understanding such dynamics suggests that meaningful change in belief systems requires structural re-patterning - altering the cognitive topology itself, not merely reducing surface distress. This insight reframes interventions: psychological comfort may soothe the system, but reconfiguration demands shifts in its logic, context, or informational symmetry.
