Victims of conspiracies? An examination of the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and dispositional individual victimhood

European Journal of Social Psychology. 2025. Vol. 55. No. 7. P. 1252–1269.

Toribio-Florez D., Altenmüller M., Douglas K., Gollwitzer M., Adinugroho I., Alfano M., Apriliawati D., Dubrov D., Gallyamova A., Grigoryev D., Komyaginskaya E.

Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim (i.e., victim justice sensitivity; VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370,373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related covariates (e.g., mistrust). In a multinational sample from 15 countries (N = 14,978), VJS was positively associated with both general and specific conspiracy beliefs (about vaccines and climate change) within countries, though these associations varied across countries. However, economic, sociopolitical, and cultural country-level factors that might explain the cross-country variability (e.g., GDP, Human Freedom Index, Individualism-Collectivism), including indices of exposure to direct violence, did not moderate the studied associations. Future research should investigate the association between victimhood and conspiracy beliefs considering both intraindividual and intergroup perspectives.

Keywords: conspiracy theories, conspiracy belief, victimhood, unfounded beliefs, conspiracy beliefs, victim justice sensitivity

Publication based on the results of: Comparative studies of culture and subjective well-being: differentiation and integration of societies in the context of global challenges (2025)