Conspiracy theorists may not really believe their outlandish ideas

Many people who respond to surveys saying that they believe in conspiracy theories probably don’t think they are actually true. This means that attempts to assess the prevalence of these beliefs could be skewed.

Such surveys are the main way of gauging the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories, but they rarely ask respondents if their answers are sincere. Now, Robert Ross at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues have surveyed 1044 adults from around the country, who they contacted via the market research company YouGov.…