Scholars' Showcase 2025

Conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking can seem to be universal because this specific type of thinking is found across particular cultures and time periods. But there have been major events in recent history that inspire a wider array of people to theorize the events as conspiracy when they cannot locate an easily understandable explanation, especially when it comes to explaining political events and societal phenomena. This study attempted to investigate what social and cognitive factors play a role in people adopting conspiracy theories as explanations to events. More than 30 adults volunteered to take part in this study. The study obtained a convenience sample that included 35 participants who were predominantly students, faculty and staff at our university, ranging in age from 18 - 40 years. Two key articles, “Need For Closure” by Webster and Kruglanski (1994) and “Generic Conspiracist Belief Scale” by Brotherton and French (2014) were the instruments used to assess participants’ cognitive factors impacting their belief in conspiracy theories. The combined surveys contained 56 items. Participants were invited to participate in this study. The participants were adults ranging in age from 18-40 years. In this study the number of the participants identifying as male were 13 subjects and 21 female subjects and 1 nonbinary subject.