The Contexts that Amplify or Dampen the Relationship between Conspiratorial Thinking and Far-Right Extremist Attitudes

Over the last few years, we have seen a series of recent far-right terrorist attacks across the US, Europe and New Zealand which demonstrate that extreme conspiratorial worldviews can mobilise individuals towards extremist violence. Each perpetrator’s manifesto heavily referenced far-right conspiracy theories such as the great replacement and white genocide. We tested the effects of conspiratorial mindsets on far-right extremist attitudes and examined whether this relationship was amplified or lessened based on specific group and social-environmental influences. We conducted a German nationally representative telephone survey with 1502 participants. We measured a wide range of different social-environmental and group-level factors, such as exposure to extremist peers, perceived threats to the ingroup and perceptions of group-based injustice and we asked each participant about the degree to which they agreed with (1) Five generic themes that re-occur in different conspiracy theories (2) Six statements tapping into seven different far-right extremist dimensions: support for a right-wing dictatorship, chauvinism, xenophobia, Anti-Semitism, social Darwinism, Islamophobia and downplaying the crimes of National Socialism. The findings demonstrate that stronger conspiratorial mindsets predict increased far-right extremist attitudes. However, the strength of this relationship depends upon socio-environmental and group-level influences. A series of interaction analyses demonstrate that conspiratorial mindsets have particularly strong effects on support for far-right extremist ideologies amongst those individuals who demonstrate high levels of (1) Exposure to extremist peers, (2) Perceived threats to their ingroup, or (3) Perceptions of group-based injustice.