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Suspicions of Injustice: The Sense-Making Function of Belief in Conspiracy Theories

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Justice and Conflicts

Abstract

In contemporary society, people are frequently faced with threats to the social order (e.g., terrorist attacks). These threats often give rise to belief in conspiracy theories, which assume such events to be injustices that were secretly and deliberately planned by legitimate authorities or institutions. In the present chapter I propose that conspiracy beliefs are functional for basic sense-making desires when faced with events that threaten the social order. Recent findings indicate that contextual and personal factors that are likely to elicit sense-making activities (e.g., lacking control, feelings of uncertainty, high need for structure) increase the association between the perceived morality of institutions and conspiracy beliefs. Furthermore, additional findings reveal that an underlying mechanism why sense-making activities may lead to conspiracy beliefs is that people tend to attribute big causes to big events. To illuminate practical implications I connect these insights to knowledge on procedural justice, and reason that adhering to procedural justice principles may help to decrease conspiracy beliefs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The idea for this improved perspective taking manipulation was in fact raised by one of the participants of the Eichstätt symposium during the discussion following the author’s presentation. I would hereby like to extend my gratitude for this very useful suggestion that inspired the study presented here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Jan-Willem van Prooijen

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  1. Jan-Willem van Prooijen
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Correspondence to Jan-Willem van Prooijen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Professur Psychologie III, Katholische Universität, Ostenstrasse 25, Ingolstadt, 85072, Germany

    Elisabeth Kals

  2. Fakultät für Pädagogik, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39, Neubiberg, 85577, Germany

    Jürgen Maes

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van Prooijen, JW. (2011). Suspicions of Injustice: The Sense-Making Function of Belief in Conspiracy Theories. In: Kals, E., Maes, J. (eds) Justice and Conflicts. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19035-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19035-3_7

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-19034-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-19035-3

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