Summary: New research shows that people who endorse conspiracy theories are often overconfident and unaware of how unusual their beliefs are. Across eight studies, participants who accepted false conspiracies regularly overestimated their abilities on cognitive tasks and believed that most other people shared their views—even when they were clearly in the minority.
This pattern of miscalibration challenges previous explanations that framed conspiracy thinking primarily as driven by narcissism or a desire to seem unique. Instead, the findings point to a pervasive disconnect from reality that makes it difficult for individuals to recognize or correct false beliefs.
Key Facts:
- Misplaced Majority: Conspiracy believers mistakenly assume that most people agree with them about 93% of the time.
- Cognitive Overconfidence: They consistently overestimate their abilities, particularly on tasks involving numeracy and perception.
- Correction Resistance: The least accurate participants are the least likely to recognize their inaccuracy and therefore the least likely to correct false beliefs.
Source: Cornell University
Overconfidence is a characteristic trait of people who believe in conspiracy theories, and they also dramatically overestimate how many others agree with them, according to new research from Cornell University.
The study suggests that conspiracy belief may arise less from social or motivational needs and more from an inability to see that one might be mistaken. People who endorse conspiratorial claims not only overestimate their cognitive performance but are often genuinely unaware that their views lie on the fringe of public opinion.
In the research, conspiracy supporters consistently rated their own performance on numeracy and perception tests higher than it actually was, and they believed they were in the majority roughly 93% of the time—even though they were usually part of a minority.
These results contrast with prior theories that emphasized narcissism or a desire to be unique as primary drivers of conspiratorial thinking. Instead, the findings highlight a widespread metacognitive failure: people who hold fringe beliefs frequently misjudge both their own competence and the prevalence of their views.
“This group of people are really miscalibrated from reality,” said Gordon Pennycook, associate professor of psychology and corresponding author of the paper. “They often endorse beliefs that very few others hold, and they lack a realistic sense of how far those beliefs fall outside mainstream views. They tend to think they are in the majority even when they are in a tiny minority.”
Pennycook and colleagues published the study, “Overconfidently Conspiratorial: Conspiracy Believers are Dispositionally Overconfident and Massively Overestimate How Much Others Agree with Them,” in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
The research includes eight studies with a combined sample of 4,181 U.S. adults. Four studies measured overconfidence using tasks that assessed perception, numeracy, and cognitive reflection. Because overconfidence is inherently hard to measure—those with the poorest performance are least able to perceive their own mistakes—the authors used a measurement approach designed to minimize confounding with actual skill.
Instead of standard scored tests, some tasks asked participants to make quick judgments about highly obscured images or similarly difficult items where accurate performance is unlikely. This method makes it easier to interpret higher self-estimates as indicators of trait overconfidence rather than as reflections of genuine ability.
Conspiracy beliefs were measured by asking participants about well-known but false claims, such as whether the Apollo moon landings were faked, whether Princess Diana’s death was not an accident, or even the belief that dinosaurs never existed. The remaining four studies examined participants’ perceptions of how widely those beliefs were shared by others.
Across studies, overconfidence predicted both endorsement of conspiratorial claims and a strong tendency to overestimate how many others believed the same false claims. On average, conspiratorial claims were endorsed by a minority of participants, yet believers reliably assumed a majority consensus.
The researchers note that the growing availability of conspiracy content online and across social platforms expands exposure to false claims, but the deeper problem revealed by this work is metacognitive: those most in need of accurate information are often the least likely to recognize their need for it.
“The people who most need help distinguishing truth from falsity are the least likely to recognize that they need it,” the authors write, emphasizing the challenge for interventions aimed at reducing conspiratorial belief.
About this conspiracy theory and psychology research news
Author: Becka Bowyer
Source: Cornell University
Contact: Becka Bowyer – Cornell University
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
“Overconfidently Conspiratorial: Conspiracy Believers are Dispositionally Overconfident and Massively Overestimate How Much Others Agree With Them” by Gordon Pennycook et al. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Abstract
Overconfidently Conspiratorial: Conspiracy Believers are Dispositionally Overconfident and Massively Overestimate How Much Others Agree With Them
Understanding why people accept conspiracy theories is an urgent research priority. While earlier work focused on psychological needs and motivations, this study proposes overconfidence as an important alternative driver. Across eight studies with 4,181 U.S. adults, conspiracy believers consistently overestimated their performance on numeracy and perception tasks, even after accounting for actual ability.
The link between overconfidence and conspiracy belief held when controlling for analytic thinking, the need for uniqueness, and narcissism, and it was strongest for the most fringe conspiracies. Overconfident participants also massively overestimated how many others agreed with their views: although conspiratorial claims were believed by a majority in only about 12% of cases, believers thought they were in the majority roughly 93% of the time. This misperception persisted even when participants rated agreement among people with opposing partisan views, indicating a genuine lack of awareness that their beliefs are on the fringe.