The Impact of Freedom of Speech on Conspiracy Beliefs

Conspiracy beliefs are often portrayed as threatening democracies. However, less is known about the extent to which the state of democracy might affect conspiracy beliefs. We investigated the impact of the perceived societal level of freedom of speech on conspiracy beliefs. In Study 1, using nation-level data (68 countries; N = 49,037), we found that conspiracy beliefs were higher in countries with lower levels of freedom of speech, even after controlling for trust in government and corruption. In Study 2a (N = 190, preregistered), inducing perceptions of low (vs. high) freedom of speech increased conspiracy beliefs in a fictitious society. We replicated this effect in Study 2b (N = 90, preregistered), extending it to generic conspiracy beliefs. In Study 3a (N = 436, preregistered), we successfully designed a new induction of freedom of speech in an ecological setting, but failed to replicate its effect on conspiracy beliefs. In Study 3b (N = 498, preregistered), we used the same material, but freedom of speech was presented as varying in the future, rather than in the present as in Study 3a. We observed that conspiracy beliefs were significantly higher under low freedom of speech, compared to the high freedom of speech and control conditions, which did not differ. We discuss freedom of speech as a way to mitigate conspiracy beliefs.