Conspiratorial Thinking Among the Older People: The Role of Loneliness, Social Well-Being, Depression, and Anxiety

Belief in conspiracy theories has important sociopolitical consequences, and research frequently focuses on the psychological factors underlying such beliefs. People who strongly believe in conspiracy theories tend to have a lower sense of belonging to a social group and experience higher feelings of isolation and alienation from society. Furthermore, mental health issues, mainly anxiety and depression, are also often associated with conspiratorial thinking. However, little is known about the factors underlying conspiratorial thinking in different age cohorts, despite age being a significant sociodemographic associated with the belief in conspiracy theories. Our research focuses on older people, who are often considered at risk of mental health issues, mainly anxiety and depression, and susceptible to misinformation and conspiracies. We assume that conspiratorial thinking among older people will be positively related to loneliness, anxiety, and depressive feelings, and negatively to social well-being (defined as perceived meaningfulness of society and one's own role in it). We will test these assumptions using data from an ongoing longitudinal study among Czech adults aged 60+ (N = 4133, Mage = 69.1 at Time 1). Preliminary results from Time 1 indicated that conspiratorial thinking was negatively associated with social well-being and positively associated with anxiety. This suggests that conspiratorial thinking among older adults might serve as a coping for perceived lack of meaningfulness in society and symptoms of anxiety. The directionality of these effects will be examined using data from the follow-up data collection (Time 2), which will take place 12 months after Time 1 in Spring 2026.