General anxiety, political anxiety, and support for conspiracy theories

Previous research on the underpinnings of support for conspiracy theories has explored the role of both generalized trust and political trust, but scholars have yet to explore whether both generalized and political <i>anxiety</i> are related to support for conspiracy theories. While studies have shown that general measures of anxiety predict support for conspiracy theories, researchers have not yet devoted much attention to understanding whether feelings of political anxiety are also related to conspiracy theory endorsement. Using data from an original survey fielded in 2023 that includes a measure of generalized anxiety and an eight-item measure that specifically captures political anxiety, we find that political anxiety is not related to conspiracy theory support, and that generalized anxiety is weakly related to conspiracy theory support. Thus, although there are good reasons to be concerned about the ill effects of political anxiety, it does not appear to be strongly related to conspiracy theory endorsement.