Misguided Convictions? From Maladaptive Beliefs About Emotions to Conspiracy Theories Endorsement

ABSTRACT Negative emotions can catalyse perceptions of a hostile world, promoting conspiracy theories that involve beliefs in malevolent forces behind events. In our research, we propose that maladaptive emotion beliefs (i.e., beliefs about the uselessness and uncontrollability of emotions) are likely to underpin conspiracy beliefs. This hypothesis was tested across five studies conducted among British and Polish participants. In three cross‐sectional studies ( N 1 = 403, N 2 = 1143 and N 4 = 432), we demonstrated a significant relationship between maladaptive emotion beliefs and higher conspiracy beliefs, with higher psychological distress potentially accounting for the observed link. Experimental studies ( N 3 = 814 and N 5 = 1140) suggested that the link between maladaptive emotion beliefs and conspiracy beliefs might be causal, as they demonstrated that inducing maladaptive emotion beliefs increased conspiracy beliefs. We highlight the importance of exploring emotion‐related phenomena in research on conspiracy theories endorsement.