Drawn to the dark, but not to conspiracies: State morbid curiosity decreases conspiracy belief and endorsement

Abstract Morbid curiosity draws people toward disturbing information concerning death, violence, danger, or harm, but does it also make conspiratorial explanations more compelling? This research addressed this question in three experiments by examining whether induced state morbid curiosity affects conspiracy endorsement and conspiracy belief, and whether conspiracy belief may be relevant to this relationship. Study 1 manipulated state morbid curiosity by delaying or immediately providing answers to morbid trivia questions and subsequently measured the relative endorsement of conspiratorial versus nonconspiratorial explanations. Results showed that morbid curiosity reduced conspiracy endorsement. Study 2 showed that the same manipulation of morbid curiosity reduced participants’ conspiracy belief. Study 3 further probed the association between conspiracy belief and conspiracy endorsement, and explored whether this relationship could be moderated by the source status of explanations. Results showed that conspiracy belief increased conspiracy endorsement only when the explanations were attributed to an official source. Among participants induced to hold stronger conspiracy belief, conspiracy endorsement was lower for nonofficial than official explanations. Together, these suggest that state morbid curiosity may reduce endorsement of conspiratorial explanations, where conspiracy belief may play a relevant role, and the relationship between conspiracy belief and endorsement depends on source status.