On ‘Doing Conspiracy Theory’. Introduction and Validation of the Conspiracy Practice Scale (CPS-6)

Authors

  • Florian Knasmüller Orcid
    Faculty of Psychology, Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria
  • Dustin Henze Orcid
    Faculty of Psychology, Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria
  • Markus Brunner Orcid
    Faculty of Psychology, Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria
  • Oliver Nachtwey Orcid
    Departement Gesellschaftswissenschaften, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
  • Sarah Speck Orcid
    Institute for Social Research, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany; Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany
  • Nils C. Kumkar Orcid
    SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Abstract

Conspiracy theories have recently been met with a lot of public scrutiny. They are generally addressed as a form of belief system that is underpinned by psychological dispositions. In contrast, we introduce the Conspiracy Practice Scale (CPS-6) as a novel instrument focussing on the spread and consumption of conspiracy theories as a form of social practice. In a random split of a dataset collected in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland (N = 6,460), exploratory factor analysis was employed to determine dimensionality of the CPS-6 and discriminate it against conspiracy mentality (nEFA = 3,229). CPS-6 emerged as distinct single dimension with good overall reliability (α = .86, ω = .87). Results were confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the second split (nCFA = 3,231). Multi-group CFA revealed measurement invariance across countries and convergent validity was indicated by correlations with related constructs. Overall, results show CPS-6 to be a reliable and valid short-scale to measure conspiracy practice as a distinct construct.