2026-10-06T08:07:05Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/34021455 2026-09-29T05:46:19Z category_176 portal_316 item_type_3 month_year_09_2026

Supplementary file 1_How does belief in conspiracy theories affect loneliness and connectedness? A longitudinal investigation.docx Matt N. Williams (10663614) John R. Kerr (5489003) Mathew D. Marques (10663611) Haneen Abu-Obeid (25135539) Stephen R. Hill (25135542) Neuroscience and Physiological Psychology connectedness conspiracy interpersonal loneliness longitudinal relational Introduction<p>Conspiracy theories are contentious, and conversations about conspiracy theories can generate conflict. It is therefore possible that developing beliefs in conspiracy theories may isolate a believer from friends and family, resulting in loneliness and reduced connectedness to others. However, evidence of such effects remains equivocal. We therefore report a preregistered longitudinal analysis testing for effects of belief in specific conspiracy theories and conspiracy mentality on loneliness and connectedness (and vice versa).</p>Method<p>We conducted a longitudinal panel study (N = 839) using 12 waves collected over 11 months. We analyzed data using random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs) along with several alternative statistical models for cross-lagged data.</p>Results<p>We found no evidence of an effect of belief in specific conspiracy theories on loneliness, nor of conspiracy mentality on either loneliness or connectedness. We did find evidence of a negative effect of belief in specific conspiracy theories on connectedness in our preregistered analyses, but this finding was not robust to alternative specifications. We found no evidence of converse effects (i.e., of connectedness and loneliness on belief in conspiracy theories or conspiracy mentality).</p>Discussion<p>Our findings suggest that average within-person effects on loneliness and connectedness (over a 1-month lag period) were small and not robust across plausible model specifications. Nevertheless, our study was subject to several limitations, including modest power, vulnerability to time-varying confounds, and a sample with low mean levels of belief in conspiracy theories. Effects that are smaller than we had adequate power to detect, unfold over different time lags, or that are concentrated within subgroups (such as highly committed “believers”) remain possible, but would require further research to establish.</p> 2026-09-29T05:46:19Z Dataset Dataset 10.3389/frsps.2026.1892137.s001 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Supplementary_file_1_How_does_belief_in_conspiracy_theories_affect_loneliness_and_connectedness_A_longitudinal_investigation_docx/34021455 CC BY 4.0