Investigating Personal Victimization Experiences in Relation to Conspiracy Ideation

• In Event: The Causes and Consequences of Hate Crime Victimization: Findings from the LHCVS Pilot Study

Abstract

Theoretical work on the motivations driving conspiracy ideation suggests the proposition that victimization experiences, particularly those related to individual or group identity, increase the likelihood of conspiracy ideation. However, empirical investigations testing this relationship have mainly utilized a group-level perspective, focusing on historical patterns leading to collective victimhood. To date, only one prior study focuses on the potential relationship between personal victimization experience and conspiracy ideation. Additionally, while the literature on legal legitimacy and legal cynicism would suggest that personal secondary victimization experience should exacerbate the relationship in question, no prior literature directly investigates this potential mechanism. The current study seeks to address these gaps in the literature utilizing data from the Longitudinal Hate Crime Victimization Survey (LHCVS) on personal victimization experiences and within-individual changes in conspiracy ideation. The findings derived from the current study are theoretically relevant to several bodies of literature within psychology and criminology including, but not limited to, crime victimization research and belief research broadly, as well as hate crime literature and conspiracy ideation literature specifically.

Authors

• Ashton Hoover, Florida State University

• Brendan Lantz, Florida State University

• Marin R. Wenger, Florida State University