Priming Need-Frustrating Memories Sparks Conspiracy Beliefs: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective

Memories shape perceptions and decisions in uncertain situations through their encoded levels of autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfaction or frustration. This research investigated their predictive value on COVID-19 conspiracy theories endorsement, when triggered by freedom-restrictive contexts.

Study 1 (N = 141) randomly exposed participants to a control, moderate, or high freedom-restrictive vignette before describing a memory. Participants reported their endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories a week later. Study 2 (N = 213) asked participants to describe a memory after reading a freedom-restrictive vignette. A week later, a yoked control design randomly assigned participants to either be primed with their own memory or with someone else's memory before reacting to a bogus conspiracy theory.

Study 1 revealed a predictive association specifically between autonomy-frustrating memories triggered by freedom-restrictive vignettes and COVID-19 conspiracy theories endorsement. Study 2 showed that priming autonomy-frustrating memories situationally increased the likelihood of endorsing a bogus conspiracy theory, becoming angered by it, and expressing willingness to disseminate it, compared to a non-primed group and a group primed with autonomy-satisfying memories.

This research highlights the role of autonomy-frustrating memories in endorsing conspiracy theories, suggesting that such endorsement can emerge from the interplay between the individual (memories) and the environment (triggering cues).