Extremist political groups, especially “extreme” Republicans and conservatives, are increasingly charged with believing misinformation, antiscientific claims, and conspiracy theories to a greater extent than moderates and those on the political left by both a burgeoning scholarly literature and popular press accounts. However, previous investigations of the relationship between political orientations and alternative beliefs have been limited in their operationalization of those beliefs and political extremity. We build on existing literature by examining the relationships between partisan and nonpartisan conspiracy beliefs and symbolic and operational forms of political extremity. Using two large, nationally representative samples of Americans, we find that ideological extremity predicts alternative beliefs only when the beliefs in question are partisan in nature and the measure of ideology is identity-based. Moreover, we find that operational ideological extremism is negatively related to nonpartisan conspiracy beliefs. Our findings help reconcile discrepant findings regarding the relationship between political orientations and conspiracy beliefs.

极端主义政治团体，尤其是“极端”共和党人和保守派，越来越多地被指控相信错误信息、反科学主张和阴谋论，其程度比温和派和政治左派的要多，因为学术文献和大众媒体的报道都在蓬勃发展。然而，先前对政治取向和替代信仰之间关系的调查在这些信仰和政治极端的可操作化方面受到限制。我们通过研究党派和无党派阴谋信仰与政治极端的象征和操作形式之间的关系，以现有文献为基础。使用两个具有全国代表性的大型美国人样本，我们发现，只有当所讨论的信仰本质上具有党派性并且意识形态的衡量标准基于身份时，意识形态极端才能预测替代信仰。此外，我们发现可操作的意识形态极端主义与无党派的阴谋信念呈负相关。我们的研究结果有助于调和关于政治取向和阴谋信仰之间关系的不一致发现。