{"title":"Assessing Conspiracist Ideation Reliably, Validly, and Efficiently: A Psychometric Comparison of Five Short-Form Measures.","authors":"Cameron S Kay, Paul Slovic","doi":"10.1177/10731911251319933","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Choosing a short-form measure of conspiracist ideation (i.e., the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories) is fraught. Despite there being numerous scales to choose from, little work has been done to compare their psychometric properties. To address this shortcoming, we compared the internal consistency, 2-week test-retest reliability, criterion validity, and construct validity of five short-form conspiracist ideation measures: the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale-5 (GCB-5), the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ), the General Measure of Conspiracism (GMC), the American Conspiracy Thinking Scale (ACTS), and the One-Item Conspiracy Measure (1CM). The results of our investigation indicated that all five scales are reliable and valid measures of conspiracist ideation. That said, the GCB-5 tended to perform the best, while the 1CM tended to perform the worst. We conclude our investigation by discussing trade-offs among the five scales, as well as providing recommendations for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":8577,"journal":{"name":"Assessment","volume":" ","pages":"10731911251319933"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Assessment","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10731911251319933","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, CLINICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Choosing a short-form measure of conspiracist ideation (i.e., the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories) is fraught. Despite there being numerous scales to choose from, little work has been done to compare their psychometric properties. To address this shortcoming, we compared the internal consistency, 2-week test-retest reliability, criterion validity, and construct validity of five short-form conspiracist ideation measures: the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale-5 (GCB-5), the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ), the General Measure of Conspiracism (GMC), the American Conspiracy Thinking Scale (ACTS), and the One-Item Conspiracy Measure (1CM). The results of our investigation indicated that all five scales are reliable and valid measures of conspiracist ideation. That said, the GCB-5 tended to perform the best, while the 1CM tended to perform the worst. We conclude our investigation by discussing trade-offs among the five scales, as well as providing recommendations for future research.
期刊介绍:
Assessment publishes articles in the domain of applied clinical assessment. The emphasis of this journal is on publication of information of relevance to the use of assessment measures, including test development, validation, and interpretation practices. The scope of the journal includes research that can inform assessment practices in mental health, forensic, medical, and other applied settings. Papers that focus on the assessment of cognitive and neuropsychological functioning, personality, and psychopathology are invited. Most papers published in Assessment report the results of original empirical research, however integrative review articles and scholarly case studies will also be considered.