Research

Conspiracy thinking and its measurement

How the general disposition toward conspiracy thinking relates to belief in particular conspiracy theories, how partisanship shapes both, and how question format and social desirability affect what surveys record.

Values, partisanship, and belief systems

The structure of mass political belief in the United States, including the connections among core values, party identification, and ideology since the late 1980s.

Political ideas and mass opinion

How intellectual traditions such as Romanticism carry forward into present-day attitudes toward authority and democracy, and how to measure them in the public.

Selected publications

Smallpage, S.M., Jensen, A.L., & Askew, R.L. (2026). The common factor of conspiracy mentality: A bifactor analysis of four short-form measures of general conspiracy thinking. Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1941055

Smallpage, S.M., Askew, R., Kurlander, E.A., & Rust, J. (2023). Conspiracy thinking and the long historical shadow of Romanticism on authoritarian politics. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1185699

Smallpage, S.M., Enders, A.M., Drochon, H., & Uscinski, J.E. (2023). The impact of social desirability bias on conspiracy belief measurement across cultures. Political Science Research and Methods, 11(3), 555–569.

Enders, A.M., Smallpage, S.M., & Lupton, R.N. (2020). Are all “birthers” conspiracy theorists? On the relationship between conspiratorial thinking and political orientations. British Journal of Political Science, 50(3), 849–866.

Lupton, R.N., Smallpage, S.M., & Enders, A.M. (2020). Values and political predispositions in the age of polarization: Examining the relationship between partisanship and ideology in the United States, 1988–2012. British Journal of Political Science, 50(1), 241–260. doi:10.1017/S0007123417000370

Smallpage, S.M., Drochon, H., Uscinski, J.E., & Klofstad, C. (2020). Who are the conspiracy theorists? Demographics and conspiracy theories. In M. Butter & P. Knight (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories (pp. 263–277). Routledge.

Enders, A.M., & Smallpage, S.M. (2019). Who are conspiracy theorists? A comprehensive approach to explaining conspiracy beliefs. Social Science Quarterly, 100(6), 2017–2032.

Enders, A.M., & Smallpage, S.M. (2019). Informational cues, partisan-motivated reasoning, and the manipulation of conspiracy beliefs. Political Communication, 36(1), 83–102. doi:10.1080/10584609.2018.1493006

Enders, A.M., & Smallpage, S.M. (2018). On the measurement of conspiracy beliefs. Research & Politics, 5(1).

Smallpage, S.M., Enders, A.M., & Uscinski, J.E. (2017). The partisan contours of conspiracy theory beliefs. Research & Politics, 4(4). doi:10.1177/2053168017746554