The devil is not as black as he is painted? On the positive relationship between food industry conspiracy beliefs and conscious food choices

Previous research found that conspiracy beliefs were usually activated when individuals faced different types of psychological threats and that they led mainly to maladaptive individual and societal outcomes. In this research, we assumed that potential harmfulness of conspiracy beliefs may depend on the context, and we focused on the link between food industry conspiracy beliefs and conscious food choices. We hypothesized that food industry conspiracy beliefs may allow for a constructive attempt to protect oneself against real or imagined enemies (i.e., food industry companies) by conscious food choices (e.g., paying attention to how much the food products are processed). We tested this hypothesis among Polish participants (Study 1; N = 608; cross-sectional and Study 2; N = 790; experimental). Study 1 confirmed that context-specific conspiracy beliefs (but not general notions of conspiracy) are associated with adaptive consumer behaviors. Study 2 showed that inducing feelings of threat related to the possibility of purchasing food contaminated by a harmful bacteria (vs. control condition) increased food industry conspiracy beliefs, which were further positively linked to conscious food choices. We discuss the role of threat and conspiracy beliefs in adaptive consumer behaviors related to food choices.