Four studies (total n = 961) developed and validated the Adolescent Conspiracy Beliefs Questionnaire (ACBQ). Initial items were developed in collaboration with teachers. An exploratory factor analysis (Study 1, n = 208, aged 11-14) and a student focus group (N = 3, aged 11) enabled us to establish the factor structure of a 9-item scale. This was replicated via confirmatory factor analysis in Study 2 (N = 178, aged 11-17), and the scale displayed good convergent (i.e., relationship with paranoia and mistrust) and discriminant validity (i.e., no relationship with extraversion). Study 3a (N = 257) further tested convergent validity with a sample of 18-year-olds (i.e., relationship with adult-validated measures of conspiracy beliefs) and demonstrated strong test-retest reliability. Study 3b (N = 318) replicated these findings with a mixed-age adult sample. The ACBQ will allow researchers to explore the psychological antecedents and consequences of conspiracy thinking in young populations.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 570. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 April 2026.
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#53,249
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Outputs from British Journal of Developmental Psychology
#2
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#1,594
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Outputs of similar age from British Journal of Developmental Psychology
#1
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Altmetric has tracked 34,843,411 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 735 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
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