Key takeaways
- In a 2013 national survey, people who agreed with three or more medical conspiracy theories were nearly three times as likely as people who agreed with none to take herbal supplements regularly: 35% versus 13%1.
- A study of nearly four decades of national survey data found that tastes and politics cluster in ways no logic requires, because people befriend others like them and then grow more alike23.
- Researchers coined the word “conspirituality” in 2011 for the blend of alternative spirituality and conspiracy theory, and studies traced it through wellness influencers during COVID-1946.
- In a 2023 repeat of a classic experiment, students in Bern gave an obviously wrong answer 33% of the time when a group did, about the same rate seen in the 1950s9.
- One ally makes a big difference: in Solomon Asch’s studies, a single person who answered correctly cut conformity to about 5% of trials8.
Taking herbal supplements has nothing to do with whether the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hides natural cancer cures. Neither does buying vegetables at a farm stand.
Yet in a 2013 national survey for two University of Chicago researchers, those things showed up together. Of the 1,351 adults surveyed, 37% agreed that the FDA suppresses natural cancer cures because of drug company pressure1.
People who agreed with three or more of six medical conspiracy theories were far more likely to take herbal supplements regularly than people who agreed with none, 35% versus 13%. They were also more likely to buy from farm stands or local growers, 37% versus 14%1.
That doesn’t mean one causes the other. It shows something sociologists see everywhere: beliefs and habits travel in bundles.
If you’ve joined a yoga studio, an herbal medicine class or an online wellness group, you may have felt this. You came for the stretching, the plants or the recipes. Then you noticed the group also seemed to share views on vaccines, politics or secret plans by powerful people.
This guide explains why those packages form, why disagreeing inside a group you love feels so risky, and how to belong without handing over your judgment.
Beliefs travel in bundles, even when they have nothing in common
Why would coffee orders line up with politics? Sociologists Daniel DellaPosta, Yongren Shi and Michael Macy asked that question in a 2015 study in the American Journal of Sociology2.
They analyzed 22,572 pairs of questions from the General Social Survey, a national survey run since 19722. Writing about their work, the authors said they found 14,436 statistically meaningful correlations3. Liberals were more likely to read horoscopes and like new age and jazz music. Conservatives leaned toward gospel and country and were more likely to dismiss modern art3.
Most of these gaps held up after the researchers accounted for traits such as birth year, education, gender, ethnicity and class23. So what explains them?
Their computer model pointed to two everyday forces23:
- Birds of a feather. People tend to spend time with others who are like them. Researchers call this homophily.
- Rubbing off. People slowly pick up the tastes and opinions of those around them.
Each force feeds the other. A tiny, accidental link between a taste and a viewpoint gets bigger with every round of friendship and influence. Eventually the taste becomes a badge that signals which side you’re on2. In the authors’ words, small demographic differences become “deep cultural canyons”3.
Wellness communities run on the same two forces. Nothing about whole foods requires a view on any political or medical controversy. But once a few early members link them, the link can spread through friendship, not evidence.
The practical lesson: when a belief arrives as part of a package, it still needs its own reasons. Liking the people who hold it isn’t one.
Wellness and conspiracy theories have met before, and researchers named it
In 2011, researchers Charlotte Ward and David Voas gave the blend a name: “conspirituality”4.
They pointed out that two belief systems seemed like opposites. Conspiracy theory, focused on global politics, drew mostly men. New Age spirituality, focused on the self and inner growth, drew mostly women4. Yet online, the two had merged into what the authors called a “politico-spiritual philosophy”4.
Ward and Voas described two core convictions. The first, borrowed from conspiracy culture, holds that a hidden few are steering society or trying to. The second, borrowed from the New Age, holds that human consciousness is going through a great shift. The answer it offers is to wake up and live by a new worldview4.
Not every scholar thinks this is new. In a 2015 reply in the same journal, Egil Asprem and Asbjørn Dyrendal argued that the overlap is old and predictable, with roots deep in Western esoteric traditions5.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought fresh research. Researcher Stephanie Alice Baker followed four health and wellness influencers on Instagram for a year starting March 11, 20206. They had between 34,500 and 389,000 followers6.
Over that year, their posts mixed wellness products and advice with anti-mask, anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine and anti-5G messages and claims about hidden elites6.
Baker argued that familiar wellness ideas made the jump easier. The influencers framed their message as a personal path of “waking up.” They held up the body and intuition as more trustworthy than experts. And they urged followers to do their own research6.
Baker also stressed that she was not lumping all wellness influencers in with extremists6.
Australian researchers who studied the same trend added a caution worth repeating. Yoga, meditation, prayer and similar practices helped many people get through the pandemic. Most spiritual people, they stressed, don’t strongly hold conspiracy-tinged beliefs7. They also objected to mocking labels that paint every wellness or spiritual community with the same brush7.
Both things are true. Most wellness spaces aren’t conspiracy hubs. But the bridge exists, and it helps to know where it is.
Why saying “I see it differently” feels so hard
In the early 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch asked people to do something easy: judge which line matched another in length. The catch was that everyone else in the room was secretly working with him, and on some rounds they all gave the same wrong answer89.
Real participants went along with the wrong answer on about a third of those rounds. About 75% went along at least once8.
Does that still happen? In 2023, sociologists Axel Franzen and Sebastian Mader at the University of Bern in Switzerland repeated the study with 202 students9. They gave wrong answers 33% of the time, not meaningfully different from Asch’s results9.
Paying students for correct answers cut that to 25%, but didn’t erase it9. When the group stated political opinions, conformity averaged 38%9.
Culture shapes the pull. A 1996 analysis of 133 Asch-style studies from 17 countries found higher conformity in countries that put the group ahead of the individual. In the U.S., conformity had declined since the 1950s10.
Psychologists describe two reasons we go along8:
- Informational pressure. You doubt yourself and figure the group must know something.
- Normative pressure. You know the group is wrong but fear rejection or don’t want to disturb the peace.
In a wellness group, both pressures are strong. The group may know a lot about herbs or yoga, so trusting it feels sensible. And belonging is often the reason you came. Our article “People come to wellness groups for answers and stay for belonging” explores why that bond matters so much for health.
You’re probably not the only doubter in the room
This is the hopeful part. Groups often agree less than they appear to.
In 1993, psychologist Deborah Prentice and a co-author published a set of studies on how college students felt about drinking on campus. Across four studies, students believed they were less comfortable with campus drinking than the average student was11. In other words, many privately doubted a norm that everyone thought everyone else supported. Psychologists call this pluralistic ignorance.
The misperception had effects. Over a semester, male students shifted their own attitudes toward the norm they wrongly imagined. Students who felt out of step also felt more alienated from campus life, even though they weren’t out of step11.
Bringing the hidden doubt into the open helped. In a 1998 Princeton study, 452 first-year students were randomly assigned to one of two short group discussions. One explained that many students privately feel uneasy about campus drinking. The other focused on making smart personal choices12.
Four to six months later, among the 143 students who answered a follow-up survey, those in the first group drank about 3 drinks a week, versus about 5 in the second12.
Asch saw the same power of a single voice. When just one other person in the room gave the right answer, conformity dropped to about 5% of rounds8. A single ally broke the spell.
So when you voice a doubt calmly, you may be giving permission to others who feel the same way.
A belief inventory: keep, question, decline
You don’t have to accept or reject a community as a whole. You can sort its beliefs one at a time. Here is a simple way to do it.
First, write down five to ten beliefs or practices your group shares. Include the small ones (“we eat seasonally”) and the big ones (“doctors can’t be trusted”). Then sort each one into a column.
| Sort it as | When the belief or practice… | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Keep | Helps you, fits your values and carries little risk if it turns out to be wrong | Practice it fully and enjoy it with the group |
| Question | Is new to you, costs real money, or rests mostly on stories and testimonials | Look for evidence, ask a clinician you trust, and wait before acting |
| Decline | Asks you to drop proven medical care, cut off outsiders or accept a claim you’ve checked and found false | Opt out politely, and say so if someone asks |
For anything you sort as Question, ask three questions:
- Did I come to believe this through evidence, or through people I like?
- What would change my mind? If nothing could, that’s a sign of identity, not evidence.
- What does it cost me, or someone who depends on me, if I’m wrong?
Picture how this might look for a member of a yoga studio. (This is a made-up example.) She keeps the daily practice, the plant-heavy potlucks and the breathing exercises.
She questions a $90 detox kit the teacher recommends. She declines a flyer urging members to skip their annual checkups. And she still goes to class every week.
Sorting isn’t a one-time job. Revisit the list every few months. Some beliefs will move columns as you learn more, in either direction.
How to disagree and stay in the circle
Most disagreements don’t need a debate. They need a short, warm sentence that keeps the relationship and your judgment intact. These scripts are starting points; put them in your own words.
- When a claim lands in the group chat: “Interesting. I haven’t seen good evidence on that one. Do you have the original source?”
- When you’re asked to share, sign or buy: “I’m going to sit this one out, but I’ll see you at Saturday’s class.”
- When politics drift into a wellness event: “I come here for the practice. I’d like to keep this space about that, for me at least.”
- When someone questions your medical choices: “That’s a decision I make with my doctor. I’m glad your approach works for you.”
- When you’re the only one speaking up: “I may be the odd one out here, and that’s fine. I just see this one differently.”
Three habits make these lines work. Speak for yourself instead of correcting others. Agree out loud with what you do share. And find one ally, since Asch showed how much a single partner matters8.
For groups that want to build disagreement into their culture, see “Healthy groups disagree out loud, and these rules keep it respectful”.
Independent thinking is a natural-health value
Many people come to natural health because they asked questions others didn’t want to hear. They read labels, asked doctors to explain themselves and refused to take “because I said so” for an answer.
That habit deserves to be pointed in every direction, including inward. Skepticism that applies only to outsiders isn’t independence. It’s a different kind of conformity.
A community worth keeping welcomes the same questions it asks of the mainstream. And a member who asks them kindly isn’t a threat to the group. She’s the person who keeps it honest, and often the one others were hoping would speak.
What the evidence says
| Claim | What research shows | Evidence level |
|---|---|---|
| Group pressure changes what people say they believe | Conformity on about a third of rounds in classic and 2023 studies; seen across 133 studies in 17 countries8910 | |
| One ally reduces conformity sharply | Asch’s partner variation cut conformity to about 5%8 | from classic lab work; less tested in real communities |
| People often misjudge what their group privately believes | Repeated findings in four studies; a discussion that exposed the gap cut drinking in one trial1112 | as a tool for changing group behavior |
| Beliefs and tastes bundle through friendship and influence | Thousands of lifestyle and politics correlations in national data; supported by computer modeling23 | as an explanation |
| Medical conspiracy beliefs cluster with certain health habits | Herbal supplement use and local buying higher, and checkups and flu shots lower, among strong believers in one national survey1 | ; shows a link, not cause |
| Wellness spaces often became bridges to conspiracy content during COVID-19 | Case studies show it happened in some influencer accounts; other researchers say only a minority are affected67 | to say how often |
Questions readers ask
If I disagree with my group, do I still belong?
Usually, yes. Research on pluralistic ignorance suggests others may share your doubts without saying so11. If disagreeing calmly costs you your place, that tells you something important about the group.
Is “conspirituality” an insult to spiritual people?
No. Ward and Voas coined it as a scholarly term for one specific blend of beliefs, not for spirituality in general4. Researchers who studied it during COVID-19 found that most spiritual people don’t strongly hold these views, and they criticized slang labels that tar whole communities7.
What if my group is right about something the mainstream dismissed?
Sometimes that happens. That’s why each belief deserves its own look. A group can be right about one thing and wrong about another, and the evidence for one claim doesn’t carry over to the next.
How do I raise a concern without starting a fight?
Speak for yourself, keep it short, and ask for the source rather than declaring the claim false. Then let it go for the moment. A calm question often does more than a long argument.
The bottom line
Belief packages form for ordinary reasons: we befriend people like us, and we slowly become more like our friends. Wellness communities are no exception, and sometimes their packages include claims that have nothing to do with health.
You don’t have to choose between belonging and thinking for yourself. Keep what nourishes you, question what you haven’t checked, and decline what asks you to give up proven care or cut yourself off. Say so kindly. You may find you weren’t the only one wondering.
Related reading
About this article
This article was researched using peer-reviewed studies in psychology, sociology and religious studies, along with an open social psychology textbook, all listed below. It was reviewed in October 2026. It is general education and not medical, legal or financial advice.
Sources
- Oliver JE, Wood T. “Medical Conspiracy Theories and Health Behaviors in the United States.” JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014 (research letter). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- DellaPosta D, Shi Y, Macy M. “Why Do Liberals Drink Lattes?” American Journal of Sociology, 2015 (abstract). pure.psu.edu
- DellaPosta D, Shi Y, Macy M. “Why do liberals drink lattes? How lifestyles tied to political views can be self-reinforcing among partisan groups.” LSE USAPP blog, July 14, 2015. blogs.lse.ac.uk
- Ward C, Voas D. “The Emergence of Conspirituality.” Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2011. repository.essex.ac.uk
- Asprem E, Dyrendal A. “Conspirituality Reconsidered: How Surprising and How New is the Confluence of Spirituality and Conspiracy Theory?” Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2015 (abstract via Social Science Research Council). intersections.ssrc.org
- Baker SA. “Alt. Health Influencers: how wellness culture and web culture have been weaponised to promote conspiracy theories and far-right extremism during the COVID-19 pandemic.” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2022. openaccess.city.ac.uk
- Halafoff A, Weng E, Roginski A, Rocha C. “Introduction to the Special Issue: (Con)spirituality, Science and COVID-19.” Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 2022. journal.equinoxpub.com
- Adetula A, Adetula GA, Jeftic A, Corral-Frías NS. “Conformity.” In Rahal R-M, ed., Open Social Psychology (FORRT open textbook). forrt.org
- Franzen A, Mader S. “The power of social influence: A replication and extension of the Asch experiment.” PLOS ONE, 2023. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Bond R, Smith PB. “Culture and conformity: a meta-analysis of studies using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) line judgement task.” Psychological Bulletin, 1996. doi.org
- Prentice DA, Miller DT. “Pluralistic Ignorance and Alcohol Use on Campus: Some Consequences of Misperceiving the Social Norm.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1993. collaborate.princeton.edu
- Schroeder CM, Prentice DA. “Exposing Pluralistic Ignorance to Reduce Alcohol Use Among College Students.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1998. sparq.stanford.edu