Why people believe conspiracy theories

[RedToothBrush]

Saw this article linked to on twitter in another context and thought it thought provoking and in line with 'the extremist brain' and the inherent problem of social media echo chambers on political thought processes and how they can take on cult like traits.

www.livescience.com/63658-why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories.html
Profiling a Conspiracy Theorist: Why Some People Believe

Consistent with previous research, we found that one major predictor of conspiracy belief was "schizotypy." That's a constellation of traits that include a tendency to be relatively untrusting, ideologically eccentric and prone to having unusual perceptual experiences (e.g., sensing stimuli that are not actually present). The trait borrows its name from schizophrenia, but it does not imply a clinical diagnosis.

Schizotypy is the strongest predictor of conspiracy belief. In addition to experiencing the world in unusual ways, we found that people higher in schizotypy have an elevated need to feel unique, which has previously been linked with conspiracism. Why? Probably because believing in non-mainstream ideas allows people to stand out from their peers, but at the same time take refuge in a community of like-minded believers.

In our studies, conspiracy believers were also disproportionately concerned that the world is a dangerous place. For example, they were more likely to agree that "all the signs" are pointing to imminent chaos.

Finally, conspiracists had distinct cognitive tendencies: They were more likely than nonbelievers to judge nonsensical statements as profound – for example, "wholeness quiets infinite phenomena" – a tendency cheekily known as "bullshit receptivity."

Fascinating article with a few point points in it I've not highlighted which are relevant such as pointing to cult like tenancies which think the entire world is against you, so having a need to blame someone and groups forming to produce hope against the mentality that the world is against you.

Would also explain self appointed 'saviours' of the community where being 'persecuted' is part of the dynamic.

So we should all just blindly believe what the government/media tells us? That's worked so well in the past...

Probably because life is pretty boring and people have made up stories for hundreds of years to make their lives more interesting.
I don't 'do' conspiracy theories but I often go off and do mad things because if I thought all there was to life was work and sleep I'd go mental.

humans are conditioned to see links and patterns in things even when they are not there.

Thanks for sharing Red Toothbrush I'm a normal person but my cousin is a proper conspiracy theorist. (To the extent they homeschooled their child due to lack of trust in the system).

I have to say I actually agree with about 50% of what my cousin says about "the system". Obvs I completely ignore all the fake moon landings, lizard people stuff.

The internet really encourages cult like extremism in so many areas of thinking/behaviour.

So we should all just blindly believe what the government/media tells us?

Thats not what the article says.

Its point is about who is more prone to cognitive dissonance and lack of information to back up a belief and be less decerning in critical thought.

It also points out that whistle-blowers can often come from similar thought processing of general mistrust - and ultimately be proven right though.

The key thing is about bias and lack of critical thought though.

You can mistrust a government and employ critical thought without being a Conspiracy Theorist.

I think there’s a strong instinct in humans to have to be able to “explain” everything. Ancient history has “gods” responsible for natural phenomena like earthquakes, volcanoes, etc and now that science has been able to explain those things to us people have moved on to trying to explain other things that seem otherwise inexplicable