The Appeal of Conspiracy Theories

the appeal of conspiracy theories according to a poll from Fairly Dickinson University over half of American adults believe in at least one conspiracy theory and though subscribing to conspiracies is more rampant in some personality types and social demographics than others false narratives of one form or another are held by people across all racial economic and political backgrounds in an age when access to information from legitimate sources are only a click away why are conspiracy theories still so prevalent what makes them so appealing well there are quite a few psychological factors that lead to the belief

in conspiracy theories in the game of survival the human mind has become hardwired to believe in intentional causality if you hear a rustling noise in the bushes it's a safer bet to believe that it's a threat rather than presume it's just the wind dismissing the noise may lead to danger but believing that there is a threat means you'll take action to avoid harm regardless if there's something actually there so in some ways we have evolved to air on the side of paranoid belief another major factor is human beings Superior pattern processing as a species one

of our greatest strengths is our ability to find meaningful patterns in the world around us and to make causal inferences pattern processing is at the heart of our ability to use language understand and navigate our environment and project future outcomes but identifying patterns is an automatic process of the mind and therefore can lead to the formulation of false patterns this is the reason we see faces in inanimate objects create relationships between events that are really just coincidence and is a contributing factor to why we believe in conspiracy theories there is also our tendency towards confirmation

bias acknowledging that we are wrong about something is a difficult thing for most of us to admit this is especially true of Concepts and ideas that we associate with our world view these are ideas that we strongly connect with and admitting that they are incorrect can feel like we are admitting that there is something wrong with us personally this leads us to give more weight to evidence that support what we already believe and ignore evidence that contradicts those beliefs there is also our innate tendency to assume that big events have big causes for instance the

president being killed by a single shooter acting alone feels unbalanced that is why a CT government conspiracy with multiple Shooters feels more plausible despite the evidence otherwise another contributing factor is projection this is an unconscious impulse to deny negative qualities in ourselves while attributing them to others for those who actively conspire and lie they reflexively believe that others are acting similarly making conspiracies more plausible and widespread in general people don't resort to lying unless they feel weak or powerless which brings us to our last conspiracy generator all of these factors become more exacerbated at times

when we feel powerless or when our lives in the world around us seem out of control fear jump starts our amydala and directs our brain to assess the situation take stock of the patterns around us and seek out a remedy we are desperately looking for a way to restore our sense of agency and we'll convince ourselves we know what is going on even if that means reassuring ourselves with a narrative that has no basis in fact that said not all conspiracy theories are false some indeed turn out to be true that is why it's always

important to keep an open mind weigh all the evidence determine if the sources are legitimate and be careful not to be seduced by the lurd appeal of a juicy conspiracy just because it supports something you want to believe [Music]