The most recent thread to merge with out Outer Limits/Debunking thread got me thinking, "What is it that causes people to believe in conspiracy theories?" and, "Can I come up with a clever title for the thread in SMP in which this can be discussed?"
So I did some research and came up with these two articles plus select quotes:
Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories, by Maggie Koerth-Baker in the NYT:
Quote:
“The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories,” says Viren Swami, a psychology professor who studies conspiracy belief at the University of Westminster in England. Psychologists say that’s because a conspiracy theory isn’t so much a response to a single event as it is an expression of an overarching worldview.
Quote:
What’s even more surprising is that this sort of theorizing isn’t limited to those on the margins. Perfectly sane minds possess an incredible capacity for developing narratives, and even some of the wildest conspiracy theories can be grounded in rational thinking, which makes them that much more pernicious. Consider this: 63 percent of registered American voters believe in at least one political conspiracy theory, according to a recent poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Quote:
Conspiracy theories also seem to be more compelling to those with low self-worth, especially with regard to their sense of agency in the world at large. Conspiracy theories appear to be a way of reacting to uncertainty and powerlessness.
Economic recessions, terrorist attacks and natural disasters are massive, looming threats, but we have little power over when they occur or how or what happens afterward. In these moments of powerlessness and uncertainty, a part of the brain called the amygdala kicks into action. [...]prompting repeated reassessments of information in an attempt to create a coherent and understandable narrative, to understand what just happened, what threats still exist and what should be done now.
Quote:
In 2006, the political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler identified a phenomenon called the “backfire effect.” They showed that efforts to debunk inaccurate political information can leave people more convinced that false information is true than they would have been otherwise. Nyhan isn’t sure why this happens, but it appears to be more prevalent when the bad information helps bolster a favored worldview or ideology.
Conspiracy theory psychology: People who claim to know the truth about JFK, UFOs, and 9/11, by William Saletan on Slate.com:
Quote:
The answer is that people who suspect conspiracies aren’t really skeptics. Like the rest of us, they’re selective doubters. They favor a worldview, which they uncritically defend. But their worldview isn’t about God, values, freedom, or equality. It’s about the omnipotence of elites.
Quote:
The common thread between distrust and cynicism, as defined in these experiments, is a perception of bad character. More broadly, it’s a tendency to focus on intention and agency, rather than randomness or causal complexity. In extreme form, it can become paranoia. In mild form, it’s a common weakness known as the fundamental attribution error—ascribing others’ behavior to personality traits and objectives, forgetting the importance of situational factors and chance. Suspicion, imagination, and fantasy are closely related.
The more you see the world this way—full of malice and planning instead of circumstance and coincidence—the more likely you are to accept conspiracy theories of all kinds. Once you buy into the first theory, with its premises of coordination, efficacy, and secrecy, the next seems that much more plausible.
So this all sounds nice and reasonable, but I wonder about the moon landing in particular. I don't get how the idea that we went to the moon could be threatening to someone's sense of control (reference the first article). Is it as simple as just not trusting anything the government tells us? But then why the moon landing and not something else? Or is it that a person thinks, "wow, that must have been too hard/expensive for them to pull off," and then when looking for relevant information finds evidence that it was faked and then the distrust kicks in? Basically, people believe what they want to believe, and if that requires you to dismiss what everyone else tells you, then so be it. ??
Any thoughts on an evolutionary psychology explanation?
