Conspiracy theories are often influenced by personality traits and motivations, such as relying on intuition, feeling superior to others, and perceiving threats in their environment. A 2017 analysis of government survey data revealed that over a quarter of the American population believes there are conspiracies behind many things in the world. New research by Josh Hart, associate professor of psychology, suggests that people with certain personality traits and cognitive styles are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.
The psychology behind conspiracy theories offers explanations for why some people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories, even those that feel taken out of a movie. The reasons for believing in conspiracy theories can be grouped into three categories: the desire for understanding and certainty, the desire for control and control, and the desire for social belonging.
A national survey of 2021 U.S. adults was used to examine the relationship between Big Five personality traits and conspiracy beliefs. People who are antagonistic, exploitative, and generally disagreeable are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. Research is beginning to show that how people think could be more influenced by their personality traits.
An approach to patients with conspiracy beliefs should be similar to dealing with psychotic disorders. Conspiracy theories are an explanation for events or situations that assert the existence of a conspiracy by powerful and sinister groups, often political. In a landmark study, researchers have mapped the psychological landscape that shapes our susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
📹 Why Do So Many People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?
The internet is full of all sorts of wild claims about shadow governments, lizard people, and the shape of the earth. How can these …
Boris’s speech: We shall greet them on the beaches, we shall greet them on the landing grounds, we shall meet them in the fields and in the streets, we shall put them up in the hotels, and army camps and let them roam freely, To (terra roar rise) the local inhabitants, We shall never (de port) them! We shall totally surrender. Sinking you into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by my governments perversion of medical science. We will therefore disgrace ourselves, ignore our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Isle manages to last for a few more years, men will say, ‘This was their most pathetic hour.’
Semantic exposition of miconceptions about the meaning and effects of ‘conspiracy’ doesn’t change the reality and especially not in the age of corporate tech controlling the means of information dissemination. Trying to deny the reality of stuff that is unseen but ‘out in the open’ is hardly defeating the concept of ‘conspiracy’.
Each ‘conspiracy’ has it’s own characteristics. I believe there is a conspiracy to lable anyone who questions filth, nonsense, malevolence and weaponized ignorance, as being ‘a threat’ to the weaponized abnormal. ‘conspiracy theory’ is a term used to shame, dismiss, pigeonhole and ridicule. Just saying…
I knew a fella that thought he was being gangstalked, he’d film every person passing him and shout “I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!”. Same bloke told me that space was fake, I was shocked. I asked why he thought they were stalking him a few times, he said they wanted all his money and they were waiting for a chance to kill him because he had information about folk being murdered in a mental hospital.
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world — no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
I generally like your take on things, but the problem I have with you on this particular topic, is that I get the feeling you simply dismiss “outlandish conspiracies” in the same way that leftists dismiss “racists”, even though they are making perfectly reasonable arguments. Labelling someone a “conspiracy theorist” is exactly how the left labels e.g. Jared Taylor as a racist so as to not have to evaluate his arguments. Yes, some people believe lizard-people rule the world, but I still find it ungentlemanly to label them conspiracy theorists without first listening to their arguments. If you feel I have judged you unjustly, I will of course retract my statement. Best regards, Oddvar.
One problem I have about this highly organized minority taking power is there is one group out there of a small number of highly organized and motivated people out there that haven’t taken power, and that group is military or ex-military. Why is it veterans aren’t motivated right now to make moves to take power and become a new set of elites. Especially now that we are past these forever wars which one would think that wars would be a mechanism to hone skills necessary for a highly organized minority to take power.
Taking advantage of what you can make in secrecy is an instinct totally embedded in our ego survival tactics. Even the first reaction kids have when they make mischief is denying it and trying to direct the blame to another boy. To think that when it is not a chocolate bar and a reprimand what´s at stake, but total control of massive resources and power over people plus the chance of being enjailed, things are different and people become honest and transparent about their deeds, is plain stupidity.
@Prof. Edward Dutton: The Jolly Heretic A very interesting, fair and balanced presentation, thank you. Could I suggest a companion article fleshing out the psychology of those who enact successful schemes, the rise of the Jesuits might perhaps have enough distance to be a good case study given the it was chiefly driven by intelligence and personality.
‘We could get power if we had the intelligence and ability to do so, and then we could operate other people like us in our own interests. It’s just that we don’t.’ Intelligence aside, I find it difficult to be motivated to behave in that way. Surely, some people believe that it is not just about them, and that there is some good reason to try and keep those around them going, instead of screwing them out of everything. But it is ironic that such a strategy is subservient. Gaining power with good intention is like walking a tightrope with corruption on either side. How long can you keep going before you succumb to using power just to stay in power?
I don’t think the idea of conspiracy theories and cycles of civilisation are mutually exclusive by any means. For example, as a civilisation becomes weaker during the ‘downward phase’ of the cycle, they will become more vulnerable to others taking advantage of their weakness, which would inspire conspiracies against them.
It would be nice to see you do a article on outliers. You talk about the general population and for the most part I feel you hit the nail on the head, but knowing isn’t the same as using knowledge and when it comes to outliers, I feel the autodidacts don’t get a lot of attention, as well as the kind of person you yourself are as someone who wants to practice social biology.
I do have a keen interest in conspiracy theories, just out of curiosity, but nearly all conspiracy theories seem to lack a motive, and if there’s no motive I find it difficult to give them credence. Take the flat earth, why would the powers at be spend lots of money and time trying to convince people that it’s round ? When I was young, I think that part of the draw of conspiracy theories ( and alternative history stuff ) was wanting to be in a small group that have secret knowledge, a bit like why people want to be in a cult, so they can feel like they belong to something. The only conspiracy theories that I can see as plausible ( i.e. possible, but that doesn’t mean that they’re true ) are faking the moon landing and the pyramids being slightly older than the currently accepted time line.
OMG Professor Dutton…. I’m so glad you see it too. It depresses me when I’ve grown to admire someone and they come out with the numptified nonsense we have been fed re: WWII. Both Hitler and Goering allegedly. admired the English and didn’t want war with us at all. Perhaps General Patten was right! There were several perfectly decent peace treaties on the table from day one, but Churchill was hypersalivati f as he declared war and signed so much away without personally attempting diplomacy. I heard what that group you mention were saying before WWII – they had an obsession with killing Germans, it was truly vile to hear. Not content with the awful condition they were in after years of that damned treaty. That Berlin had become an iniquitous eyesore or a ‘b*gger’s paradise’, a world leader in transitioning and every street themed for traffic of a fleshy kind. No. These hateful Germaphobes have oft plotted their mass demise. But why? Why are the Germans so reviled, they seem rather nice when I meet them. I don’t get it. What is the origin of this antipathy?
I do not believe in “outlandish” conspiracy theories but life experience showed me not to dismiss conspiracy theories and claims totally. So I put them as a variable in my world view and effectively am not surprised when they turn out to be facts all along regardless how outlandish the claim was. It became my second mantra: “Nothing surprises me anymore!”
Have to further ask… If the majority of people arent that intelligent, dont have the wealth, and dont have enough connection to make things happen… Arent they powerless? If those who are intelligent and few in number, but still dont have the wealth or social standing are trying to tell the majorities what is happening and they are not believed, Arent they still powerless? Seems the connection between functional reality of being and interaction is being missed here. There are many very powerless people and the reality of interaction keeps them in that position, especially when the majorities dont want to hear it and cant see it.
I just believe that there are people who remember the cycle because their ancient forefathers passed down the knowledge through symbolism and these people are taking advantage of this situation knowing that the cycle will repeat so it doesn’t matter. Possibly even trying to stop it using means we perceive as shady and evil but in the grand scheme of things am I really that important that my personal rights outweigh the complete destruction of society that would cause another reset with all our knowledge lost making us start over again?
Yeah there’s a ton of bad information out there in regards to people in power being able to influence world events. It makes it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Anyone recall the old movie with Mel Gibson called Conspiracy Theory? Most of what he put out in his little magazine wasn’t true, but he hit upon something that was which drew attention to him. I’m guessing that’s the way it actually works. Lots of it is bullshit but some of it is true. There are plenty of instances where the left wanted to to X Y or Z thing and people resisted saying that if you do the thing you want it’s going to result in another thing that’s worse and something we don’t want. They get labeled as conspiracy theorists or paranoid but wind up being proven correct.
Why would the UK end WWII, stopping a dominant European power is basic to British interests throughout history and by all rights the war should have started earlier given the actions of Germany. The thing to look at is how they pursued the war, Churchill made some very interesting decisions when it came to the Americans. Britain had no reason whatsoever to stop the war as the Italians were pushovers and the Germans had internal issues (e.g. highly dysfunctional manufacture, ideologically bound treatment of people who could have been very valuable to their cause and economic mismanagement of absurd proportions) which would have meant their loss could only be delayed by the incompetence of their enemies. I have honestly never got the argument, it seems like it comes out of apologism and people being uncritical of the denialist literature.
If the conspiracies were real you would be right to be a bit paranoid. Also you give a little vignette of one of these theories, involving Churchill, but you fail to consider how all these innumerable individual cases might combine to form an overarching conspiracy. Over simplifying is not Occams razor.