Persecution phobias are common among people who have experienced childhood trauma, but conspiracy theories can also provide psychological benefits by imbuing a perceiver’s worldview with meaning and purpose in a rewarding manner. Karen Douglas, PhD, discusses psychological research on conspiracy theories, their origins, persistence, and the most likely individuals to believe them. A 2017 research review found that people who buy into conspiracy theories believe they benefit socially and existentially from them.
Scientific literacy provides people with two key resources for resisting conspiracy theories: scientific knowledge and scientific knowledge. Scientific literacy helps people identify factual information, while scientific knowledge helps people identify factual information. People who engage in conspiracy theories often benefit from YouTube subscriptions and social media followings, which can lead to material conditions that enable these beliefs.
Conspiration theories have been around forever, and many people believe them due to their fast-paced and fast-paced nature. They can be associated with uncertainty aversion, anxiety, and existential threat. Past examples of conspiracy theories include the great fire of Rome in AD 64, plague outbreaks in 1349, and the recent Coronavirus pandemic.
Conspiration theories can reveal information about political upheavals, anxieties about sex, technology, and women, as well as political upheavals. Some people subscribe to QAnon, believing that Donald Trump is the “true” president, but this belief is not supported by evidence or evidence.
In conclusion, conspiracy theories can provide psychological benefits by imbuing a perceiver’s worldview with meaning and purpose, but they can also be harmful to oneself and their social environment.
📹 Who Is Profiting From Conspiracy Theories?
Why do you love conspiracy theories and who’s profiting from spreading them? Co-produced with @CommonSenseEducation …
📹 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 …
More good stuff. Two things: engaging in arguments and hate against conspiracy theorists also pushes media profits, social and conventional. Also, while the internet has made it easier to disseminate these things, it has also made it much easier to fact check claims. And people do that a lot too! But we don’t hear about it as much because it doesn’t churn profits to stay above the noise. Keep up the good work!
It always bothered me how seemingly smart people could believe in totally whacked-out stuff. But after writing a paper in college about it I determined it’s a lack of critical thinking skills. There’s a direct correlation between conspiratorial beliefs and the lack of critical thinking skills. Critical thinking and intelligence are two different aspects of our thought process and one does not necessarily equate to the other.
Hello from the Netherlands, Having a personal interest in this topic for a long time and read a lot about it, this is by far one of the best summations I have seen! Thank you for this. In my honest assessment I think conspiracy theories are a symptom of our declining mental faculties while on the other hand we need them more then ever.
My pet conspiracy theory is that all of human progress is the consequence of toxoplasma gondii infesting humanity starting around 20k years ago when we were domesticated by cats. The parasite is shown to change the behavior of rodents who get infested to cause them to be more reckless and get eaten by cats since that’s where the parasite reproduces. In turn, in humans it pushed us to develop agriculture which allows for rodent populations to explode and create ample food for cats (which have also been weirdly popular subjects of worship by many diverse cultures, including presently where they are all over the internet).
Those explanations overthink it. Most people who choose to believe in conspiracy-theories do so because it makes them feel special and unique and smart for being different able to see through the imaginary lies and veil that others fall for. It’s a way for people with no self-worth and no self-esteem to make themselves feel important. 😒
Kinda shocking to me that our best tactics for these are still asking people to police themselves – ask more reflective questions and the like. I did a quick googling, and couldn’t find a browser extension that, say, asked ‘does this reinforce a bias?’ every time I click ‘like’ on a article. Is there a reason something like this wouldn’t work? I guess nobody would use it? I mean, FB or YT could implement this server side as an algorithm metric, even just sampling 0.5% of likes for impulsiveness would go a long way… For client side interventions, you could probably do something lazy about checking if the post has some current buzzwords and only prompt on those. Did the experts consulted mention tools like this? Or perhaps simpler interventions that seem easy to get the browser to do?