Why Conspiracy Theories Appeal To People?

Psychologist Christopher Thresher-Andrews suggests that conspiracy theories are unsubstantiated and less plausible alternatives to mainstream reality, which often assume everything is intended with intent. People can be prone to believing in conspiracy theories due to a combination of personality traits and motivations, including relying on intuition, feeling antagonism, and superiority. Researchers found that reasons for believing in conspiracy theories can be grouped into three categories: the desire for understanding and certainty, the desire for control, and the desire for control.

The belief in conspiracy theories is not a new phenomenon, but it continues to pose a key challenge for the prevention and countering of baseless theories that threaten our safety and democracy. It turns out that specific emotions make people prone to such thinking. For mental health practitioners, it is important to understand and mitigate the vulnerability that a mental disorder creates to extremists.

Karen Douglas, PhD, discusses psychological research on how conspiracy theories start, why they persist, who is most likely to believe them, and whether further research is needed to determine for whom and under what conditions conspiracy theories may satisfy key psychological motives. Researchers have shown that artificial intelligence (AI) could be a valuable tool in the fight against conspiracy theories by designing a chatbot that can help counter these theories.