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Why People Believe in Conspiracies

erwinl said:
This.

I suspect it is also because it gives some comfort 'knowing' that there is some shadowy group in power. Sure it is evil, but at least somebody is at the helm of mankind. The thought that there is nobody at the helm, that there is no helm at all is too scary to contemplate.
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I don't really mind one way or the other. But on a personal note, it will be a very sad day indeed when I can't get people online hopping mad by saying "The Illuminati did it" or tell them about the One True Crematorium at Birkenau
 
little grey rabbit said:
I don't really mind one way or the other. But on a personal note, it will be a very sad day indeed when I can't get people online hopping mad by saying "The Illuminati did it" or tell them about the One True Crematorium at Birkenau
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But that's not believing in Conspiracies, but something else entirely.
I was talking about the people who believe.
 
spaaron22 said:
Ignorance of logistics is a major factor. For example, if a conspiracy involves the government, then a thorough understanding of how that sector of government works is crucial. It's much easier to believe in the government poisoning the water when you don't understand all of the elements needed to implement such a mandate. Not only does this example require an understanding of government, but there's a social dilemma, as well. How would the government officials protect their family members from drinking the poisoned supply? Who's making sure the poisoned and non-poisoned supplies are remaining separate? How does the government keep everyone quiet about the poisoning?

The logistics required to pull off most if not all of the government conspiracy theories is incomprehensible to most people. For that reason, it's easier to imagine their possibility.
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The logistics would be as simple as buying a britta filter.
 
little grey rabbit said:
I don't really mind one way or the other. But on a personal note, it will be a very sad day indeed when I can't get people online hopping mad by saying "The Illuminati did it" or tell them about the One True Crematorium at Birkenau
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little grey rabbit said:
Well, I believe I can get people hopping mad.
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But that's just one-trick trolling, not believing in conspiracies. BTW, thanks for finally admitting that.


ETA: First quote
 
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drkitten said:
This.

To the OP, if you're really dealing with a professor of psychology, steer him to the work of Julian Rotter on the concept of "Locus of Control."

CT'ers tend to have a strongly external locus of control; i.e. nothing that happens to them is under their own control, so it must be someone else that is causing bad things to happen to them.

A few hundred years ago, such people would have blamed witchcraft; today, they blame the New World Order.
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I always thought it was tied to a strong desire for pattern recognition. That some people reject the concept of stochasticity and when developing a world model in the heads, they try to fit all observations into their initial world model. In essence, they end up modeling the noise with unrealistic theories.

I consider conspiracy theorists to be potential scientists who simply don't know how to abandon a failed hypothesis.
 
joobz said:
I always thought it was tied to a strong desire for pattern recognition. That some people reject the concept of stochasticity and when developing a world model in the heads, they try to fit all observations into their initial world model. In essence, they end up modeling the noise with unrealistic theories.

I consider conspiracy theorists to be potential scientists who simply don't know how to abandon a failed hypothesis.
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I rejected this thread as silly and not worth thinking about, but this...this is a masterpiece. "modelling the noise"...simply a work of art.
 
Lothian said:
People believe in conspiracies because the radiation from powerlines affects our brain and limits its use to 10% of its capacity
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That 10% myth frustrates me so much; in the trailer for a recent film.. urrm, "Limitless", they propogate it again by saying someting like:
"you know how they say you can only access 20% of your brain? This lets you acess all of it"

This claim is based on nothing :mad:
 
sadhatter said:
[/roostercogburn] I swear, if i ever meet a CT'er that doesn't try and make his point by throwing up a youtube video i am going to buy him a 50 dollar cigar. [/roostercogburn]
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This is also why more people believe conspiracy theories these days; it's easy now to make an emotive vid which 'seems' rational, as long as you exclude all opposing points of view and move quickly from point to point, and lead the viewer by the hand (using impressive graphics and moody music) to the conclusion you want them to reach.

These vids then become dogma because people don't have the critical faculties to look for bias/vested interests/flawed logic :hypnotize

Also they have literally nothing better to do
 
In my experience? Ego and a chance to be superior with a minimal amount of effort.

CTs give folks who aren't really special in any notable way a chance to think they have more knowledge and skill than the people around them. No need to get any education, either, just read a few websites, babble a few mantras, and insult & belittle everyone who doesn't buy into your ideas right away. Now you are a CT expert!

I've said it before: Conspiracy Theories are the opiates of the self-impressed.
 
kookbreaker said:
In my experience? Ego and a chance to be superior with a minimal amount of effort.

CTs give folks who aren't really special in any notable way a chance to think they have more knowledge and skill than the people around them. No need to get any education, either, just read a few websites, babble a few mantras, and insult & belittle everyone who doesn't buy into your ideas right away. Now you are a CT expert!

I've said it before: Conspiracy Theories are the opiates of the self-impressed.
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Yeah, this. Believing that they know something so important that no one else knows infaltes their egos and gives them feelings of self-importance. It's also simple to defend as there's no logic behind their position. Facts are cherry picked to fit their conspiracy, and anything that doesn't is dismissed. I don't see it as all that different than creationists' viepoints about the age of the earth or evolution.
 
LightinDarkness said:
What if I told you that there were two primary ways to explain world events?

Theory 1: The first is that most world events (and by world events I'm talking about political events, most natural disasters, etc.) that happen cannot be foreseen, are are due to forces mostly beyond our control, and that by and large you are responsible for your life and impact on the world.

Theory 2: There is a massive shadowy cabal behind world events, guiding every political action. Every natural disaster is caused by some government conspiracy or weapon. You are not responsible for anything in your life, because your station in life is pre-determined by the shadowy cabal and you can do nothing but fight against it on the internet by speaking truth to power.

Which of these do you want to believe?

Its far easier to want to believe theory 2, because it absolves me of doing anything but raging against the MAN. Theory 2 is the conspiracy worldview. Its much more difficult to accept theory 1, because that means I am responsible for my life.
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And is some ways beleiving #2 is more comforting; if there really is a shadowy cabal behind all the major problems in the world, then get rid of the cabal and our problems are solved. No such easy out with #1.
 
I think I'm the researcher in the OP. Not a professor though, just a Ph.D. student. I forgot I had this account here - haven't logged in for nearly 6 years according to the "last visited" thing. I tried to register a new one but there seems to be some kind of delay...

Anyway, yeah, I've been sampling from conspiracy websites so that I can get a good range of beliefs. With some of the less well-known conspiracies, you often run into floor effects with the usual student samples.

Someone mentioned locus of control earlier. There has been some past research indicating that it's a factor (Abalakina-Paap, Stephan, Craig, & Gregory, 1999) and I've included an LOC measure in this survey as well. In fact I have a whole battery of measures that I'm expecting to get correlations with, at least for some particular theories if not all.
 
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sadhatter said:
[/roostercogburn] I swear, if i ever meet a CT'er that doesn't try and make his point by throwing up a youtube video i am going to buy him a 50 dollar cigar. [/roostercogburn]
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What about Google Video?:duck:
 
It would have to be a sense of comfort.

I think what I would do if I thought LIHOP/MIHOP was true. I would be famous for attempting to kidnap and torture Cheney.

I think if so many people believed 9/11 conspiracies, there would be more violence against the perpetrators. They call others sheep when they have the most sheeplike response (more like a fainting goat, I guess).

It may provide more of a sense of comfort believing as oppose to not believing.
 
jargon buster said:
Because they need to blame someone for their shortcomings in life.
They have nothing of value to contribute so they latch onto nonsense because they feel it gives them "inside information" that gives them power.
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This is #1. Basically, ego.

Johny2x4 said:
I learned over time because they don´t like the chaos in the world and therefore believe something is creating all this chaos.
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This, and the need by some people to feel that someone, anyone, is in control of world events (a fear of chaos) is #2.
Time for one of my favourite quotes.
Some people, he believed, looked at the world and saw a clockwork: events happened and triggered off other events, people did what they were programmed to do, and the results came out the other end: love, hate, war, murder, children, whatever.

Other people, Lucas among them, looked out the window and saw nothing but chaos: accident, chance, stupidity, intelligence, avarice, idealism, all rubbing against one another in an unpredictable stew.
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#3 is related to the previous two, but also, I think, different. Some people need to believe. In something, anything. It seems to fill a vacancy in their psyche.
 
mercian said:
This is also why more people believe conspiracy theories these days; it's easy now to make an emotive vid which 'seems' rational, as long as you exclude all opposing points of view and move quickly from point to point, and lead the viewer by the hand (using impressive graphics and moody music) to the conclusion you want them to reach.

These vids then become dogma because people don't have the critical faculties to look for bias/vested interests/flawed logic :hypnotize

Also they have literally nothing better to do
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Special effects that were once the stomping ground of low budget movie and TV studios are now accessible to your average boob with a keyboard.
 
kookbreaker said:
In my experience? Ego and a chance to be superior with a minimal amount of effort.

CTs give folks who aren't really special in any notable way a chance to think they have more knowledge and skill than the people around them. No need to get any education, either, just read a few websites, babble a few mantras, and insult & belittle everyone who doesn't buy into your ideas right away. Now you are a CT expert!

I've said it before: Conspiracy Theories are the opiates of the self-impressed.
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This is it. I have never seen a conspiracy theorist that didn't refer to anyone who disagreed with them as sheeple.

It also allows the conspiracy theorist to have delusions of grandeur. I have tried arguing with conspiracy theorists and it always leads to accusations like that I'm working for the Rothschilds. They can feel self important and trying to show the truth to the conspiracy theorist just reinforces their beliefs most of the time because they can think you're a conspirator and they're important enough to require the conspiracy's attention.
 
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