Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?
Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?
People come up with crazy ideas all the time, many of which are torn apart by scientific evidence. However, some ideas are crafted so precisely and detailed that they are accepted as fact by millions of people. These alternatives to accepted history are known as conspiracy theories, and the people who create them are of a special breed. It is difficult to imagine having the time and passion to craft an alternative reason behind many of the world’s events and tragedies, but these people are born to do so. There is a specific recipe for such a person, a carefully crafted powerful concoction that breeds hatred for government and the quest for the “truth.”
A small but fervent group of people believe there was more than included in historical record about the aforementioned events. Conspiracies, they call them. And every generation has its own version. Some of them turn about to be true; after all, Pearl Harbor was a Japanese conspiracy and Nixon’s Watergate break-in was a cover-up.
But with so few that turn out to be true, why do people believe in conspiracies? A new article in Scientific American tries to figure that out. Michael Shermer outlines in his “Skeptic” column four traits of those who believe: * Patternicity, or a tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise; * Agenticity, or the bent to believe the world is controlled by invisible intentional agent; * Confirmation Bias, or the seeking and finding of confirmatory evidence for what we already believe; * Hindsight Bias or tailoring after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened.
A conspiracy theory takes flight when all of these are concocted into a heady mix of conviction. It’s called “conspiratorial cognition,” and it’s the fuel driving belief in Bigfoot, Area 51’s UFOs and the paranormal. But research has been thin on precisely why some have a conspiratorial dispensation. Back in 2007, Patrick Leman wrote in the
People come up with crazy ideas all the time, many of which are torn apart by scientific evidence. However, some ideas are crafted so precisely and detailed that they are accepted as fact by millions of people. These alternatives to accepted history are known as conspiracy theories, and the people who create them are of a special breed. It is difficult to imagine having the time and passion to craft an alternative reason behind many of the world’s events and tragedies, but these people are born to do so. There is a specific recipe for such a person, a carefully crafted powerful concoction that breeds hatred for government and the quest for the “truth.”
A small but fervent group of people believe there was more than included in historical record about the aforementioned events. Conspiracies, they call them. And every generation has its own version. Some of them turn about to be true; after all, Pearl Harbor was a Japanese conspiracy and Nixon’s Watergate break-in was a cover-up.
But with so few that turn out to be true, why do people believe in conspiracies? A new article in Scientific American tries to figure that out. Michael Shermer outlines in his “Skeptic” column four traits of those who believe: * Patternicity, or a tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise; * Agenticity, or the bent to believe the world is controlled by invisible intentional agent; * Confirmation Bias, or the seeking and finding of confirmatory evidence for what we already believe; * Hindsight Bias or tailoring after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened.
A conspiracy theory takes flight when all of these are concocted into a heady mix of conviction. It’s called “conspiratorial cognition,” and it’s the fuel driving belief in Bigfoot, Area 51’s UFOs and the paranormal. But research has been thin on precisely why some have a conspiratorial dispensation. Back in 2007, Patrick Leman wrote in the