Why are people drawn to conspiracy theories?

Conspiracy theories have been around for a long time, but its only recently that they are gaining a greater impetus- thanks to the age of digital media and the internet. A conspiracy theory is an alternate explanation to a mainstream explanation for an event, mainly citing ‘sinister’ objectives of a group of people as the cause of the event. Many of us may have come across a number of conspiracy theories- like the ‘truth’ behind the sinking of the titanic, or whether was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose actually killed in the famous air-crash?

This leads us to the question- what fuels people’s beliefs in such ‘out there’ accounts of significant events?  A few explanations as to why we are so susceptible to conspiracy theories are listed below. Of course, there are a multitude of factors as such as social, economic, or historical- however, psychology plays the most important role. Most of these explanations have their basis in social or cognitive psychology.

The first explanation is of the confirmation bias.  Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to interpret or search for information in a way that will confirm your preconceptions. Importantly, it is a tendency to disregard evidence that clearly contradicts your previous convictions; you tend to only remember, search and accept evidence that lends support to it. An example could be taken from the recent U.S. presidential election polls, where the Republicans (Donald Trump) called for an error in vote counting and deemed the results as ‘fake,’ because it obviously went against their conviction that they would win. Them trying to prove their point while only highlighting the states that they ‘won,’ without keeping in mind the entire electoral process- further shows a strong confirmation bias.

The same goes for conspiracy theories as well. An example of a group that shows a strong confirmation bias is the Flat Earth Society. As the name suggests, the members of this group are of the belief that the earth is flat, given that walking on the earth’s surface ‘looks’ and ‘feels’ flat. The group strongly deny any evidence that show the earth as round (like satellite images) and deem them to be a fabrication drawn up by NASA and all other government agencies.

A second explanation is that of the fundamental attribution error. By this error, we tend to accept dispositional explanations (explanations that focus on internal characteristics or personal intentions of an individual) to a certain event as opposed to a situational explanation (explanations that focus on external characteristics as the cause of an event). For example, take the headline ‘motorcycle accident leads to death of family.’ There could be two sorts of explanations for this event- a situational explanation would probably highlight the environment/ driving conditions, and a dispositional explanation would highlight the personality of the motorcyclist (saying that he was careless). While both explanations may be true, when trying to understand one’s behaviours we tend to take into account their personal characteristics- here, being careless. And that’s the explanation we go with- ‘the family died because he was careless.’

Again, we tend to reason similarly when it comes to conspiracy theories. Many of us may have come across a large number of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, it is hard to accept something straight out of a horror movie- a virus going around that has killed millions. It’s no wonder that we turn to other explanations for this. And the thing is, many of us actually believe that the theories are plausible in reality. Moreover, the theories have a common theme- the virus is this big scheme, orchestrated by powerful authorities like government agencies or well-known names like Bill Gates. Interestingly, all these theories provide a dispositional explanation that the virus is a part of a group’s ‘intentions’ (want more power) and ‘personal reasons’ (want more profit), instead of highlighting any sort of external characteristics of the event- which makes it more believable. leading to most of us making a fundamental attribution error.

The final psychological mechanism looks at why certain groups or individuals provide such theories. That is, the desire to be uniquely knowledgeable as a sense of gaining power. Knowledge is power, and being the person who has an explanation for something that no one else knows can be empowering and gratifying, especially if the explanation is for an event that is extremely complex and uncertain. Moreover, even believers of the theorists get this kind of ego boost- because they are not like the ‘deluded’ others, they are a part of the group that has figured what is going on.

To conclude, conspiracy theories will always be there as long as there is someone who believe in them. In today’s time of the internet and social media- such conspiracy theories will spread and thrive. While reading up about such theories is completely fine, one ought to think twice before committing to them- especially if there is strong contrary evidence.

References

Shpancer, N. (2020). True False Believers: The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202004/true-false-believers-the-psychology-conspiracy-theories