Why do we believe in conspiracy theories?

Psychological mechanisms
It is well known that there are a lot of well described and well understood psychological mechanisms in play when we consume information and try to understand the world based on them. 
Researchers believe that some of the psychological mechanisms are in fact connected to the evolutionary process and that they are perfectly natural and reasonable responses, even though the result is that we end up believing in things that aren’t actually real. Others are of our interaction with others in a modern society, and the need to quickly understand the situation we are in, the context, the people we are dealing with, and what their agenda might be. Here are some examples.


Pattern perception – a humanly tendency to make sense of the world. We like to look for existing patterns between events and people and how they are connected. If this is how it used to be, then there is a good chance that it is still the case. The more we try to find the patterns behind events and agendas, the less we tend to look at other possible reasons for why a particular event happens like it does.
Errors that can follow from this way of thinking can occur if you are looking for patterns that are false and then contribute any event to your own perceived agenda.

Agency detection
– There is a tendency to recognize motives and intentions behind other people’s actions. This is a perfectly normal reaction, and most of the time it will help to explain other people's actions. The problem arises when you attach motives and intentions to people that they do not have. This kind of thinking is often leading you to feel empathy or hatred for certain people, and that may cloud your judgement of their actual motives. Agency detection can increase your sensitivity to form any kind of beliefs about others, be it political or psychological.

Threat management
– They are out to kill you! Like we saw with structural conspiracism in Chapter 1 it can seem more obvious to believe in a conspiracy theory if the stakes are higher. So if your health, freedom, or even your life seems to be threatened you will be more likely to believe in a conspiracy theory. Studies propose that conspiracy theories can be connected to a threat-management system. It makes us recognize threats and how to cope with these through functional responses. 
 
Alliance detection – We all need to feel that we belong to a group. It is a normal human reaction to seek like minded people with the same attitudes as you. Groups are effective in collaborating towards common goals, and they are also effective in reaching a consensus about how to view the world. We are good at recognising groups we agree with as well as groups that we disagree with. In the case of conspiracy theories though, groups can be quick to create a consensus about the world that might not be factual. Eventually dissenting voices may find it easier to leave the group entirely than trying to change the consensus attitude. 

What is confirmation bias?  
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, focus on, and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. What this means is that we tend to remember things that we already know and agree with, whereas we seem to ignore or forget things that we disagree with. 
According to Psychology Today, confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views (prejudices) one would like to be true.

Cognitive dissonance 
When we come across theories that differ from our worldview we are faced with two alternatives.
Either we can embrace the new theory and change our worldview, or we can reject the new theory. Normally most people will do the latter since a worldview has taken a lot of effort and a lot of thought to build up.  
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental reaction to it. This can be triggered by actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and the environment around the person. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when people participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. When actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with a person's worldview, people do everything in their power to change them until they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.

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