A new review adds to growing evidence that, contrary to the stereotype of lack of knowledge, there are many complex reasons why people believe in conspiracy theories.

"Conspiracy theorists are not all simple-minded, mentally unwell people, a portrait routinely painted in popular culture," says clinical psychologist Shauna Bowes of Emory University.

"Instead, many people turn to conspiracy theories to fulfil deprived motivational needs and make sense of distress and disruption."

While we all experience conspiracy thinking at some point, some of these beliefs can become dangerous.

Analysing 170 studies, mostly from the US, UK and Poland, Bowes and colleagues investigated the motivation behind people's beliefs.

Whilst there are many influencing factors, data shows that people are motivated by an increased need to feel safe, to understand their environment and to feel socially secure when the other two needs are not being met.

This is bad news as the world around us becomes more dangerous and our future increasingly uncertain.

"Our findings reveal that motivations in general are important, perhaps even fundamental, pieces of the conspiratorial thinking puzzle," the team explains in their paper.

They found that social threats are more strongly linked to conspiracy thinking than other threats, which in turn is tightly intertwined with trust. Trust has long been recognised as playing a key role in our belief in a phenomenon called cultural cognition.

No matter how educated we are, we are more likely to believe information from people we identify as part of our own cultural group.

Bowes and colleagues also found that personality traits such as lower analytical thinking ability and higher anxiety had a significant but surprisingly low correlation with conspiracy thinking.

The researchers note that this could be due to not taking a long enough time period into account, or to how different traits interact with each other. More research is needed to distinguish between these aspects.

However, as reported in previous studies, narcissism - among individuals and at the collective level - increased the likelihood of conspiratorial thinking and the need to feel unique.

People who perceive social threat are more likely to believe in event-based conspiracies rather than abstract theories, which are more favoured by individual traits such as narcissism and paranoia. For example, believing that the US government planned the 11 September terrorist attacks is more likely than believing that the government plans to retain power through harmful means.

"These results are broadly in line with a new theoretical framework that suggests that social identity motives can lead to being drawn to the content of a conspiracy theory, whereas people motivated by a desire to feel unique are more likely to believe general conspiracy theories about how the world works," explains Bowes.

The role of safety and security may also explain why conspiracy thinking increases during times of crisis, including during the pandemic, as people face financial difficulties and health-related uncertainties.

Understanding these factors is crucial to help people avoid these thought traps and limit the damage they can do.

 

Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/