Why do conspiracy theorists exist

Capitol on January 6 to create chaos and defy legislators who had gathered to certify electoral votes. The presidential election, they say , was stolen—a belief encouraged by a powerful and trusted leader. But the idea that the election was rigged is, by definition , a conspiracy theory—an explanation for events that relies on the assertion that powerful people are dishonestly manipulating society. In reality, dozens of lawsuits espousing accusations of voter fraud have been thrown out by state and federal courts.

Attorney General William Barr said last month that the U. Justice Department has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Those human tendencies—to believe whatever satisfies our preconceptions, whether true or not—were part of our lives long before rioters defiled the Capitol.

And amid the pandemic, misinformation has seemingly run amuck. The World Health Organization has called this moment an infodemic, a time in which a deluge of data is muddled with falsehoods, sometimes with devastating effects. A handful of people set 5G telecommunications towers ablaze after reading social media posts that alleged the new technology can cause COVID A troubling minority have denied the existence of the virus , even as they lay dying from it. Experts say that the majority of people do not easily fall for falsehoods.

The misinformation constantly swirling around us is now set against the backdrop of the pandemic, an unemployment crisis, mass demonstrations against police violence and racial injustice, and a deeply polarizing presidential election.

During times of turmoil, the explanations provided by conspiracy theories and other falsehoods can be even more appealing—though not impossible to discourage or resist. People use cognitive shortcuts—largely unconscious rules-of-thumb to make decisions faster—to determine what they should believe. And people experiencing anxiety or a sense of disorder, those who crave cognitive closure , may be even more reliant on those cognitive shortcuts to make sense of the world, says Marta Marchlewska , a social and political psychologist who studies conspiracy theories at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

A recent poll found that more than 50 percent of Americans reported increased stress during the pandemic. Many of the conspiracy theories circulating today seek to explain the pandemic itself. A study published in October by van der Linden and colleagues presented residents from the U.

While a large majority accurately identified misinformation, some people readily accepted the falsehoods. That includes between 22 and 37 percent of respondents depending on the country who believed the claim that the coronavirus was engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. Some also decried accurate information as fake, such as the fact that diabetes increases your risk of severe illness from COVID The same participants who believed misinformation were also less likely to report that they complied with COVID health guidance, such as wearing masks, and were more likely to express vaccine hesitancy.

Experts also say that people are more likely to believe misinformation that they are exposed to over and over again—such as allegations of election fraud or claims that COVID is no more dangerous than the flu. This urge is particularly strong when narcissistic people fail, or members of their group fail.

One perceived enemy that President Trump and his supporters have frequently blamed is the media. So, in some instances, they might make sense.

But when you dig deeper, you start noticing the lack of consistency and fact-based proof. For example, in a pandemic, during a close election in a politically divided country, or after a terrorist attack. Painful and uncertain times might lead many people to find alternative ways to make sense of such a shocking or painful situation.

Following a conspiracy theory might help you feel you understand the events, and, in turn, this could alleviate some uncertainty and anxiety. Conspiracy theory experts have found that certain cognitive styles and personality traits might be common among people who believe in them.

According to a study , people who believe in conspiracy theories tend to show personality traits and characteristics such as:. The strongest predictor of belief in conspiracy theories, according to the study, is having a personality that falls into the spectrum of schizotypy. Schizotypy is a set of personality traits that can range from magical thinking and dissociative states to disorganized thinking patterns and psychosis.

Examples of mental health conditions in the schizotypy spectrum include schizotypal and schizoid personality disorders and schizophrenia. Not all schizotypy personality traits translate into a personality or psychiatric disorder, though. The higher the need to feel special and unique, the more likely a person is to believe a conspiracy theory.

Other personality traits commonly linked to the tendency to believe or follow conspiracy theories include:. The link between personality traits and personal beliefs is a complex one that cannot be explained by isolating social and cultural factors, though.

Research on the topic is still limited. In fact, some experts have studied paranoia and suspicious thoughts as an important evolutionary advantage. One of them is professor of clinical psychiatry Richard A. In other words, from an evolutionary perspective, a conspiracy theory might help you stay safer if your rival attacks, as you have already anticipated their moves. Illusory pattern perception refers to perceiving meaningful or coherent connections between nonrelated events.

In other words, a distortion in how you think might make you prone to seeing patterns between events where there are none. A study tested this theory and found that distortions of normal cognitive processes were repeatedly associated with conspiracy and irrational beliefs. In the study, under controlled circumstances, participants detected patterns in randomly generated stimuli.

Participants who felt they lacked control connected unrelated events more often than participants who felt they understood and had some degree of control in a situation. The human tendency to seek and find patterns everywhere is indeed something that has often been linked to believing in conspiracy theories. The human brain has evolved into seeing patterns in just about everything. We recognize animal figures in the clouds or uncover creepy faces in the bathroom wallpaper at night.

If we meet three new friends — all named Bill — we tend to notice. In fact, Friedman explains that humans detect patterns in randomness in an effort to make sense of the world quickly.

This is the tendency to perceive a meaningful connection within random situations. In other words, you take elements that are near each other by chance, and you see a meaningful and purposeful connection between them.

Experienced game designer Reed Berkowitz says that apophenia is common in the gaming world. Take one of his games, for example. The goal is to find a clue in a basement to move to the following phase of the game. The real clue placed by gamers was obvious. Take another exercise, where participants were shown the results of a series of coin tosses. Patterns can be illusory. Participants were shown 10 sequences of 10 coins each.

After each sequence, they were asked whether they thought the results were random or predetermined, on a 7 point scale with 1 meaning completely random and 7 meaning completely determined. Take a look at the sequence above: How would you rate that?

Click on the footnote to see the answer. This particular exercise was used in a study to measure something called illusory pattern perception: the tendency to see patterns where there are none. Respondents who believed there was some kind of predetermined pattern to the coin toss sequences were more likely to believe conspiracy theories. The researchers tried a few other methods of measuring illusory pattern perception — such as having participants try to detect patterns in abstract modern art paintings — and found similar results.

Another study found this trait is also associated with people who ascribe profundity to randomly generated nonsense statements. Once again, these findings jibe with what you may presuppose about conspiracy theorists: Making connections between unrelated events or symbols is a key marker of many conspiracy theories. In practice, that might look something like the post below, which was shared in a QAnon Telegram group.

It makes many logical leaps to try to indicate that the Ever Given, the ship that was caught in the Suez Canal and which many Q followers believe was transporting trafficked children, is somehow connected to a March Madness tweet from Mike Pompeo, the transit of a Navy warship and a Q post from We see rabbits in the clouds and faces in household appliances.

Illusory pattern perception is just a heightened version of this universal phenomenon. What place are you in? There are two likely answers to this question, an intuitive one first place , and an analytical one second place.

Only the latter is correct, though. Questions like this are often used to measure whether someone naturally tends to think analytically, to take time to reflect on the information at hand before responding, or if they tend to go with their gut instinct. Each of these tasks captures just a drop of the cognitive stew that can make someone more vulnerable to believing in conspiracy theories.

We all have a little conspiracy theorist in us.