People who believe in conspiracy theories (conspiracists) are motivated by the same thing that motivates everyone: the drive to understand and make sense of the world we live in. Failing to understand what’s happening around us or how things work could jeopardize our survival.
So from an early age, we begin developing and testing theories to increase our understanding. The brains of both conspiracists and non-conspiracists are always trying to connect the dots. System 1 (the unconscious) operates by making associations: detecting patterns and making connections. It functions at a rapid pace and uses heuristics (mental shortcuts) to make determinations. As a result, it jumps to conclusions, seeing patterns that may not be there and making connections that may not exist. Again, this is true for everyone.
It’s System 2’s job to scrutinize questionable System 1 conclusions. But as we know, System 2 is slow, lazy, easily depleted, and may be otherwise occupied; it misses a lot.
Conspiracists appear to be both more likely to see patterns and connections and less likely to question them, especially when they support preexisting beliefs. In The Believing Brain, Michael Shermer says:
Why do people believe in highly improbable conspiracies? I contend that it is because their pattern-detection filters are wide open, thereby letting in any and all patterns as real, with little to no screening of potential false patterns.
All Explanatory Theories Are Not Equal
Conspiracy theories are different from other theories in a number of ways. They aren’t falsifiable, which means they can’t be disproved, so they can’t be proved; they are only apparent to those who are in the know or can see through the purported cover-ups; they represent a gloomy, sometimes sinister, worldview; they tend to be vast, far-reaching, and complex; and they disallow for the possibility of random or accidental events or occurrences.
Conspiracy theories can’t be proved because they are not likely to be based on verifiable evidence. Lack of evidence would disqualify most other types of theories, but in the case of conspiracy theories the lack of evidence is considered to be evidence of the existence of the conspiracy.
In addition to having wide-open pattern detection filters, the people who believe in conspiracy theories tend to be more suspicious, untrusting, and eccentric than their non-conspiracist counterparts. They have a need to feel special and tend to regard the world as an inherently dangerous place. They are also more likely to infer meaning and motive where others do not.
Several other personality characteristics and cognitive biases have been linked with the tendency to endorse conspiracy theories, including:
- openness
- neuroticism
- authoritarianism
- mild paranoia
- confirmation bias
- the conjunction fallacy
- the proportionality bias
- projection
- attributions of intentionality
- decreased sense of personal agency
- traditionalism
- rejection of science and/or experts
- confidence in one’s beliefs
Two additional factors were identified in research reported by Lehigh University in 2018.
- People who overestimate how well they understand politics are more likely to believe that hidden actors or clandestine groups are conspiring in wide-ranging activities to influence important world actions, events, and outcomes.
. - People who identify with traditional values and systems they believe are under siege due to social change also tend to adopt conspiracy theory thinking.
Intention Seeking
Just as both conspiracists and non-conspiracists are driven to understand the world in which they live, both are also attempting to discern the intentions of others—again because not being able to do so accurately can have significant negative consequences. Our ability to quickly discern intentionality develops rapidly during childhood. Like pattern-detection, it is an automatic function of System 1, the unconscious. And System 1 can make the same kinds of mistakes in discerning intentions as it does in detecting patterns.
The fast and automatic operation of intentionality-seeking cognitive processes allows us to quickly make inferences about the mental states of those around us—an important evolutionary adaptation. However, as is the case with other low-level cognitive processes, inferences of intentionality may be subject to biases and heuristics. Not only are we sensitive to the intentions of others, but we may be overly sensitive, biased towards perceiving or inferring intentionality even where such an attribution may not be warranted. —Robert Brotherton and Christopher C. French, PLoS One
One series of studies reported in 2008 suggested that our brain automatically attributes intentionality to all actions, even those we know are not intentional. System 2 has to override this automatic process in order for us to recognize the lack of intention.
Judging an action to be unintentional requires more cognitive resources, takes longer, and results in increased ease of recall compared to judging the same action to be intentional. —E. Rossett, Cognition
This is an intriguing area of research given that we now know how little of our behavior, moment-to-moment, is in fact either rational or intentional. The consistent, coordinated, intentional action of multiple individuals over time and across distance for agreed-upon nefarious purposes isn’t impossible, of course. But it is highly improbable.
Nevertheless, as Brotherton and French state in their PLoS One article:
To the extent that an individual tends to regard ambiguous events or situations generally as having been intended, conspiracy theories may appear more plausible than alternative explanations.
Next time: Part 3: Conspiracy Theories and the Storytelling Mind
Last time: Part 1: Conspiracy: Making Distinctions