Why do people believe in conspiracy theories!

 

“Bill gates has teamed up with china to engineer corona-virus and then he will make money by selling vaccines, this is all a scam, a way to gain global control”.

You may have encountered many such people online  who believe in such weird theories, many more like illuminati, flat earth society, vaccines are dangerous, 5 g tower will cause cancer, moon landing was a hoax  etc. This misinformation is called conspiracy theory. These theories quickly circulates over social media & gain popularity, But why do people believe and share them?

Now the conspiracy theories are not new,earliest known conspiracy theory is conspiracy of the great fire of Rome in 64 AD where Emperor Nero was falsely blamed for starting the great fire to destroy everything so that he could build the empire again (whole story) in similar way many conspiracies were made against Jews holding them responsible for many bad things(& that resulted in very bad way we know) so some of these theories can truly have negative impact for a community or person.

 So why do believe in them?

So the most prominent thing that came after studies and research on this topic is the psychological reasons. People who are drawn to conspiracy theories share same cluster of psychological features of thinking (link) particularly people who have anxiety or are left out or who feel not special and powerless think that people are plotting against them. Big Events happening worldwide nurture underlying emotions that make people cling more to such theories. In such cases, a conspiracy theory provides comfort by blaming certain people or organization making them scapegoat thus making world seem more straightforward, simple and controllable. Therefore these theories became a way for them to understand the complex world. These conspiracies are generally born(mostly due to political reasons)  in some extraordinary world shocking events which do not have clear explanation and exact causes are unknown in such cases missing info is filled with human curiosity and thus these conspiracies bridge the gap in human knowledge ( its human tendency) .Bermuda triangle is the most famous example, a region where planes and ships mysteriously disappear and the explanation is unknown, these gave birth to many conspiracy theories such as presence of aliens, sub-sea pyramids or dimensional portals and unknown energy force. Corona virus, moon landing, 9/11 were such unique and world shocking events.

THE ILLUSORY PATTERN PERCEPTION

This is an interesting phenomenon where a observer sees a pattern which do not even exists. This phenomenon has been linked as main reason for conspiracy theories. To conspiracy theorist the world seems different, threads (invisible) link seemingly unrelated concepts,tot them there is no such thing as random coincidence everything has to have a connection or a purpose. Psychologist from university of Kent in U.K. and Vrije University  Amsterdam, Netherlands has determined that such theorist are hooked to illusory pattern perception (so they are not nuts they see world differently , but yeah they are nuts!!)(link to the study)

Let’s see some examples about this perception.

Did you find some pattern among these rocks either a crocodile head or elephant you can find many examples like this it may seem man made but infact they are completely random natural creation this ability of finding patterns can also be observed in random numbers,3 d patterns, and certain events (see study)

Now all of us have this perception but they have too much. So people who have higher tendency to have this perception are more likely to believe pseudo-profound bullshit true such people have tendency to always find patterns (connect the dots) even when there is no pattern and the things are completely random, at extreme level such thinking is called Teleological thinking.

How to classify a theory as conspiracy

Conspiracy theories have some common features such as.

•  Every conspiracy tries to relate unrelated things for them correlation always equal to causation

•          Conspiracies have that one mastermind evil (like bill gates in corona virus one) who runs the conspiracy and is hiding the information.

•          Major conspiracies involve a large organization who hides data and truth from people

•          For example case of moon landing conspiracy in which people believe that NASA faked the moon landing and hides the truth()

•         It is impossible to prove them wrong because no matter what proof you give them they will consider it all as a part of conspiracy every scientific paper to government data. Like in the matter of flat earth (they consider every pic and videos from satellites and rockets fake)

How to stop the spread?

·         First always fact check any info you share Google it and you will easily get if that is a conspiracy theory or not.

·     Think logically and apply scientific thinking.

Conspiracy theories sometime becomes dangerous (not all) cause of misinformation and hinds the development so try to eradicate and stop the spread. 

-Mohit pal