Moon Landing Faked!!!—Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories New psychological research helps explain why

some see intricate government conspiracies

behind events like 9/11 or the Boston bombing

By Sander van der Linden

April 30, 2013

Did NASA fake the moon landing? Is the

government hiding Martians in Area 51? Is

global warming a hoax? And what about

the Boston Marathon bombing…an “inside

job” perhaps?

In the book “The Empire of Conspiracy,” Timothy Melley explains that conspiracy

theories have traditionally been regarded by many social scientists as “the

implausible visions of a lunatic fringe,” often inspired by what the late historian

Richard Hofstadter described as “the paranoid style of American politics.”

Influenced by this view, many scholars have come to think of conspiracy theories as

paranoid and delusional, and for a long time psychologists have had little to

contribute other than to affirm the psychopathological nature of conspiracy

thinking, given that conspiricist delusions are commonly associated with

(schizotype) paranoia.

Yet, such pathological explanations have proven to be widely insufficient because

conspiracy theories are not just the implausible visions of a paranoid minority. For

example, a national poll released just this month reports that 37 percent of

Americans believe that global warming is a hoax, 21 percent think that the US

government is covering up evidence of alien existence and 28 percent believe a

secret elite power with a globalist agenda is conspiring to rule the world. Only

hours after the recent Boston marathon bombing, numerous conspiracy theories

were floated ranging from a possible ‘inside job’ to YouTube videos claiming that

the entire event was a hoax.

So why is it that so many people come to believe in conspiracy theories? They can't

all be paranoid schizophrenics. New studies are providing some eye-opening

insights and potential explanations.

For example, while it has been known for some time that people who believe in one

conspiracy theory are also likely to believe in other conspiracy theories, we would

expect contradictory conspiracy theories to be negatively correlated. Yet, this is not

what psychologists Micheal Wood, Karen Douglas and Robbie Suton found in a

recent study. Instead, the research team, based at the University of Kent in

England, found that many participants believed in contradictory conspiracy

theories. For example, the conspiracy-belief that Osama Bin Laden is still alive was

positively correlated with the conspiracy-belief that he was already dead before the

military raid took place. This makes little sense, logically: Bin Laden cannot be both

dead and alive at the same time. An important conclusion that the authors draw

from their analysis is that people don't tend to believe in a conspiracy theory

because of the specifics, but rather because of higher-order beliefs that support

conspiracy-like thinking more generally. A popular example of such higher-order

beliefs is a severe “distrust of authority.” The authors go on to suggest that

conspiracism is therefore not just about belief in an individual theory, but rather an

ideological lens through which we view the world. A good case in point is Alex

Jones’s recent commentary on the Boston bombings. Jones, (one of the country’s

preeminent conspiracy theorists) reminded his audience that two of the hijacked

planes on 9/11 flew out of Boston (relating one conspiracy theory to another) and

moreover, that the Boston Marathon bombing could be a response to the sudden

drop in the price of gold or part of a secret government plot to expand the

Transportation Security Administration’s reach to sporting events. Others have

pointed their fingers to a ‘mystery man’ spotted on a nearby roof shortly after the

explosions. While it remains unsure whether or not credence is given to only some

or all of these (note: contradicting) conspiracy theories, there clearly is a larger

underlying preference to support conspiracy-type explanations more generally.

Interestingly, belief in conspiracy theories has recently been linked to the rejection

of science. In a paper published in Psychological Science, Stephen Lewandowsky

and colleagues investigated the relation between acceptance of science and

conspiricist thinking patterns. While the authors' survey was not representative of

the general population, results suggest that (controlling for other important

factors) belief in multiple conspiracy theories significantly predicted the rejection

of important scientific conclusions, such as climate science or the fact

that smoking causes lung cancer. Yet, rejection of scientific principles is not the

only possible consequence of widespread belief in conspiracy theories. Another

recent study indicates that receiving positive information about or even being

merely exposed to conspiracy theories can lead people to become disengaged from

important political and societal topics. For example, in their study, Daniel Jolley

and Karen Douglas clearly show that participants who received information that

supported the idea that global warming is a hoax were less willing to engage

politically and also less willing to implement individual behavioral changes such as

reducing their carbon footprint.

These findings are alarming because they show that conspiracy theories sow public

mistrust and undermine democratic debate by diverting attention away from

important scientific, political and societal issues. There is no question as to whether

the public should actively demand truthful and transparent information from their

governments and proposed explanations should be met with a healthy amount of

scepticism, yet, this is not what conspiracy theories offer. A conspiracy theory is

usually defined as an attempt to explain the ultimate cause of an important societal

event as part of some sinister plot conjured up by a secret alliance of powerful

individuals and organizations. The great philosopher Karl Popper argued that the

fallacy of conspiracy theories lies in their tendency to describe every event as

'intentional' and 'planned' thereby seriously underestimating the random nature

and unintended consequences of many political and social actions. In fact, Popper

was describing a cognitive bias that psychologists now commonly refer to as the

“fundamental attribution error”: the tendency to overestimate the actions of others

as being intentional rather than the product of (random) situational circumstances.

Since a number of studies have shown that belief in conspiracy theories is

associated with feelings of powerlessness, uncertainty and a general lack of agency

and control, a likely purpose of this bias is to help people “make sense of the world”

by providing simple explanations for complex societal events — restoring a sense of

control and predictability. A good example is that of climate change: while the most

recent international scientific assessment report (receiving input from over 2500

independent scientists from more than a 100 countries) concluded with 90 percent

certainty that human-induced global warming is occurring, the severe

consequences and implications of climate change are often too distressing and

overwhelming for people to deal with, both cognitively as well as emotionally.

Resorting to easier explanations that simply discount global warming as a hoax is

then of course much more comforting and convenient psychologically. Yet, as Al

Gore famously pointed out, unfortunately, the truth is not always convenient.