Conspiracy Theories and "people’s need to feel special."

[bindeweede]

Unrelenting faith in the face of insurmountable contradictory evidence is a trait of believers in conspiracy theories that has long confounded researchers. For instance, past research has demonstrated how attempting to use evidence to sway believers of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories can backfire, increasing their certainty in the conspiracy. Could it also be the case that knowing that most people doubt a conspiracy actually makes believing in it more appealing, by fostering in the believer a sense of being somehow special?

An interesting short article.

[btw, never heard of "Amazon’s Mechanical Turk survey website."]

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/09/01/be ... +Digest%29

[Tony.Williams]

Interesting - if rather depressing.

I wonder if they've tried explaining all of this to conspiracy theorists, to see if it affects their beliefs at all?

[chaggle]

Interesting - if rather depressing.

I wonder if they've tried explaining all of this to conspiracy theorists, to see if it affects their beliefs at all?

Yes.

I've seen an article similar to this posted and it prompted the posting of a psychological study which proved that CT'ers are clear-minded, objective critical thinkers and skeptics are closed minded people unable to think outside the box.

[Tony.Williams]

I might have guessed....