The rates were so low, the school-based vaccination programme was eventually abandoned altogether. Eventually, conspiracy theories can become so popular that they enter a positive feedback loop, in which the more they’re discussed, the more legitimate they seem. When people lose their faith in official accounts, their search for answers often takes them “down the rabbit hole,” he says. The girl led a team of investigators to various houses, where she claimed they would find an alliance of upper-class women secretly preparing poisons. Apparently she also went on to perform lectures and many other remarkable accomplishments. Given how many people have heard of it, which is almost 100 percent, you’d think that number would be higher,” he says. They did. Some, such as Timothy McVeigh, whose suspicions of the federal government led to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, have even committed atrocities on the basis of conspiracy beliefs. They don’t believe everything they read.”. “That can make you feel even worse—more out of control, more uncertain,” she says. Then one day, a slave approached a curule aedile – a kind of magistrate – and hinted that she might know why. “To say that the whole world has come to a halt because a teeny-weeny virus jumped from a bat to another animal and then to a guy in a Chinese market seems too insignificant an explanation,” Imhoff says. It enables the checks and balances that prevent abuses and ultimately protect the public. The list of abilities like this continues. “It’s a fairly stable worldview, so it doesn’t really matter what happens—that will be their interpretation.”. In 331 BC, something was wrong with Rome. But researchers are starting to pay more attention to these theories, and the motives and mechanisms that drive them, as it becomes clear that they aren’t a harmless method for coping with the unknown. But people with a conspiracy mindset distrust nearly everyone—especially experts. And is there anything they can teach us about the problems we face – and how to fix them? Since leaving her job near the end of March, she … “One thing to emphasize is that we all have needs for closure, uniqueness, and the like. Submit your response to this story to letters@psychologytoday.com. Still, roughly half of the U.S. population believes in at least one political or medical conspiracy theory, so it’s hard to define these beliefs as abnormal, says UCLA psychiatrist Joseph Pierre. We can thwart an evil plan, at least hypothetically. Search. Pick up a copy of Psychology Today on newsstands now or subscribe to read the rest of the latest issue. Read about our approach to external linking. “But a conspiracy theory that has thousands of people in cahoots? The case discussed by Livy was the first of its kind, and the whole affair had struck Roman citizens as distinctly odd. Fairy tales, legends, anecdotes and gossip are how our brains make sense of the world – they go back tens of thousands of years, and they’re arguably what makes us human. Search. In short, a conspiracy involving a gang of murderous women being betrayed by their slaves was ideal – it was always going to be more appealing than the truth. The problem for believers is that embracing these theories is an ineffective way to deal with our anxieties, Douglas says. In fact, the women probably really were preparing medicines – and the rest of the story was heavily embellished or entirely made up. “They come out of the blue when there's some kind of crisis or conflict that people really want to explain and want to have answers for.” She points out that the recent bushfires in Australia also led to a number of trendy conspiracies. This is particularly surprising, when you consider that elsewhere in Europe, the HPV jab is extremely popular, with uptake at around 80% or higher, and that the nation has a long track record of having the highest fatality rates from cervical cancer on the continent. Recent efforts by Twitter and Facebook to crack down on misinformation—including the QAnon conspiracy theories, which center on the belief that a powerful cabal of pedophiles and Satanists is working to undermine the president—are a step in the right direction, Van Bavel believes. To begin with, it was falsely accused of being responsible for causing autism, infertility and cancer, among other things – but generally confined to the most hardcore conspiracy theorists. Believers of the many competing theories about the coronavirus have one thing in common: an unwillingness to follow the guidance of public health officials, according to research by New York University's Anni Sternisko and colleagues. Mass poisonings, on the other hand, were unheard of. Accordingly, conspiracy theories are often widespread in groups that are involved in mutual conflict. In June, when a 75-year-old man was hospitalized after police pushed him to the ground during a Black Lives Matter protest, some claimed he was in fact a paid crisis actor or an “antifa provocateur"—a theory that gained traction when the president posted about it on Twitter. The incident was a huge scandal. Sternisko found that people who bought into these theories were less likely to engage in social distancing or to support public health policies aimed at limiting contagion, regardless of whether they believed the virus was a hoax or a lab-grown bioweapon. ... What does she ask of him? “It’s a charming narrative that’s very easy to buy into: Just stop Bill Gates from polluting the airwaves with 5G and we can go out again and our kids can go back to school.”. When the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum in the midst of the pandemic, another wave of believers embraced conspiracy theories linking the two phenomena, including the rumor that Soros had instigated the protests as the next step in his path to world domination. Research has shown that people who have a social identity centred around victimhood are more susceptible to conspiracy theories that villainise Jews, and this might also be true at a societal level. And as we know, AOC won. The 7 Levels of "Truthiness", COVID-19’s Ripple Effect on Mental Health and Addiction. “I think it is really, really important to understand where conspiracy theories come from and how they spread, because there’s strong evidence that believing them has significant consequences.”. Without it, there is no truth anymore. At the time, the city was in the grip of an unknown plague – a common cause of death in the classical world. He gives the example of “Pizzagate”, the entirely discredited and widely condemned conspiracy that linked former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager to an alleged child abuse ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant. Researchers have found that this “conspiracy mentality” correlates with particular personality traits, including low levels of trust and an increased need for closure, along with feelings of powerlessness, low self-esteem, paranoid thinking, and a need to feel unique. It’s a critical question, especially now, researchers say—and there’s no easy answer. For example, a recent analysis of Tweets that mention 5G and Covid-19 found that just 34.8% included a suggestion that the two are linked, while the majority either denounced the theory or didn’t express an opinion. In particular, she explains that there have been very few studies into why some have extraordinary longevity, such as the Flat Earth, Illuminati and … People think she is a “crisis actor” portraying the Parkland, Fla., teen with the same name. From alien lizard rulers to shark attacks instigated by spies and elaborate multi-billion-dollar hoaxes, the menagerie of conspiracy theories in existence is so bizarre, the reasons some take off – and others vanish without a trace – may seem almost random. They can have truly damaging consequences in the real world. Another reason the 5G conspiracy might be more appealing than the truth is that it’s a story. Take Romania, where many women decline to have their daughters vaccinated against HPV, the virus responsible for 99% of cervical cancers. “Not only were there no children being held captive at the pizza restaurant, there wasn’t even a basement,” says Muirhead. That’s a huge danger,” Imhoff says. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “The Essential List”. The term has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal to a conspiracy is based on prejudice or insufficient evidence. It was an interview with obscure family doctor in a Belgian newspaper, and titled “5G is life-threatening, and no one knows it”. It’s partly because of the magnitude of the real threats, psychologists say. And that becomes problematic when it leads to an erosion of credibility that puts scientists on the same level as someone who just posted a video on YouTube. But it’s well worth the watch. The question is, why did these alternative stories catch on? If you would like us to consider your letter for publication, please include your name, city, and state. The whole scenario is also being exacerbated by the fact that many countries, such as the United States, are experiencing record levels of political polarisation at the moment. For example, US President Donald Trump recently suggested he has seen evidence the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab while his own intelligence agencies have said there is no evidence for this. “I'm worried that ordinary people trying to understand the world are going to become very disoriented as they try to navigate this kind of whiteout blizzard of conspiratorial fictions and lies,” says Muirhead. Often, the first time you learn of a conspiracy theory, it’s being presented to you as fact because it has already been disseminated by seemingly reliable sources. (Billionaire philanthropists George Soros and Bill Gates are on the short list, although conspiracy theorists aren’t ruling out the Clintons.) Mass arrests followed, and a further 170 women were found to be involved. After all, conspiracy theories have always existed, and no amount of counterevidence has been able to change the minds of people who still think the moon landing was fake or that JFK's assassination was the work of a “deep state” conspiracy. You just know something is up.”. High-status women were generally viewed with suspicion, and often portrayed as secretive and dangerous. After all, sometimes powerful people really are hatching secret schemes. This has been the year of QAnon, the viral conspiracy theory whose supporters spread false information about things like the 2020 election, Black … And conspiracy theories seem to be spreading faster than ever, partly because of the way they are magnified by social media, Van Bavel says. Alas, two of the suspects obliged – and promptly dropped dead. “We can’t assume anymore that they’re trivial, harmless little things,” says social psychologist Karen Douglas of the University of Kent. 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