JFDee
Senior Member.
Author Maggie Koerth-Baker wraps up some research around people who tend to believe in conspiracies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/why-rational-people-buy-into-conspiracy-theories.html
Excerpt:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/why-rational-people-buy-into-conspiracy-theories.html
Excerpt:
An issue that several posters have brought up before (including me):“The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories,” says Viren Swami, a psychology professor who studies conspiracy belief at the University of Westminster in England. Psychologists say that’s because a conspiracy theory isn’t so much a response to a single event as it is an expression of an overarching worldview.
In that way, Swami says, the Internet and other media have helped perpetuate paranoia. Not only does more exposure to these alternative narratives help engender belief in conspiracies, he says, but the Internet’s tendency toward tribalism helps reinforce misguided beliefs.