Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?

Informer · 2014-11-22T07:10:26+00:00

Do people really believe such conspiracy theories? They do, and in disturbingly high numbers, according to recent empirical research collected by University of Miami political scientists Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent and presented in their 2014 book American Conspiracy Theories (Oxford University Press). About a third of Americans, for example, believe the "birther" conspiracy theory that Obama is a foreigner. About as many believe that 9/11 was an "inside job" by the Bush administration. Surveys by Uscinski and Parent show that believers in conspiracies "cut across gender, age, race, income, political affiliation, educational level, and occupational status." People on both the political left and right, for example, believe in conspiracies roughly equally, although each finds different cabals. Liberals are more likely to suspect that media sources and political parties are pawns of rich capitalists and corporations, whereas conservatives tend to believe that academics and liberal elites control these same institutions. Encouragingly, Uscinski and Parent found that education makes a difference in reducing conspiratorial thinking: 42 percent of those without a high school diploma (in the US) are high in conspiratorial predispositions, compared with 23 percent with postgraduate degrees. Even so, that means more than one in five Americans with postgraduate degrees show a high predisposition for conspiratorial belief. As an educator, I find this disturbing. The main problem is that some conspiracies are real!

Thread starter Informer
Start date Nov 22, 2014

Informer

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Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?

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