Wanted—Dead and Alive
Conspiracy theorists are likely to embrace contradictory explanations of the same event, a study finds.
Nearly 140 British undergraduates were
asked how much they agreed (on a seven-point scale) with dubious
theories: the moon landing was faked, the true cause of 9/11 was covered
up, etc. Several contradictory explanations of Princess Diana's death
were included.
As expected, people who believed in
one plot tended to believe in others on unrelated subjects. In addition,
the more that the subjects believed Diana faked her own death (for
privacy's sake), the more likely they were also to believe that she was
murdered.
In a related experiment, the more
students believed that Osama bin Laden was dead before the U.S. raid in
Pakistan, the more they believed that he was still in hiding, or a U.S.
captive.
Conspiracy theorists' beliefs about
the untrustworthiness of official sources, the authors said, are strong
enough to override logical problems.
"Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy
Theories," Michael J. Wood, Karen M. Douglas and Robbie M. Sutton,
Social Psychological and Personality Science (forthcoming)
No comments:
Post a Comment