conspiracy theory, an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the
conspiracy.
Conspiracy theories increase in prevalence in periods of widespread anxiety, uncertainty, or hardship, as during wars and economic depressions and in the aftermath of natural disasters like
tsunamis,
earthquakes, and
pandemics. This fact is evidenced by the profusion of conspiracy theories that emerged in the wake of the
September 11 attacks in 2001 and by the more than 2,000 volumes on U.S. Pres.
John F. Kennedy’s assassination. This suggests that conspiratorial thinking is driven by a strong human desire to make sense of social forces that are self-relevant, important, and threatening.
(Read Steven Pinker’s Britannica entry on conspiracy theories & rationality.)
The content of conspiracy theories is emotionally laden and its
alleged discovery can be gratifying. The evidentiary standards for
corroborating conspiracy theories are typically weak, and they are usually resistant to falsification. The survivability of conspiracy theories may be aided by psychological biases and by distrust of official sources.
Effects of belief in conspiracy theories
Exposure to media that
endorse conspiraciesincreases
belief. There is evidence that viewing the
Oliver Stone movie
JFK (1991) increased belief in a conspiracy to
assassinate Kennedy and decreased belief in the official account that
Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. A further outcome was that, compared with people who were about to view the movie, those who had seen it expressed less interest in political participation. It may be that distrust of those in power predicts and is caused by belief in government conspiracies.
Researchers have investigated belief in
AIDSconspiracies—the belief that AIDS was created by the U.S. government to kill
homosexualsand African Americans—and attitudes toward
condom use. This research has shown that the more strongly
African American males believe in this conspiracy, the less favourable their attitudes toward condom use are, and in turn the less likely they are to use condoms. There is also evidence that these beliefs lead to distrust of research institutions and are a significant barrier to getting African Americans to participate in AIDS clinical trials.
Such distrust did not develop in a vacuum. Starting in 1932 and continuing for 40 years, the U.S. Public Health Service working with the
Tuskegee Institute studied the effect of
syphilis on 399 African American men. The researchers conducting the
Tuskegee syphilis study withheld treatment and allowed more than 100 men to die, despite the discovery of
penicillin as a standard cure in 1947. It is clearly worth noting that governments do at least occasionally conspire against their own citizens.
Explanations of conspiracy theories
Continued below.
Conspiracy theory, an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.
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