It's always been in our lives, part of

living in a civilization, bubbling under

the surface until something creates
pressure and causes it to erupt.
Conspiracy-the very word brings to
mind crazy people with even crazier
ideas. And yet our world is full of
conspiracies-and not just the crazy
ones. The people who pass you on
the street engrossed in their
conversations, the reporter whose
face appears on your television, the
journalist behind the newspaper you
read, and the anonymous entity
behind the blog you read in secretthey all express their ideas and
opinions, and when those opinions
pertain to a powerful event they can
fester in the minds of the people who
think of them until a conspiracy is
born and starts to infect those who
hear it. But once that conspiracy
leaves the people who created it, and
reaches people who don't see the
world in the same way, why do those
people allow themselves to be
infected by the crazy ramblings of
others; why does anybody believe in
conspiracies?

Information From
Jogalekar, Ashutosh. "What do conspiracy
theories, religious beliefs and detoxifying
proteins have in common?" Scientific
American. Scientific American, Inc. 1 0 May
201 3. Web. 5 May 201 5.
Koerth-Baker, Maggie. "Why Rational People Buy
Into Conspiracy Theories." The New York
Times Magazine. The New York Times
Company. 21 May 201 3. Web. 27 April 201 5.
Saletan, William. "Conspiracy Theorists Aren't
Really Skeptics." Slate. The Slate Group LLC.
1 9 Nov 201 3. Web. 5 May 201 5.
Sides, John. "Fifty percent of Americans believe
in some conspiracy theory. Here's why." The
Washington Post. The Washington Post. 1 9
Feb 201 5. Web. 30 April 201 5.
Sohn, Emily. "Why Do Some Believe Conspiracies
at All Costs?" Discovery News. Discovery
Communications, LLC. 1 May 201 3. Web. 30
April 201 5.

Why Your Normal

Family Believes
In Crazy Things

A look at conspiracies
through the lenses of
biology, psychology,
and politics.

Biologically Speaking

There are two processes that the brain

performs which lead to the belief in conspiracies,
and both are likely evolutionary feature that were
left over from the hominid days where in a life or
death situation it was better to err on the side of
caution. The two processes are:
Patternicity: where the brain sees
patterns that dont exist.
Agenticity: where the brain sees agents
who control events when there are no such
agents.
Patternicity and agenticity is also what allows
so many different conspiracies to be born;
because each brain will connect information in to
different patterns, and each brain can focus on
different entities that they believe are in control,
it is easy for many conspiracies to be born of the
same event. Despite these two traits no longer
being necessary in the humans of today they still
exist because humans today are descendants of
the early hominids who lived because their brains
performed these processes that caused heavy
caution in potentially dangerous situations.

Psychologically Speaking

The reason that people believe in

conspiracies is that the human mind often
chooses to act in ways that will cause it to feel
pleasure. One such way is the default belief in
ones own correctness. In an effort to be able to
keep this belief, people will often ignore
information that contradicts their beliefs while, at
the same time, actively search for information that
supports their beliefs. Furthermore, once the
person has gained information (both supporting
and contradicting the persons established belief)
it is the nature of the pleasure seeking mind to
first retrieve the information that aligns with the
persons belief. In the case of people creating
conspiracies, people have a subconscious need
to be in control as well as a driving need to know
why things occur; and when people are presented
with an unusual or horrifying event, the mind tries
to create an explanation for what has happened.
While the mind scrambles to find reason in a
confusing situation it will start creating patterns
that dont exist and, because the mind has a
default to believe in its own correctness, it is hard
for some people to later change their belief to
match the actual facts.

Politically Speaking
Due to a large abundance of American
entertainment containing elaborate conspiracies, it
is particularly appealing to Americans to believe
that conspiracies are real. This leaning towards
believing in conspiracies is not helped by the
knowledge that the United States Government
has used conspiracy theories as a political move
against its enemies. Also, given reason to distrust
the government, people feel politically isolated,
which also causes an increase in the likelihood of
those people believing in conspiracy theories.
There is also a correlation between the decline
in peoples faith in the government and peoples
increased likelihood to believe in conspiracy
theories. American political culture, which includes
heavy skepticism and suspicion of large groups
(even our own government), causes people to be
more likely to believe in conspiracies of a political
nature. Our strong belief in democratic principles,
and therefore strong disappointment that
democratic principles are constantly bent, also
increases Americans likelihood of believing in
conspiracy theories. Overall, politically related
conspiracy theories are very prevalent in American
society and are not actually all that crazy (some
conspiracies have even been proven to be true).

50% of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory!