Who Believes In Conspiracy Theories?

From 9/11 terrorist attacks and one of the nation’s most important achievements, the Moon Landing, to theories about Area 51 and a secret so-called New World Order hidden in the music industry, conspiracy theories have been spreading throughout society for centuries. Some believe them and even use them as a guideline to their lifestyles; others think they are completely ridiculous fables created by simpletons and told to those stupid enough to believe them. Why exactly have these theories been able to be mold themselves so deeply into society though?
Conspiracy theories are the belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event, according to Google’s definition. In order for a conspiracy theory to get started, there is often something about the original story that doesn't make sense. This is what's then used as a basis for the start of the conspiracy theory; then, a theorist comes up with often countless different possible reasons for the sketchy piece in the puzzle. For example, the 9/11 terrorist attacks are believed by some to have not actually been caused by the 19 hijackers, but a secret government plan done purposely. In this case there were four big things that did not make sense,according to the article “How Conspiracy Theories Work.” The article claims that while the skyscrapers collapsed, there has never been a recorded destruction of skyscrapers due to fires. The reaction of the President and his handlers was weird, when the North Tower was hit, everyone was in a state of shock and panic so its easy to excuse the fact that they didn’t react immediately, but when the second tower was being hit, by then everyone knew what was happening and the still not immediate, slow reactions were certainly odd, like made apparent by Marshall Brain. The Pentagon could be hit by a huge jet plane, and the timing of the pentagon hit itself. The Pentagon is basically the ‘nerve center’ to one of the largest and most sophisticated military organizations ever known, and the fact that there is no high-tech defensive system in place is unbelievably odd. The Pentagon was hit 58 minutes after the North Tower was hit, meaning there was a large amount of time in between to scramble jets and protect Washington D.C. even if there was no certainty that an attack was about to take place.
Conspiracy theories find a way to explain these discrepancies in a believable way becoming the base of the theory. In the case of the 9/11 incident, the theory is as follows: there were no terrorists or, if there were, they were not coordinated by Al Qaeda, but rather by the government; the North and South towers were rigged with explosives beforehand with staged collapses and the Pentagon attack was also staged, possibly not even attacked with a plane but a missile. A believable story is then constructed.
Though there are many theories constructed by these missing pieces, there are many who debunk the theories by finding answers to the fuzzy bits. In a March 2005 issue of ‘Popular Mechanics’, the editors of the site found counter arguments to almost every theory in the attacks. Regarding the “military pod”, a missile, or bomb that was so called spotted on a air-refueling tanker, which was used as evidence that the attacks were “inside jobs” by President Bush, the article states; “After studying the high-resolution image and comparing it to photos of a Boeing 767-200ER's undercarriage, Greeley dismissed the notion that the Howard photo reveals a "pod." In fact, the photo reveals only the Boeing's right fairing, a pronounced bulge that contains the landing gear. He concludes that sunlight glinting off the fairing gave it an exaggerated look.” When faced with the theory that the Air Force was forced to ‘stand down’ even with the 28 bases within close range of the attacks, the article argues; “On 9/11 there were only 14 fighter jets on alert in the contiguous 48 states. No computer network or alarm automatically alerted the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) of missing planes. "They [civilian Air Traffic Control, or ATC] had to pick up the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. Boston Center, one of 22 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regional ATC facilities, called NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) three times.”
Even when presented with strong evidence such as this against conspiracies, many people remain convinced. Why? According to psychologist Stephen Lewandowsky, belief in conspiracy theories is linked to the rejection of science. Lewandowsky investigated the relationship between the acceptance of science and belief in conspiracy theories in a published psychology study. They wrote, “belief in multiple conspiracy theories significantly predicted the rejection of important scientific conclusions, such as climate science or the fact that smoking causes lung cancer.” They then concluded that their results showed that conspiracy theories “sow public mistrust and undermine democratic debate by diverting attention away from important scientific, political and societal issues.”
Dr.Viren Swami, a psychology professor from the U.K. who often studies belief in conspiracies, found that believers “are more likely to be cynical about the world in general and politics in particular.”
“Conspiracy theories also seem to be more compelling to those with low self-worth, especially with regard to their sense of agency in the world at large. Conspiracy theories appear to be a way of reacting to uncertainty and powerlessness,” he said.
Jesse Walker, author of “The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory,” has spent over 20 years researching conspiracy theories. When asked if he agreed with Swami’s statement he said, “I think that almost everybody believes in conspiracy theories, they’re not always… considered conspiracy theories because sometimes, it’s a conspiracy theory that's accepted by the culture at large.” He believes that people have the tendency to find a “folk devil and blame that folk devil for the social problem and often that takes the form of conspiracies.”
While he notes that some kind of believers might fit Swami’s profile, he notes that a lot of psychiatric literature about conspiracy theories starts by “artificially limiting conspiracy theories you can look at, by taking certain stories that are not widely accepted [so you know] so from the get go, you’re going to have people who are believers in something thats not in the mainstream… [so] then they’re not really conspiracies [laughs].”
He did have a few words of advice to those who do believe in conspiracy theories. He said that being skeptical can be good, but added, “you should be skeptical about the alternative stories you hear too. What happens too often is that somebody will see a couple of anomalies and loose threads around a story that conspiracy theorist are picking at...but then they won't apply the same skepticism to explain what was really going on… often the official story will turn out to have holes, but you should apply that skepticism evenly.”