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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

That's just what THEY want you to believe

Tyler Cowen on his excellent Marginal Revolution blog points to a new study which offers little comfort to folks who are eager to embrace conspiracy theories uncritically.

The most interesting part is the willingness of many people to believe conspiracy theories that contradict each other. "In Study 1 (n = 137), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered. In Study 2 (n = 102), the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive. Hierarchical regression models showed that mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively associated because both are associated with the view that the authorities are engaged in a cover-up (Study 2). The monological nature of conspiracy belief appears to be driven not by conspiracy theories directly supporting one another but by broader beliefs supporting conspiracy theories in general."

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