Myth Busted: Conspiracy Theorists Do Believe Stuff ‘Just Happens’
Live Science:
The sheriff of Douglas County in Oregon where a mass shooting occurred on Oct. 2 is in hot water after the discovery that he posted a “Sandy Hook truther” video to Facebook in 2013. Now, a new study casts doubt on the psychology blamed for belief in such conspiracy theories.
Contrary to popular opinion, the research finds, people who think conspiratorially aren’t more likely to assume everything happens for a reason, rejecting the likelihood of random chance, than people who don’t hold conspiracy beliefs.
“What we show is that the psychology of conspiracy theories is located in a rather high level of cognition, perhaps at the level of beliefs and ideology and not at the level of a deeper personality or perception mode,” said study researcher Sebastian Dieguez, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
Read the whole story: Live Science
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