Belief in conspiracy theories is thus a widespread societal phenomenon and has increasingly drawn the research attention of social scientists (for overviews, see Brotherton, 2015 Douglas, Sutton & Cichocka, 2017 van Prooijen, 2018). population, 37% answered “agree” to the following statement: “the Food and Drug Administration is deliberately preventing the public from getting natural cures for cancer and other diseases because of pressure from drug companies.” Another 31% answered “neither agree nor disagree,” and only 32% disagreed with this statement ( Oliver & Wood, 2014). In addition, in a nationally representative sample of the U.S. government to be complicit in the 9/11 terrorist attacks ( Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009). In 2004, 49% of New York City residents believed the U.S. Contrary to the view that belief in such theories is pathological ( Hofstadter, 1966), large portions of the human population believe conspiracy theories. A common definition of conspiracy theory is the conviction that a group of actors meets in secret agreement with the purpose of attaining some malevolent goal (e.g., Bale, 2007). We propose that people possess a functionally integrated mental system to detect conspiracies that in all likelihood has been shaped in an ancestral human environment in which hostile coalitions-that is, conspiracies that truly existed-were a frequent cause of misery, death, and reproductive loss.Ĭonspiracy theories are omnipresent among members of modern and traditional societies ( West & Sanders, 2003). Insights from social, cultural and evolutionary psychology provide tentative support for six propositions that follow from the adaptation hypothesis. This latter perspective assumes that conspiracy theories are activated after specific coalition cues, which produce functional counterstrategies to cope with suspected conspiracies. We review evidence pertaining to two competing evolutionary hypotheses: (a) conspiracy beliefs are a by-product of a suite of psychological mechanisms (e.g., pattern recognition, agency detection, threat management, alliance detection) that evolved for different reasons, or (b) conspiracy beliefs are part of an evolved psychological mechanism specifically aimed at detecting dangerous coalitions. Why do so many people around the globe believe conspiracy theories, and why are they so influential? Previous research focused on the proximate mechanisms underlying conspiracy beliefs but ignored the distal, evolutionary origins and functions. Belief in conspiracy theories-such as that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job or that the pharmaceutical industry deliberately spreads diseases-is a widespread and culturally universal phenomenon.
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