Suspicious Minds Why we Believe Conspiracy Theories

Av Rob Brotherton

| 2015
Suspicious Minds Why we Believe Conspiracy Theories
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Conspiracy theorists do not wear tin-foil hats (for the most part). They are not just a few kooks lurking on the paranoid fringes of society with bizarre ideas about shape-shifting reptilian aliens running society in secret. They walk among us. They are us.

Everyone loves a good conspiracy. The plots of countless Hollywood blockbusters, bestselling books, and beloved TV shows revolve around conspiratorial shenanigans. And surprising numbers of people believe that the kinds of vast, insidious conspiracies that Mulder and Scully routinely unearthed in The X-Files are happening right now in the real world. Yet conspiracy theories are not a recent invention. And they are not always a harmless curiosity.

In Suspicious Minds, Rob Brotherton explores the history and consequences of conspiracism, and delves into the research that offers insights into why so many of us are drawn to implausible, unproven and unproveable conspiracy theories. These resonate with some of our brain's built-in quirks and foibles, and tap into some of our deepest desires, fears, and assumptions about the world. But conspiracy theories are by no means unique in eliciting our brain's biases. From our love of heroic underdogs to our tendency to see a hidden hand behind ambiguous events, the same mental quirks that make conspiracy theories appealing constantly shape how we think about the world.

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