Why people embrace conspiracy theories: it’s about community, not gullibility

By Robin Canniford, Professor of Markets, Business, and Society, University of Bath
Stephen Murphy, Assistant Professor in Marketing, Trinity College Dublin
Tim Hill, Associate Professor in Marketing, University of Bath

Psychologists have long considered how a tendency towards irrational thinking or particular personality traits might predict peoples’ interest in conspiracies. Yet these individual factors do not explain the group processes through which conspiracy theorists are extending their influence and impact.

Over five years, we sought out and got to know people on the cusp of becoming conspiracy…

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