Part 2: Inside the Conspiracy Mind — The Psychology of Why We Believe
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Part 2: Inside the Conspiracy Mind — The Psychology of Why We Believe
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In the second of our two-part series on conspiracy theories, Tom and D turn from how these ideas spread to something even more fundamental: Why do they feel so compelling in the first place—even when the evidence doesn’t hold up?
We sit down with Dr. Ricky Green, a social psychologist at the University of Kent who studies the psychology and consequences of conspiracy theories, to look at what’s happening beneath the belief itself.
Why are some people more susceptible than others? What roles do uncertainty, anxiety, trust, intuition and our need to make sense of the world play? And once a belief takes hold, why can contrary evidence sometimes cause someone to double down rather than reconsider?
The conversation also gets into Ricky’s fascinating research on attachment anxiety and catastrophizing, our tendency to see patterns where none exist, how conspiracy beliefs can affect friendships and romantic relationships—and even what happens when conspiracy theories show up in online dating profiles.
It’s a conversation about conspiracy theories, but also something much broader: how all of us decide what’s true, how easily we can become certain about something that isn’t, and why sometimes the healthiest answer may simply be, “I don’t know.”