ABSTRACT

Conspiracy theories are a natural reaction to social situations that elicit feelings of fear and uncertainty. People regularly are confronted with societal crisis situations – rapid changes in society that could potentially threaten their well-being, their way of life, or even their existence. As a result, conspiracy theories will increase in the population once there is widespread concern about a high-profile terrorist attack, a natural disaster, an economic or financial crisis, a war, a revolution, and so on. In order to understand why feelings of uncertainty and fear are associated with conspiracy theories, one need to establish how people cope with these negative emotions. Fear and uncertainty thus lead people to try to make sense of their physical and social environment. The tendency to believe a grandiose conspiracy theory may be influenced by a basic heuristic of the human mind called the proportionality bias: People have a tendency to assume that a big consequence must have had a big cause.