30228 - Sociology of conspiracy theories - summer-term 2023
Philipp Wunderlich
Institute of sociology, Freie Universität Berlin
2023-05-04
„(…) conspiracy theories allow people to understand the reasons underlying important events and circumstances in a way that addresses their broader motivational concerns to feel knowledgeable, safe and good about the self.” (Douglas et al., 2020, p. 181)
feeling knowledgeable
„Social psychological research has shown that people are averse to the randomness of socio-political events and impose meaning on it cognitively by perceiving patterns in events, and making causal explanations, even when they do not exist (Zhao et al. 2014)” (Douglas et al., 2020, p. 182)
„Research also suggests that people are attracted to conspiracy theories when they lack the ability or motivation to seek information elsewhere.” (Douglas et al., 2020, p. 182))
feeling safe and secure
„(…) people who lack instrumental control may be able to find some compensatory sense of control by adopting conspiracy theories, because conspiracy theories offer people the opportunity to reject official narratives and feel that they possess some power by having an alternative perspective” (Douglas et al., 2020, p. 183)
„(…) [An] anxious attachment style – which is characterised by a preoccupation with security and a tendency to exaggerate threats – significantly predicted conspiracy belief (…). People may therefore adopt conspiracy theories in an attempt to cope with negative attachment experiences (…)” (Douglas et al., 2020, p. 183)
(…) conspiracy theories valorise the self and one’s ingroups by allowing blame for negative outcomes to be attributed to others. Thus, they may help to uphold the image of the self and the ingroup as competent and moral but as sabotaged by powerful and corrupt others (Cichocka et al. 2016)
„Indeed, Sunstein and Vermeule (2009) theorised that people turn to conspiracy theories to help justify emotional states such as fear and outrage, and to help rationalise and relieve their negative emotional responses to troublesome events” (Douglas et al., 2020, p. 185)
Social motives
feeling good about self