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I get some cool newsletters on Sunday mornings — I also send one! — and today I got one from Northwestern’s Kellogg School that contained a link about the rise of conspiracy theories. And actually, just yesterday I had gotten a New York Times newsletter with a link about how Bill Gates is now the target of multiple conspiracy theories. I understand that very rich people will always be a target online, but to attack Gates — a nerd whose “second act” is basically at-scale giving and funding — seems questionable. (Now, all that said, I would like to know more about the Bill Gates-Jeffrey Epstein ties.)
OK, so go back to this Northwestern article (first link). The reason for the “scale” of conspiracy theories is framed around a rise of uncertainty (have written about that) and how people feel like they need to be in control of something (ditto). This is probably the most important paragraph in terms of “research:”
Yes, we found a difference between “promotion-focused” individuals, who tend to be more go-getting and feel more in control over their environment, and “prevention-focused” individuals, who are more vigilant and try to protect the security they have. This latter group tends to fall prey to conspiracy theories more often. But what we found was that there are interventions that help people be less persuaded by conspiracy theories. So if you ask people to think of a time when…
