9 Reasons People Believe In Conspiracy Theories
9. Firstly, Forget What You Know About Conspiracy Theorists
The mental image of a conspiracy theorist as a white, nerdy, twentysomething guy that lives in his mum's basement and definitely owns a Guy Fawkes mask is not strictly accurate.
Data collected by political scientists Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent (who are generally considered to be the authorities on the subject) suggests that conspiratorial tendencies “cut across gender, age, race, income, political affiliation, educational level, and occupational status.”
The types of conspiracy do tend to follow certain social delineations though. GMO, chemtrail, and illuminati conspiracy theories that frame governments and corporations as the villains tend to spread through liberals, whereas conservatives are more likely to suspect science and academia, suspecting, for example, that vaccines cause autism and climate change is a hoax created by the scientific community to ruin the economy (or something).
Whilst education does appear to be a limiting factor on whether someone will believe in conspiracies, with 42% of people without high school diplomas believing in at least one, compared to 23% with postgraduate degrees, it is obviously not a sure thing, with almost a quarter of postgrads buying into it too.
So, if gender, age, race, income, political affiliation, educational level, and occupational status isn't influencing these beliefs, what is?