Do conspiracy theorists see more patterns in randomness? Apparently not

(credit: flickr user: Manuel Angel)

Conspiracy theories often emerge when people join up seemingly small, unrelated pieces of evidence and piece them together into a larger, often sinister, picture. Conspiracy theories about the Moon landing, for instance, often join up oddities from photographs to build a theory that the whole thing was a hoax.

This tendency to see meaning in randomness has led researchers to suggest that some people might process information differently, seeing meaningful information in discrepancies and becoming more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking.

There is already some evidence that belief formation plays a role in conspiracy theories. Earlier studies have suggested that people who believe in paranormal activity are more likely to see patterns in random data, and that there’s a correlation between paranormal belief and conspiracy belief. So, maybe the data processing is affecting both kinds of belief formation.