As such, there has been a search for psychological factors which explain why particular individuals find conspiracy theories attractive. Many researchers take people who endorse or engage with conspiracy theories to depart from the ordinary norms of belief formation. A subset of individuals who endorse conspiracy theories also actively engage with conspiracy theories by, for example, discussing and spreading them online. Measurement of assent also appears to be strongly influenced by contextual and partisan cues. Conspiracy endorsement can be a relatively weak attitude, reflecting a general suspicion of the powerful. Many people passively endorse conspiracy theories, in the sense that they will assent to one or more conspiracy-related beliefs if asked. There are a variety of attitudes individuals might have towards conspiracy theories. Conspiracy endorsement is associated with lowered intention to participate in social and political causes, unwillingness to follow authoritative medical advice, increased willingness to seek alternative medicine, and a tendency to reject important scientific findings. Conspiracy beliefs have the potential to cause harm both to the individual and the community. We also suggest that survey-based and experimental studies may benefit from differentiating between passive private endorsement by individuals and active engagement with conspiracy theories in social spaces.Ĭonspiracy theories-beliefs attributing agency over important world events to the secret plotting of powerful, malevolent groups-have been common in our population over a sustained period. Together, the analyses provide evidence for self-selection into communities with a shared set of interests which can feed into a conspiratorial world-view, and that these differences are detectable relative to controls even before users begin to post in r/conspiracy. Using a retrospective case control study design, we analyzed how Reddit users who would go on to engage with a conspiracy-related forum differed from other users in the language they use, differences in the social environments where they posted, and potential interactions between the two factors. The availability of large datasets of user comments from Reddit give a unique opportunity to observe human behavior in social spaces and at scale.

is a large connected set of online discussion forums, including one (r/conspiracy) devoted to wide-ranging discussion of conspiracy theories. The interaction between these factors is challenging to study using traditional experimental designs. Many individuals who engage with conspiracy theories come to do so through a combination of individual and social factors.

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