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Whatsapp The Illuminati are an example of a particularly robust conspiracy theory.

There's a conspiracy theory for just about everything, from 9/11 to the Moon landing. It's not just the paranoid fringe who believe in them, either. How do we decide what's reasonable and what's ridiculous? Lynne Malcolm and Olivia Willis examine the psychology of conspiracy thinking.

September 11 was an inside job. Princess Diana was murdered in a government plot. The Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked. The New World Order is taking over.

Conspiracy theories are rife, and entertaining them is in our nature. But how do we decide what's crazy and what's a sign of something sinister actually taking place?

Sometimes our brain is so good at finding patterns, it finds patterns that aren't even really there.

'Research from within psychology has really taken off looking at why people believe conspiracy theories. Within the last five or 10 years, there have been more and more psychologists turning their attention to this,' says Rob Brotherton, an academic psychologist and the author of Suspicious Minds.

He believes what was once the pastime of 'intelligent outsiders' is now commonplace. Conspiracies are entertained by a broad swath of the population.

'The stereotype is that conspiracy theorists are crazy, that they are paranoid and that they shouldn't be listened to. I don't think that's reasonable … and I don't think it's backed up by the research.'

In fact, psychological research suggests that we're all conspiracy theorists, thanks in a large part to our cognitive makeup. Brotherton says a series of innate cognitive biases are 'wired into our heads', dictating how conspiracy-minded we are.

'These traits of mind that we have, these shortcuts that our brains take ... they can lead us to suspect a conspiracy has occurred, whether it has or not.'

According to the psychologist, it all begins with our instinctive desire for control.

'This is something that we all suffer from, not just in the context of conspiracy theories, but we all want to feel like we have control over our circumstances and that we understand what's going on around us.

'When that feeling of control is stripped away for whatever reason ... then we look for other sources of control, what is called compensatory control.

'Conspiracy theories are one manifestation of this need ... we think that if we don't have control that at least somebody does, even if they don't have our best interests at heart.'

Read more: What are the odds the Moon landing was faked?

Brotherton also points to our hardwired ability to recognise patterns.

'Finding patterns is an ability that we rely on every moment of the day really,' he says. 'It's one of our brain's most remarkable abilities and it underlies all kinds of human endeavours.

'But sometimes our brain is so good at finding patterns that it finds patterns that aren't even really there. It can find patterns in randomness. Conspiracy theories might be an example of this, taking these events that happen in the world, this chaotic information, and finding the dots that seem to be connected.'

Then there's our 'intentionality bias' our brains' tendency to assume that any ambiguous event was intended, that somebody meant it to happen.

'There's research on this bias from developmental literature,' says Brotherton. 'It's been found that if you ask a child why did somebody sneeze or why did they trip over ... young children below the age of about four think that people meant to do that.

'Of course, as we get older, we learn that people don't always mean to sneeze or fall over, and so we become able to apply our knowledge and to override that bias.

'But what the research shows is that the bias is still there, it's still on the back of our mind and our brain is telling us, whispering in the back of our head that everything about this was intended. Somebody meant this to happen.'

Next on the list is 'proportionality bias', our brains' assumption that the causes of events must be as big or as important as the events themselves. JFK assassination conspiracy theories are a perfect example of this—many people find it hard to believe that the president of the United States was assassinated by a lone madman. Instead, they look to the KGB or the mafia—explanations that fit the scale of the crime.

More: A very real imaginary illness

Then there's good old-fashioned confirmation bias: the fact that we tend to surround ourselves with people and information that confirm what we already believe.

'If you scrutinise your Twitter followers or your Facebook friends or the newspapers and magazines that you read ... you'll probably find that a lot of it is consistent with what you already believe, and you don't really read much stuff that goes against what you believe,' says Brotherton.

'When it comes to conspiracy theories, it becomes very possible to surround yourself with just like-minded people who believe what you believe.'

According to Brotherton, our pre-existing ideologies play a major role in how we interpret events and information. Rather than processing facts in a logical or reasoned way (as we like to believe we do), we sub-consciously filter information to suit a narrative we've already created.

'People to the left and the right of the political spectrum, they both have conspiracy theories but they point them in different directions,' says Brotherton.

'For example, the 9/11 conspiracy theories are more widely believed among people on the left, among liberals, whereas, for example, the conspiracy theories about President Obama not having been born in the United States or being a secret Muslim ... they were much more widely believed on the right.'

Both sides, he says, are as conspiratorial as one another; they simply use information differently.

Because these thinking patterns are hardwired, it's difficult to change our own minds, let alone anybody else's.

Given our innate susceptibility to conspiracy theories, Brotherton believes awareness of our own biases is the best we can hope for.

'Everybody suffers from these biases ... so a good first step would be to realise that, to accept that, and then to look at our beliefs and try and critically evaluate them.

'Why do we believe the things we believe? Is it based on the good, objective, fair survey of the best available evidence, or might we be falling into some of the traps laid down by these biases?'

Hear the truth There's a conspiracy theory for just about every major event—but believers aren't just on the paranoid fringe, wearing tinfoil hats.



