Why are conspiracy theories so attractive?

There is not so much of a difference between conspiracy theorists and the rest of us. We are drawn to the idea of conspiracy because it resonates with us; we understand the idea of people being self-interested and not having our best interests at heart, and having hidden motives and getting together to do shady stuff. Conspiracy theories extend upon that and tap into these assumptions and fears we have about the world. But we all have them, that’s why conspiracy theories make sense to us all.

How much can we really trust our own rationality and reason?

Not much at all. Most psychological research shows that we are all very much overly confident when it comes to trusting our own reasoning ability, our own perception, our own memory, all kinds of stuff. We live inside this kind of illusion that our brains concoct for us that we are seeing the world objectively and that we are coming to our beliefs because they are just the most sensible beliefs to have, but all the research shows we have a whole host of biases built into our brains that shape and colour our perception and beliefs about the world constantly without us being aware of it.

What’s the wildest conspiracy theory you have come across?

One of the most kind of colourful and extensive is [that of] David Icke. He says for example that the moon is hollow, that it is an artificial spaceship and the rings of Saturn are a broadcast device beaming mind control waves to the moon which amplifies them and sends them down to Earth.and colours or shapes, distorts our perception of reality so that we are all kind of living inside a hologram. It just goes on and on - he has an answer for absolutely everything. It is fairly implausible, I think it is fair to say. [But] as wild as it sounds it is kind of a hopeful message in a way in that it is saying: “Yes, there is a lot of stuff wrong with the world but we can put our finger on who’s responsible and what’s responsible for it and then we can do something about it.” That is appealing to a lot of people, especially those who don’t feel like they have a lot of control over their lives.

You write that trying to refute conspiracy theories is like nailing jelly to a wall – should we bother?

Most of them are probably pretty harmless but certain conspiracy theories can have tangible consequences, such as deciding whether to vaccinate your children or whether you should take action to prevent climate change. As for strategies that we should use, there really isn’t much research at all gone into that. I think that [debunking] can be actively counter-productive. I talk about confirmation bias and the backfire effect, and what it shows is that even presenting conclusive, compelling evidence that a conspiracy theory is wrong, for people who believe it, it can cause them to believe it even more strongly.

Why are events like the assassination of JFK such hotbeds for conspiracy theories?

We are all susceptible to the proportionality bias where we think that when something big happens, something big must have caused it. So it seems sort of intuitively implausible that just one strange loner, Lee Harvey Oswald, could just wake up one day and kill one of the most important people in the world, and shape the course of history. Events like the 9/11 attacks, these huge world-changing events, it makes sense why they produce some of the most popular and enduring theories when you think about it in terms of this proportionality bias that we are all susceptible to.

Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe in Conspiracy Theories by Rob Brotherton is published by Bloomsbury Sigma on 19 November, priced £16.99