A recent a piece of research published by Viren Swami and colleagues has uncovered a link between feeling stressed and belief in conspiracy theories.
Swami and colleagues gathered responses from over 400 people, where the responders completed various measures, such as indicating their perceived stress (over the last month), stressful life events (over last 6 months) and belief in conspiracy theories. They found that more stressful life events and greater perceived stress predicted belief in conspiracy theories.
There are a couple of reasons proposed why this may be the case. For example, when people experience stress (say a stressful life event), they may start thinking in a particular way such as seeing patterns when they do not exist, which may lead on to prompting a conspiratorial mind set. Once this worldview has begun to develop therefore, belief in conspiracy theories are more easily reinforced.
Alternatively, the researchers suggest stress…
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