Conspiracy belief compounds and tolerates flagrant logical contradictions

Evidence

Uscinski and Parent’s research revealed that people who believe in one conspiracy theory are likely to believe in others, a kind of domino effect of the mind. This isn’t a new result: a much smaller survey in 1994 showed a similar pattern. Ted Goertzel at Rutgers University surveyed 348 people in New Jersey, finding that most of them classified at least one of ten conspiracy theories as “probably” true. Fascinatingly, other studies show that people are able to believe in multiple conspiracy theories even when they’re logically contradictory: in my reporting, for example, I’ve seen people claim that both vaccines and a weed killer called Roundup are responsible for increased autism rates. (In an attempt to split the difference, some folks say that Roundup somehow made its way into the vaccines.) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 94

Categorization

• XREF: Belief in mutually contradictory claims is the signature of identity-protective reasoning — the same underlying mechanism vault-claimed for authoritarianism and status-threat prejudice, not evidence evaluation. — connects to: Misread art semiotics confirmed believers’ demonic conspiracy regardless of rebuttals — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 279; Conspiracy beliefs can hold contradictory premises together without resolution — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 333; Conspiracy theorists reinterpret absence of proof and challenges as confirming evidence — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 216
• DEEPTHINKING: That a belief system can hold logically contradictory claims simultaneously points to a motive (identity defense) that operates below the surface of propositional content — fits the claim from passage 90 about accuracy goals being trumped.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: whether the tolerance for contradiction tracks the motivated-reasoning account directly or whether belief coherence is simply lower-stakes than it appears to outsiders.

Broader Connections

• Conspiracy beliefs can hold contradictory premises together without resolution #corroborates (1.00) — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 333
• Conspiracy theorists reinterpret absence of proof and challenges as confirming evidence #expands (0.85) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 216