 Arthur Brooks: Why Your Neighbor Became a Conspiracy Theorist. And Maybe You, Too. Millions of Americans aren’t just misinformed. They’re searching for coherence in a world that no longer provides it.
Countless Americans have turned away from formative institutions and put their trust and identity into conspiracy theories. (Illustration by The Free Press, images via Getty)
They were “kidnapping our loved ones and replac[ing] them with a bitter hollow shell of what they once were.” This sounds like a line from the campy 1978 sci-fi horror flick Invasion of the Body Snatchers, about aliens from a dying planet that come to Earth and replace humans with clones that are devoid of their old personality. But it’s not. This article is by Arthur Brooks. Sign up here to get an update whenever this author publishes a new column. It’s actually a quote from a recent study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships about the QAnon conspiracy theory, which alleges that the governing elite is dominated by a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic, deep-state pedophiles. Participants in the study described watching the theory take hold of their friends and family members, transforming them beyond recognition. Perhaps this scenario sounds familiar. You too may know someone who started “doing his own research” on politics, science, or the economy—and then went down an internet rabbit hole of posts claiming that some event or phenomenon was plotted by a clandestine group of powerful people or organizations, usually with sinister or malevolent intentions. Before you know it, he seems like a different person. His new beliefs dominate conversations and ruin relationships...
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