Research summary
2017Roland Imhoff & Pia Karoline Lamberty
Too Special to Be Duped: Why Believing Conspiracy Theories Can Make People Feel Unique
Why do some people find conspiracy theories more appealing when few others believe them? Researchers Roland Imhoff and Pia Lamberty investigated whether the desire to feel unique helps explain conspiracy beliefs. Their findings reveal how the attraction of possessing supposedly hidden knowledge can shape what people accept as true, including a surprising experiment in which some participants continued believing a completely fabricated conspiracy theory even after being told it was invented.