title: Why conspiracy theories can be so irresistible: people who prefer structured, rule‑based explanations may find conspiracy theories appealing because they offer a clear, ordered explanation for events that feel chaotic
author: u/srlocal
contenttype: redditpost
publication: r/science
published: 2026-02-27T16:39:34+00:00
sourceurl: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1rgbnar/whyconspiracytheoriescanbesoirresistible/
word_count: 376
Link: https://news.flinders.edu.au/blog/2026/02/27/why-conspiracy-theories-can-be-so-irresistible/
Score: 1459 | Comments: 246 | Subreddit: r/science
Top Comments
u/Patelpb (199 pts):
There's also a sense of community in 'knowing' a 'truth' that most others are not privy to. It directly feeds into vanity and arrogance
It's also a result of genuinely not feeling like institutions and authority figures want people to understand things, and are asserting facts/truth for their own gain. Skepticism for skepticism's sake.
It's a multifaceted issue
u/sr_local (34 pts):
New research led by Flinders University has found that understanding how someone processes information can be a strong predictor of whether they are drawn to conspiracy beliefs that can influence vaccine uptake, trust in institutions and responses to emergencies.
Rather than pointing to poor reasoning, the study highlights the role of a thinking style known as ‘systemising’, a strong drive to identify patterns and make sense of events through consistent rules, in shaping how people interpret complex information.
In the study, the team identified different thinking profiles and found that individuals who strongly liked patterns and structure were more likely to believe conspiracy theories, even when they demonstrated good scientific reasoning skills.
u/Ewy_Kablewy (9 pts):
Reality is often far messier and stranger than we are willing to admit or capable of admitting.
u/Silent-Storms (90 pts):
Makes sense. It's the same reason people turn to religion, to make unknowns less scary.
u/Aleksandrovitch (55 pts):
We are in the process of discovering at least one massive conspiracy right at this moment. International sex trafficking ring funded and used by the ultra-rich… Books, movies and now millions of pages of proof to back up decades of whispers (and shouts). It has me re-evaluating every persistent but consistently dismissed conspiracy. Maybe people don’t just ‘go missing.’ Maybe they’re trafficked. Or taken. At this point I don’t think it’s reasonable to dismiss anything at all anymore without overwhelming data or lack thereof.
No more taboo. Only truth.
u/PhD_Pwnology (7 pts):
this is also the basis for scientific thought btw. Making order out of chaos by using logic to come up with testable predictions on how something could have happened
u/ratpH1nk (6 pts):
TL;DR most people are not well informed, life is complex, simple, even if outlandish, explanations are sometimes easier than reality or we don’t know.
u/spatula (39 pts):
Fascinating to have some rigorous evidence of this. I believe they also make otherwise mediocre people feel special, like they have some kind of profound insight that other people lack.
u/CandidKoala3602 (5 pts):
I’ve been studying this recently, and yes there are certain brains that are more acutely tuned for pattern recognition than others. They specifically have a hard time existing with unclosed loops in understanding. For that kind of mind, it is deeply unsettling to imagine something that cannot be reformed as a structure, even if it’s just in a hand-wavy way. The need for order is actually as aspect of OCD. It is a subconscious compulsion.
Conspiracy theories are exactly this. Large, cross-scale, unorganized pattern recognition. Often they are untrue, but for that person, they close the loop.
Schizophrenics have their pattern recognition cranked to 11, which is how they actually see and hear things that are not there. (This is a bad explanation of the illness, please don’t crucify me for it, I was just trying to make a point that compulsion is the driving factor.)
u/Hatta00 (8 pts):
But conspiracy theories don't provide clear, ordered explanations. They prompt far more questions than the actual explanation.
Take the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen. How then? Where's the evidence? How do the people making this claim know the election was stolen? Why did Republicans win so many down ticket elections if Democrats had rigged them? Where is the clear, rules based explanation for this?
Now consider the actual explanation. People were unhappy with Trump's first term and they voted accordingly. That's a clear, rules based explanation.
It might be the case that people with "systemic thinking" are more likely to believe conspiracy theories, but conspiracy theories don't provide simple explanations. They are usually much more absurd than the truth.
u/sociallyawkwaad (36 pts):
They also keep turning out to be true lately, so that's something.
u/Kashgari20K (10 pts):
A lot of "conspiracy theories" have come true like the island we all know about and the ultra rich "drinking baby blood" ( harvest stem cells to repair their own bodies) and much more
So no wonder more and more people start believing in them when they actually keep happening.
u/trancepx (5 pts):
Every article or study that seems to denigrate efforts to seek the truth are either intentionally providing cover for actual crimes/activities, or inadvertently doing so out of conforming to trends and norms, also for grant money/paid studies.
Ah yes don't be suspicious or attempt to make sense of the world, do not speculate as to the reasons why things are, or you are mentally ill and have no credibility, Infact, people that attempt to make sense of the world are 378% more likely to be of bad nature, or something....look it doesn't matter just stop worrying about all the things happening in the world that seem suspect or nefarious, it's all in good hands. Now take your meds!
There is a huge difference in lowest tier click-bait youtube conspiracy mind-rot engagement-bait, and actual ongoing open source investigatory efforts. You can tell the difference by their profit motive and signal/noise ratio.
Nearly every "official" study on conspiracy theories, is hand wavey and operates on the premise that conspiracy theories cannot be actually true, which would be highly convenient for those who are invested in covering their misdeeds and are actually conspiring/plotting/have acted on nefarious activities, every suspicion is a theory until proven true.
u/DROOPY1824 (6 pts):
Posting this in the midst of the single biggest conspiracy of all time being revealed as true and STILL being actively covered up is certainly not suspicious.