Group mentality makes people believe in conspiracy theories

The argument

A group mentality is a core part of conspiracy theories, and this argument locates the reason for belief in social identity rather than in evidence or individual reasoning. The narrative of a conspiracy theory characteristically presents an "intergroup context where a powerful out-group threatens the well-being of the perceiver's fellow in-group members". The structure holds even where the content varies completely: there is a group the believer belongs to, a more powerful group acting against it, and a hidden campaign that explains what the in-group has suffered. That structure does social work regardless of whether the account is true. It supplies an explanation for misfortune which places responsibility outside the group, it identifies the in-group as the party wronged, and it makes attending to the threat a matter of loyalty. Believing becomes a way of standing with one's own. The effects then feed back into the belief. People are likely to become more entrenched in their groups through conspiracy belief, because accepting the narrative involves accepting that outsiders are not to be trusted — including outsiders who dispute the theory, whose disagreement can be read as evidence of complicity rather than as a reason to reconsider. Alongside that mistrust develops a collective narcissism: the conviction that the believer's group alone has access to the truth, which turns the belief from a claim about the world into a mark of membership. At that point the ordinary corrective mechanisms are closed off, since the people best placed to offer contrary evidence are precisely the ones the narrative has already disqualified. On this argument, belief in conspiracy theories is sustained by the group dynamics surrounding it rather than by its content — which is to say that social factors are what make people believe.

Premises

Counter-arguments

A counter notes that group mentality may be a consequence of holding conspiracy beliefs as much as a cause of them, so the direction of explanation is uncertain. The in-group/out-group framing it describes also overlaps with the rival 'cognitive' and 'psychological' accounts, suggesting group dynamics are one mechanism among several rather than the decisive social driver. Critics add that many believers now arrive at their views individually online rather than through tight-knit social groups, so group belonging may explain the persistence and spread of a conspiracy theory better than its initial adoption.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Entrenchment in a group may follow from adopting a conspiracy belief rather than cause it, so the causal direction the argument assumes is uncertain. [Rejecting C] In-group/out-group framing overlaps with the cognitive and psychological accounts, so group mentality is plausibly one contributing mechanism among several rather than the decisive social cause.