The Ingredients that go into the making of a Conspiracy Theory
From an article I read months ago at Psychology Today, I think it was.
1. The Dunning–Kruger effect is the cognitive bias whereby people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills.
2. Apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. The term was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia. He defined it as "unmotivated seeing of connections [accompanied by] a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness". Other science sources explain that the brain came to specialize in meaning-making and pattern-finding. The brain has evolved in a dangerous environment where the ability to fill in the blanks conferred important survival advantages.
3. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.
Put these all together, in no specific order, and you've got one person or a group of people who once supplied with random non-facts can twist, bend, rationalize and spread any imagined idea, event or plan as a real thing.
Anyone else see that article? I did a quick search and found similar articles but the exact one that I read.
