NSAS Idea Suggestion #8 - Science Behind The Conspiracy Theory Phenomenon

In this series I propose daily ideas for new members who are interested in becoming #steemstem authors.

NSAS: New STEM Authors Support

I will post an idea a dayish (it is the goal to post daily, but again real life>steemit for now). With this idea I will include a short description about aspects you may be interested in. If you read this idea proposal, and you like it, and you want to write about it:

Go to the comments and write: "I, username, claim this idea"

Obviously "username" is where you write your own username. This is so that I know who is interested in @steemstem and science in general and I am always looking for a good read. This is honor system stuff, so please respect someone claiming an idea. Again, this is just the first step towards writing a good science post. There is more to it. Do your research, use scientific sources and try to use some proper language and attractive design.
This series will have their own hashtag #nsas, so that you can go back and sort through some of the ideas I have shared and what people made out of it. If you decide to use the idea I propose, please also include #nsas on your posts so that I can have a look at it and maybe get you connected in the steemstem group.
Please also visit #steemstem on steemit as well as on Discord. Follow the guidelines and appreciate the community. That means engage, upvote and comment until your fingers bleed.

Background Source from Public Domain

I actually started on this post a while back and I have some 1-2 pages of material that I would be willing to surrender to you if you decide to take this post. The aim of this post is not to bash conspiracy theories and it should also not be written towards conspiracy theorists. My idea was to write a post for the science community here on steemit and explain why people fall/choose to believe in conspiracy theories. This will require you to do some research as it is not very easy to find studies that explain why people believe in these theories. My approach to this was to give a short summary about the prevalent conspiracy theories here on steemit (vaccines, chemtrails, fluoride) and then dive into the psychology. Two interesting finds: (1) people who believe in "the unseen" tend to believe conspiracy theories, regardless of education (2) people who believe in a conspiracy theory a more likely to believe in another, even if the second one completely contradicts the first.
Here are the sources for (1) Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Style(s) of Mass Opinion and (2) Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories. This should provide you with a pretty good start. Another thing you could look at is how fiercely people will defend their believes. Somebody once called the steemstem community "circlejerks". After reading a few stories of people publicly opposing conspiracy theories I got the feeling that this is an appropriate term for conspiracy theorists. Given this, do not take this topic if you cannot deal with criticism. I doubt many conspiracy theorists will read this, but if they do, there is a good chance that it will literally rain shit. Still, I am hoping somebody will take this topic because it is interesting and you are almost guaranteed to start a conversation because everybody has their opinion about this.

Previous Idea Suggestions:

• Suggestion #1: Onions and their Health Benefits
• Suggestion #2: Tea - The Silent Killer
• Suggestion #3: Essential Oils
• Suggestion #4: Biotechnology And Beer-Brewing
• Suggestion #5: Antioxidant Hype - Claimed by @deholt, build on by @csusbgeochem1
• Suggestion #6: Your Diet Changes Your Gut Microbiome Faster Than You Think
• Suggestion #7: Target Delivery Of Cancer Therapeutics

Mentoring

I am also a mentor for @steemstem. Currently, I have one mentee so, if you want me to help you get your foot in the stem-door, leave a comment or find me on Discord. Depending on where you live, it may take me a day to reply. I will also help you with any of the proposed ideas. Just contact me and send me a draft and I will give you my two cents.

As always,
Cheers @lesshorrible!