Re: Stephen Hawking Is A Fake
People who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to be suffering from stress, a new study by British researchers has found.
The study, led by Anglia Ruskin University's Professor Viren Swami, is the first to analyse the relationship between psychological stress and belief in conspiracies.
During his research, Professor Swami recruited 420 participants from the ages of 20 and 78, and asked them how strongly they believed in conspiracy theories like the supposed faking of the 1969 moon landing, or the alleged assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. by the US government.
He then assessed their levels of stress, gathering information on their general mental states and the number of stressful experiences they had gone through recently.
Overall, the study found that the stronger their belief in conspiracy theories, the more stressful life events they had experienced in the previous six months, and the higher their general levels of stress were in the previous month.
The participants came from varying demographics, but the results stayed consistent across the board - younger people were slightly more likely to believe in conspiracies, but there were no significant differences in belief between women and men, or different social classes.