How to become a conspiracy theorist: These are the four ways to become a conspiracy theorist.

When the second plane hit the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 , millions of people watched in horror on live television as the tragedy unfolded. Among them was Brad , a young man in his early twenties living in New Zealand . Unable to sleep, he stumbled downstairs to his living room, turned on the news, and was so shocked by what he saw on the screen that he wondered if he was still in a nightmare. In the days and weeks that followed, he couldn't stop thinking about what he had seen: tiny figures throwing themselves from burning buildings , people covered in dust and ash running through the streets of Manhattan, desperate relatives searching for information about their missing loved ones. He replayed the moment when the planes hit in his mind: the fireball crashing against the clear morning sky, and the chilling slow-motion collapse of the tower. He was a sensitive and thoughtful man who struggled to make sense of what was happening, which for him was emotionally devastating.

A few years later, Brad's preoccupation with 9/11 hadn't subsided when he traveled to the United States for work. He spent many months in an unfamiliar country without his usual support network of family and friends, with plenty of time to read and think . At one point, he came across a couple of documentaries about the tragedy that challenged the official version and offered alternative explanations for the events, giving him a glimpse of another possibility. So, he sought out more information and shared it with anyone who would listen. Not only did he find more theories about the Twin Towers attacks, but his exploration led him to the work of David Icke , a former British soccer player turned social media personality whose many claims include the idea that the Earth has been taken over by a sinister race of reptilians . Brad quickly embraced that belief, along with various theories about UFOs , aliens , and so on. Today, many years later, his thinking is based on the idea that the world is ruled by a diabolical cabal of pedophiles and that the September 11 attacks were the work of the US government.

Aside from working as a real estate agent and spending time with his wife and two children, Brad devotes every waking hour to researching and educating others about what's really happening in the world. Over the past two decades, he's descended quite a bit into the depths of the unfounded belief funnel . He now has a group of new friends he's met through his online explorations and has lost touch with many of the people he was once close to.

The funnel of unfounded belief is a complex and astonishing phenomenon. A person starts with one set of opinions and beliefs, enters the funnel, and emerges with another new set of opinions and beliefs. Family and friends often look on in bewilderment, unable to imagine how someone they thought they knew so well could have undergone such a change.

The basics of the funnel

In my opinion, the unfounded belief funnel is divided into emotional, cognitive, personal, and social elements . We'll use the term "elements" because it implies a multiplicity of basic components , each of which influences the structure.

Of course, the distinction between each element is imperfect, and the process isn't linear; it's not like saying A + B + C + D = a convert. It's not four distinct stages in a process, although some elements play a more prominent role at the beginning of the funnel and others become important later. Nor am I referring to a deterministic process: we could combine all the elements I'm about to describe without it guaranteeing that someone will become one of these converts. However, it does make it more likely.

Our exploration begins with the emotional elements, focusing on stress because it sets the stage. It will end with the social elements, as in many ways they are the ones that dictate the outcome. By examining each element, we will observe its role in the early and later stages of the descent through the funnel.

This is relevant when we think about how to reach someone trapped by these irrational beliefs . If, for example, we see that emotional elements, such as stress and fear, predominate in their experience, they are likely just beginning their journey, so there will be multiple ways to reach this person and slow or even reverse their fall. However, if social elements predominate, such as the desire to prove themselves or achieve status among their newly convinced social groups, this person has likely already descended far into the funnel. Freeing someone at this stage is much more difficult , although not impossible, because they are so socially entrenched in circles of believers and already distanced from many of their former support environments.

That said, it's important to remember that emotional, cognitive, personal, and social elements are at work throughout the entire process. Imagine four different colored liquids swirling down a funnel, occasionally mixing with each other—this gives you a sense of how these elements interact. We'll delve deeper into each of these throughout the book. I've divided them into four parts to create breaks, as each one contains a lot of information. I suggest you pause and take the time to reflect on and digest each part before moving on to the next. Think about how it relates to the people you know, and perhaps to you as well . To get started, here's a brief overview.

About the author and the book

Dan Ariely studied Physics and Mathematics at Tel Aviv University, and later Philosophy. In the United States, he earned a Master's degree in Cognitive Psychology from the University of North Carolina and a PhD in Business from Duke University, where he subsequently taught Behavioral Economics. He heads the eRationality research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. He publishes in numerous academic journals and newspapers such as The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , The New Yorker , and Scientific American , and appears on radio and television programs on National Public Radio, CNN, and CNBC. In The Spiral of Reason (Ariel), he unravels and illuminates the rational mechanisms that lead us to convince ourselves of irrational phenomena.

Emotional Elements : Humans are emotional creatures, and as social science has repeatedly shown, emotions tend to precede beliefs and are often the primary driver of our actions. As Jonathan Haidt has so persuasively argued, "First comes intuition; then comes strategic reasoning." In other words, we begin with an intense emotional response and then come up with its cognitive explanation. In the funnel of unfounded belief, the emotional elements focus on stress and the need to manage it, setting the stage for the other elements to take action.

Cognitive elements : The human mind has a tremendous capacity for reasoning, but that doesn't mean it's always rational. When we're motivated one way or another, confirmation bias kicks in, driving us to seek out information that satisfies that need, regardless of its accuracy. Then, the story becomes more complex: we construct narratives to reach the conclusions we want, and it's not just our way of thinking that takes us deeper into the funnel; it's our way of understanding our thinking that causes us problems when we become detached from reality.

Personal elements : Not all human beings are equally predisposed to unfounded beliefs. Individual differences play a fundamental role in the process by which some people descend through the funnel, while others do not. It turns out that some personalities are more susceptible than others : those who display certain traits are more prone to believing false narratives about the world. And while none of these personality characteristics is a guarantee that someone will become a believer, each of these traits increases the likelihood of this happening.

Social elements : Unfounded beliefs don't emerge from nowhere, nor do they persist. Powerful social forces attract people to change their minds, lead them down certain paths, keep them among their fellow believers, and even accelerate the radicalization of those beliefs. The sense of belonging, of being part of a community, is a powerful attraction and is particularly important in cases where people feel disconnected or excluded from mainstream society, a kind of ostracism. This is especially true when that isolation comes from their former circles of family and friends, a situation all too common among believers. Social media promotes information bubbles, while likes and replies from others foster a sense of being an active member of the community. In the funnel of unfounded beliefs, social elements are the components that dictate judgment and make it extremely difficult to escape.

This book approaches the psychological process of descending into unfounded belief primarily as a personal journey undertaken by the individual, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, driven by both internal and external forces. However, if we step back and examine this journey from the perspective of society at large, we see a different and more troubling picture. The individual trajectory of this descent mirrors a societal journey toward distrust . No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, and no matter where you are in the world (with the exception of Scandinavia, perhaps), it is difficult to escape the way the level of trust in our society is eroding, with alarming consequences.

Observing the process of unfounded belief through the lens of trust sheds much light on why people increasingly fall into core irrational beliefs (e.g., that the 2020 US presidential election was rigged or that JFK's assassination was a CIA plot). It also helps us understand why irrational beliefs attract other false ideas, even seemingly unrelated ones. Why are those with one unfounded belief likely to adopt others? Distrust! The accumulation of false beliefs makes sense when we realize that unfounded beliefs are underpinned by a loss of trust. When we begin to distrust one institution, it becomes easier to distrust another. Indeed, we may quickly assume that all institutions are likely to be the same: corrupt, greedy, and malevolent. If pharmaceutical companies are trying to make us sicker or even kill us, what does that tell us about the governments that regulate them? Maybe they're all in cahoots, the common thought goes. And if governments look the other way to avoid what the pharmaceutical companies are doing, perhaps they're also capable of their own misdeeds. Is it so far-fetched to think that they would mount an attack on their own citizens to justify the Iraq War? Isn't it conceivable that a warmongering government that wanted the Vietnam conflict to escalate would be responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy? So A leads to B, which leads to C, and COVID conspiracy theories lead to 9/11 conspiracy theories, which lead to JFK conspiracy theories. The common thread is distrust.

Distrust breeds distrust, which is part of the reason the web of misinformation has so many surprising points of connection. At the far end of the funnel is the parallel universe of QAnon , which weaves multiple threads of unfounded beliefs into a single tapestry. People come to this theory from both sides of the political spectrum and find the common thread of distrust of virtually everything: governments, medical professionals, nonprofit organizations, the media, and elites.

Although the story ofmisinformation and the funnel of unfounded belief is only one perspective on how mistrust is eroding our society, it is a central theme in this tragic story. It is a problem we must understand and address if we want to restore societal trust .