Are Conspiracy Theorists Confabulating?

Abstract In this paper, I outline the mechanisms of confabulation and how these mechanisms facilitate not only the maintenance of belief in conspiracy theories, but also their initial adoption. I argue by inference-to-best-explanation that many conspiracy theorists are confabulating, as this explanation best captures and explains three key observed features of conspiracy belief. These features are that conspiracy beliefs (i) are defended and elaborated on in a characteristic post-hoc manner, (ii) often draw on further conspiracy, and (iii) sometimes jointly endorse conspiracies which contradict each other. This account applies predominantly to the consumers of conspiracy theories who authentically believe them, as opposed to producers of conspiracy theories who are more likely to be hiding ulterior motives. Given the bizarreness, fixity, lack of evidential support and irrationality of many conspiracy beliefs, conspiracy theorists are often presumed to manifest some form of psychological pathology such as a paranoid delusion (Groh 1987; Grzesiak-Feldman and Ejsmont 2008). The conspiracy-as-confabulation account captures these features without needing to posit pathology. The account foregrounds a more important motivation which is present across both everyday and pathological forms of confabulation; a desire to make sense of certain existential feelings with an explanation of them. In particular, conspiracy theorists have feelings of uncertainty, powerlessness and distrust. Recognising that conspiracy theorists seek to make sense of such feelings with post-hoc explanations, can inform our ameliorative strategies so that they can be more effective.