Why we believe conspiracies | Dan Ariely and the secrets of irrationality

Psychologist Dan Ariely explores the reasons behind why a large number of people believe in conspiracies and doubt the system.

How much of a threat might widespread misbelief be to our societies?

Misinformation affects all of us on a daily basis. While we recognise the dangers that misinformation poses, the problem is complex far beyond what policing social media alone can achieve and too often our limited solutions are shaped by partisan politics and individual interpretations of truth. Dan Ariely offers us a new perspective given his new work to overcome misbeliefs and conspiracy theories about him.

#conspiracy #psychology #posttruth

Dan Ariely is James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University. He explores the secrets of irrationality, explains why rational people believe irrational things and what we can do about it. His latest book is Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things.

00:00 Introduction
00:13 A conspiracy on Dan Ariely
05:20 The need for conspiracy theories
07:25 Stress
08:50 Complex stories and superstition
10:20 Confirmation bias
11:30 How to convince people

[ehudshapira]

The boldness having this man on for a video with this title when he was caught for faking research on trust is WILD

[breakfastchamp]

How is Ariely still being asked to speak when we can't currently know how much of his research is legit? He clearly lied and at the very least showed an extreme lack of respect for the preservation and verification of data/data quality. What is going on IAI!?

[bracero]

Why IAI would publish a video featuring a known fraud is absolutely incomprehensible to me. Isn’t it obvious how directly this places doubt upon their credibility? Now I have to assume everyone I see on this channel is a hack unless proven otherwise.

[somepersonalconsiderations]

Wonderful work on explaining the roots of psychological of conspiracy theories: stress, narrative (superstition) of villain and hero (us of course), secret knowledge, and personality traits.

[HealthPoliticsAndProtein]

People tend to act in their best interest. Thus groups with shared interests will tend to favor their interests. If they can influence laws and perception without too large a cost, they will. Governmental immunity - for police, politicians, really any government employee - lowers the cost significantly. Thus corruption can breed. Is this really so implausible?

[DiscipleOfHeavyMeta]

Mistrusting the system is irrational. Okay.

[mostlysunny]

And this type of thinking is why governments and beaurcratic institutions can freely commit crimes against humanity with absolute impunity.

[flomandru]

Trust (and credibility) is a basic social dimension even in science. Yet, so called researchers are still pathologizing the “Other”, even if they haven’t read an article on epistemology of trust. I recommend Jaron Harambam’s Contemporary Conspiracy Culture, who is trying to understand, not to pathologize.

[Jochadow]

Just leaving a reminder here for others to know that Mr. Ariely is a proven lier and plagiarist. You literally cannot believe a word he says or a piece of data he presents.

[Killer_Kovacs]

When it comes to highly irrational belief i believe that in the process of consciousness there is a sorting out of information, some information is labeled true and some false.

[HealthPoliticsAndProtein]

So focusing on feelings and personal history rather than facts and argument is the solution? Sounds like something a person like Ariely would prefer, yeah. Liars don’t like truly critical review of fact.

[DMAOZO]

people believe in conspiracy theories because those in power have been lying pretty consistently for all of human history. not a value judgement noble lies might be necessary. but people come up with different theories because they have limited information. pretty basic stuff.

[jamesonpace]

We choose who & what to trust. I trust Fauci, cogito ergo, etc. Yes, monkeys, we love our stories & our bananas....

[tycho]

Folks you may disagree with that particular topic but don't necessarily throw it all down the toilet (now that we know how toilet flushes work 😅)

[kafkaten]

What the hell happened to iai? They are now regularly platforming some pretty dishonest people. I'm going to unsubscribe for a while... which is a shame, because I used to really like their content.

[vitaliivoloshyn]

The biggest secret of irrationality is how he got this talk. disgusting

[johnmangala]

Not a single comment about this weirdos half beard? Or are they getting deleted

[nuanceblacksywin]

I like this video, and I'm unsubscribing from the channel. I don't like half videoes.

[SkyDarmos]

The death rate of the vaccine is 0.16%. Pretty high.

[LongLiveEnduro]

The video and the comments are very interesting. Thank you all very much and I have no complaints. Have a wonderful day.