About the article:
Conspiracy beliefs can’t be understood merely as a lack of knowledge. This text explores how cognitive load, psychological needs, and digital environments together shape our collective capacity to think.
Introduction
Over the past two decades, research has begun to map how digital acceleration affects human cognitive abilities. Studies show that our capacity for slow thinking, processing complex information, and holding multiple perspectives simultaneously is fundamentally challenged by how contemporary content is consumed. At the same time, cognitive strain and the demand to rapidly navigate ever-changing information flows are increasing.
This impacts not just individual well-being, but the functioning of society. As cognitive capacity diminishes, vulnerability grows to simplified explanatory models, polarization, and information manipulation. In that context, conspiracy beliefs become not an anomaly, but an expression of what happens when the mental structures we once took for granted begin to give way.
In this article, one example is highlighted: how psychological needs connect to conspiracy beliefs, and how this dynamic is amplified by neurological changes occurring in parallel. The starting point is the article From Truth to Tribe from Greece Fact Check, which clearly describes the psychological drivers behind conspiracy thinking. When this is set against today’s cognitive wear, the picture becomes sharper.
“The question is not who is right, but what happens to our collective thinking capacity when these patterns continue.”
Conspiracy beliefs as apsychological phenomenon
In From Truth to Tribe: The Psychology Behind Conspiracy Beliefs, Chris Kremidas-Courtney summarizes three central psychological drivers behind why people gravitate toward conspiracy theories:
- Epistemic needs: the search for understanding and clear explanations
- Existential needs: the need for control and security in uncertain times
- Social needs: the desire for belonging, often through sharing an alternate worldview
In uncertain and information-saturated environments, conspiracy theories fulfill these needs by offering coherent, emotionally satisfying explanations—especially when institutional trust is low or communication from public actors feels contradictory.
From a systemic perspective, this trust in alternative narratives doesn’t primarily arise from ignorance, but as a human adaptation to cognitive overload. Conspiracy beliefs become a response to perceived cognitive imbalance rather than an active choice against facts.
Cognitive load and biological amplifiers
Alongside these psychological drivers, biological changes also affect our cognitive resilience. Research shows that repeated short-term stimulation—such as fast-paced information streams, notifications, and fragmented media—leads to dopamine-triggered attention, cognitive exhaustion, and eventually synaptic pruning. While synaptic pruning is a natural part of brain development, it is influenced by the kind of stimulation we are regularly exposed to. In environments where the brain’s reward system is constantly triggered, its capacity to preserve and develop the connections required for deep processing decreases. The result: complex thought processes are deprioritized in favor of quick, intuitive responses.
“This makes us more receptive to narratives that feel true, even when they lack factual grounding.”
When thinking becomes a system issue
Considering both the psychological and biological patterns together makes clear that this isn’t solvable at the individual level. It’s not that people lack critical thinking; it’s that their environments are eroding cognitive capacity over time.
When intuitive narratives take hold before those that require deliberation, it’s not a question of weak will but structural shifts in how the brain processes information. Conspiracy beliefs thus become symptoms—not of naivety, but of overload.
This creates a system-level responsibility. Just as we build physical accessibility into environments or cybersecurity into systems, we must also build support for cognitive integrity. This applies across educational systems, media ecosystems, technology design, and policy development.
“For actors in learning systems, responsibility doesn’t end with content, it begins with structure.”
How we configure access, pace, context, and meaning shapes directly what kind of thinking becomes possible. We need learning systems that resist cognitive erosion—not by excluding technology, but by designing it with an understanding of human capacity.
Conclusion
What appears as a rise in misinformation or conspiracy beliefs often mirrors something deeper: a shift in people’s capacity to process, understand, and retain complex information.
When our cognitive resources are stretched by speed, volume, and fragmentation, it becomes easier to follow narratives that require less yet deliver more in the short term.
As our ability to process information changes, so does the foundation of societal functioning. Cognitive resilience, critical scrutiny, and perspective-taking are not just individual skills, they are foundational to democracy, to research, and to functional collaboration.
If these functions weaken, understanding complex issues becomes harder. Sustaining interpersonal trust, shared understanding, and long-term problem-solving becomes harder too.
“Therefore, we must understand cognitive integrity not as an abstract principle, but as a practical condition for development, at the individual level, in workplaces, and across society as a whole.”
Understanding these dynamics isn’t about assigning blame, but reclaiming the space for agency, both cognitively and collectively.
References
- Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), 15583–15587.
- Wilmer, H. H., Sherman, L. E., & Chein, J. M. (2017). Smartphones and cognition: A review of research exploring the links between mobile technology habits and cognitive functioning. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 605.
- Montag, C., & Walla, P. (2016). Carpe diem instead of losing your social mind: Beyond digital addiction and why we all suffer from digital overuse. Cogent Psychology, 3(1).
- Christakis, D. A. (2019). The role of media in child development: The road ahead. Pediatrics, 143(6).
Also discussed:
- Kremidas-Courtney, C. (From Truth to Tribe: The Psychology Behind Conspiracy Beliefs, Greece Fact Check).
- Scholz et al., 2009; Tavor et al., 2020; Yang et al., 2024; Kim et al., 2024.
Series Information (Footer)
Some of the reasoning in this article draws from Chris Kremidas-Courtney’s analysis in From Truth to Tribe: The Psychology Behind Conspiracy Beliefs, published by Greece Fact Check.
This text is part of Katri Lindgren’s Metacognitive Reflections, where contemporary phenomena are explored through cognitive and systemic perspectives.
Published May 22, 2025 – Katri Lindgren.
