A quarter-century after September 11, psychologists are still asking why some people find more comfort in shadowed explanations than in uncertain truths. Research emerging in 2026 confirms what many suspected: conspiracy beliefs offer a momentary sense of order and belonging, but over time they tend to deepen anxiety rather than dissolve it. The human need to name chaos is ancient and understandable — yet the frameworks we reach for in desperation do not always hold the weight we place on them.
Why Conspiracy Theories Offer Comfort But Not Peace
People who believe in conspiracies are asking questions but not getting answers.
Mark
So if conspiracy theories feel like they're helping people understand the world, why do psychologists say they're actually making things worse?
Mimi
Because the help is temporary. You get a moment of clarity—an explanation for why things feel out of control—but then you're left with more questions, more anxiety, more doubt. The comfort doesn't last.
Luke
But how do we know that? The article says self-report data are unreliable. People might just be telling researchers what they think they should say.
Mimi
That's exactly the problem Dagnall points out. We can't easily separate what conspiracy belief does to people from what kind of people are drawn to it in the first place. Someone who already struggles with anxiety might seek out conspiracies, and then their anxiety gets worse—but we can't prove the conspiracy belief caused it.
Mark
So we're measuring something real, but we can't measure it precisely.
Mimi
Right. Researchers try to get around it by measuring heart rate, skin conductance, retesting people over time. But the fundamental gap remains.
Luke
The article mentions that conspiracy thinking is actually pretty normal. Most people question official stories sometimes. So what's the difference between healthy skepticism and harmful conspiracy belief?
Mimi
It comes down to whether it disrupts your life. Dagnall doesn't believe in the moon landing, and it doesn't bother him. But for some people, conspiracy thinking becomes consuming—it feeds anxiety, paranoia, a sense that nothing is safe or knowable.
Mark
And there's no way to predict who will be harmed by it?
Mimi
Not really. Some people seem primed by their psychology to seek answers in conspiracies, and when they do, their distress often increases. But we can't identify them in advance.
Luke
So the research shows correlation, not causation. We know conspiracy belief and negative emotions often appear together, but we don't know which causes which.
Mimi
Exactly. And that uncertainty is part of why the research is so difficult. You're trying to measure something deeply subjective—how people feel about their beliefs—using tools that can only hint at the truth.
Le Pouls
- Conspiracy theories persist not because evidence accumulates, but because they fill a psychological void — offering explanation, community, and the illusion of control when the world feels ungovernable.
- Researchers face a stubborn methodological wall: people cannot reliably report their own beliefs or emotional states, making it nearly impossible to prove whether conspiracy thinking causes distress or simply attracts those already suffering.
- The line between healthy skepticism and harmful belief is blurrier than expected — some theories are harmless curiosities, while others correlate with measurable spikes in anxiety, paranoia, and emotional dysregulation.
- Studies show a narrow window of short-term relief — a sense of meaning, belonging, and answered questions — but this comfort collapses over time, leaving believers more uncertain and distressed than before.
- Psychologists warn that the trade conspiracy belief offers — exchanging the discomfort of not knowing for the false certainty of knowing something dark — consistently leaves people worse off in the long run.
A quarter-century after September 11, psychologists are still asking why some people find more comfort in shadowed explanations than in uncertain truths. Research emerging in 2026 confirms what many suspected: conspiracy beliefs offer a momentary sense of order and belonging, but over time they tend to deepen anxiety rather than dissolve it. The human need to name chaos is ancient and understandable — yet the frameworks we reach for in desperation do not always hold the weight we place on them.
Twenty-five years after September 11, certain people still believe the U.S. government engineered the attacks. The theory endures not because evidence keeps surfacing, but because it does something evidence rarely can: it gives chaos a name and a face. Psychologists have long tried to measure whether this kind of belief actually helps people feel better. The answer is more complicated — and more troubling — than a simple yes or no.
The research runs into a foundational problem. Conspiracy studies rely on self-reported data, and people are unreliable narrators of their own inner lives. Neil Dagnall, a psychology professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, notes that when two people claim to believe in conspiracies or report feeling happy, they may be measuring against entirely different internal standards. A 2026 study he co-authored flagged this limitation directly. Researchers have tried physiological workarounds — heart rate variability, stress responses, longitudinal retesting — but the core difficulty remains: it is hard to separate what conspiracy belief does to people from what draws certain people to conspiracy belief in the first place.
Conspiracy thinking is also more ordinary than we tend to admit. Healthy skepticism has exposed genuine wrongdoing throughout history, and some theories are benign enough to entertain without consequence. Dagnall himself doubts the 1969 moon landing and reports no particular distress about it.
For many others, though, the experience is different. Zuzanna Molenda, a researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences, led a 2023 study linking conspiracy belief to heightened negative emotion, anxiety, and paranoid thinking. People already struggling with threat and distress often find that conspiracy frameworks worsen rather than relieve their condition.
There is a brief window where these beliefs seem to deliver something real — explanation, belonging, a temporary answer to the question of why. But Molenda is clear that short-term comfort does not translate into lasting well-being. Psychologists identify a sense of direction and purpose as essential to mental health. When the search for answers produces only more uncertainty and doubt, the trade has failed. Conspiracy belief, Dagnall observes, offers the feeling of knowing something — but the something is dark, and the knowing does not hold.
A quarter-century after the September 11 attacks, some people still insist the U.S. government orchestrated the disaster—a theory that persists not because new evidence keeps emerging, but because it offers something more immediate than truth: a framework for understanding chaos, a way to name the powerful forces that feel like they've always controlled your life. Psychologists have spent years trying to measure whether believing in such theories actually helps people feel better. The answer, it turns out, is more complicated than yes or no—and ultimately more troubling than either.
The difficulty starts with a fundamental problem in psychology itself: researchers have to ask people how they feel and why they believe what they believe, and people are notoriously unreliable narrators of their own minds. Neil Dagnall, a psychology professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, explains that self-reported data—the backbone of conspiracy research—are inherently subjective. When two people say they're happy, or that they believe in conspiracy theories, they may mean entirely different things, measured against entirely different standards. Your sense of whether you believe in conspiracies depends partly on who you're comparing yourself to: friends who dismiss them, or a community that embraces them. There is no universal scale. This means researchers can identify correlations—people who believe in conspiracies often report certain emotional states—but cannot prove causation. A study Dagnall co-authored in May 2026 on conspiratorial beliefs and well-being explicitly flagged this limitation. Psychologists have tried to work around it by measuring heart rate variability, skin conductance under stress, and retesting the same people over time, but the fundamental problem remains: we cannot easily separate what conspiracy belief does to people from what kind of people are drawn to conspiracy belief in the first place.
What complicates the picture further is that conspiracy thinking is far more ordinary than we admit. Most people, at some point, encounter something strange or troubling in the world and wonder whether the official story holds up. Sometimes this skepticism is healthy—it has sparked real investigations into genuine government wrongdoing, from Watergate to the parties held by British officials during COVID lockdowns. Other conspiracy theories, like the claim that no one ever landed on the moon, are harmless enough that people can entertain them without disruption to daily life. Dagnall himself doesn't believe in the 1969 moon landing, and it doesn't seem to bother him.
But for many people, conspiracy theories are not harmless. Zuzanna Molenda, a researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences who led a 2023 study on emotion dysregulation and conspiracy belief, points to ample evidence that exposure to or belief in conspiracy theories correlates with more negative emotions, heightened anxiety, and even paranoid thinking. Some people may be primed by their psychology to seek answers in conspiracies—they already struggle with threat and distress—and when they do, their existing negative state often worsens rather than improves. Molenda wrote to Deutsche Welle that the available evidence suggests conspiracy beliefs may accompany or contribute to further distress, rather than help people manage it.
There is a narrow window where conspiracy theories seem to offer something real. They can provide explanation when events feel senseless. They can create a sense of belonging with others who share the same worldview. They can be entertaining. For a moment, they answer the question: why is this happening? But Molenda emphasizes that these short-term benefits do not translate into better well-being over time. Psychologists speak of "presence"—a sense of direction and purpose in life—as essential to mental health. If your search for answers leads you toward presence, that's good. If it leads only to more uncertainty, more anxiety, and more doubt about your place in the world, that's harmful. And people who believe in conspiracies, Dagnall observes, are asking questions but not getting answers. They are trading the discomfort of not knowing for the false comfort of knowing something dark, and discovering too late that the trade leaves them worse off than before.
Citations marquantes
Conspiracy beliefs can provide people with a sense of explanation and understanding when events feel uncertain, but these potential benefits do not necessarily translate into better well-being in the longer term.— Zuzanna Molenda, Polish Academy of Sciences
The judgment I'm making is a relative one. What's my norm? Am I comparing it to my friends who don't believe in conspiracies, or am I in a group of people who do believe in conspiracies?— Neil Dagnall, Manchester Metropolitan University
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