Understanding Conspiracy Theories.

Why this matters here

Douglas and colleagues review predictors, dissemination, and consequences of conspiracy belief, including epistemic, existential, and social motives. When Trust Stops Tracking Reality uses that literature as background for a further claim: trust can reorganize which signals and authorities feel available, so people reviewing similar events diverge long before they reach stable conclusions. The review maps motives and transmission; the book names the interpretive drift.