"Thousands of people around the world woke up yesterday morning hoping it would be their last day on Earth. The 'Rapture' was a theory put forward by a South African pastor, claiming that Jesus would return to Earth on September 23, causing his followers to rise into the sky to meet him. While the theory was widely peddled across social media, it never came to fruition - leaving many believers disappointed."
"Earlier this year, scientists from Cornell University found that people who believe in conspiracy theories are likely to be hugely overconfident. 'One of the thing that seems to distinguish - at least some - conspiracy theorists is not just that their beliefs seem to be based on poor evidence, but also that they appear so confident in their beliefs,' study author Gordon Pennycook, an associate professor at Cornell University, told PsyPost."
A prediction that Jesus would return on September 23 caused widespread expectation of a rapture, but the event did not occur. A psychological investigation linked belief in extreme conspiracy theories to high levels of overconfidence. The investigation involved eight studies with 4,181 U.S. participants who completed cognitive tasks and estimated their own performance to generate overconfidence measures. Respondents also reported endorsement of various conspiratorial claims, such as the moon landing hoax and vaccines as government control. Statistical analyses found a strong association between overconfidence and endorsement of extreme conspiracy theories. The results suggest overconfidence helps explain resistance to changing conspiratorial beliefs.
Read at Mail Online
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