Conspiracy thinking can be viewed as a form of narrative comprehension. We routinely infer actors’ goals and plans when someone tells us a story. However, comprehenders extend this practice when considering real-world events, which are not orchestrated by a narrator. Comprehenders routinely favor information that is consistent with their perspective, but conspiracy thinkers likely do this to a greater extent, due to the low levels of cognitive reflection they exhibit. Comprehenders supplement incoming information with background knowledge. Conspiracy thinkers do this as well, but their knowledge base deviates from that of the mainstream, as a result of exposure to large amounts of misinformation.

阴谋思维可以看作是叙事理解的一种形式。当有人给我们讲故事时，我们通常会推断演员的目标和计划。然而，理解者在考虑现实世界的事件时扩展了这种做法，这些事件不是由叙述者精心策划的。理解者通常偏爱与他们的观点一致的信息，但阴谋思想者可能在更大程度上这样做，因为他们表现出的认知反思水平较低。理解者用背景知识补充传入的信息。阴谋论者也这样做，但由于暴露于大量错误信息，他们的知识库偏离了主流。