Conspiracy theories are “alternative” explanations ofwell-understood events or phenomena. What makes themattractive explanations to so many people? We investigatewhether people ascribe characteristics typical of goodexplanations to conspiracy theories and whether they areperceived as more appealing explanations when they arearticulated as a refutation of the official version of events. Intwo experiments, participants read explanations of fourconspiracy theories and rated them along six dimensions ofexplanatory quality. We find that some explanatory virtues areascribed to conspiracy theories even by people who do notbelieve the conspiracy. Contrary to our predictions, we alsofind that framing a conspiracy as a refutation did not generallyelicit higher ascriptions of explanatory virtues. These resultssuggest that explanatory considerations may play a morecentral role in conspiracist beliefs than was previously thought
