Stewart, HeatherWinegarten, Jonathan David2024-11-272024-11-272024-05https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14446/345701Many conspiracy theorists use conspiracy theories in order to justify harmful and false beliefs. Others use conspiracy theories as reasons to not trust others, especially experts. Yet, conspiracy theories are a unique form of false belief. Conspiracy theories seem to be self-insulated and are completely immune to counter-evidence, unlike other more mainstream scientific theories. Conspiracy theorists also seem to trust a completely separate set of experts than mainstream science. Building off of C. Thi Nguyen’s analysis of the gamification of Twitter, I aim to show that conspiracy theories gamify values in a similar way that Twitter does. Conspiracy theories switch values that experts care about (i.e., falsifiability, evidential support, etc.) with values that resonate with the experience of the conspiracy theorist (i.e., subjective clarity, safety, etc.) and notes this as “truth”. This connection of an explanation to some non-epistemic value helps self-insulate conspiracy theories by disguising claims about certain non-truth-related values as claims about truth. These gamified values also manipulate trust within the conspiracy theory by allowing for “experts” who share the same values of “truth” that the conspiracy theorist cares about. This is due to the fact that we naturally seem to trust those who share deeper values with us.application/pdfCopyright is held by the author who has granted the Oklahoma State University Library the non-exclusive right to share this material in its institutional repository. Contact Digital Library Services at lib-dls@okstate.edu or 405-744-9161 for the permission policy on the use, reproduction or distribution of this material.Thesisconspiracy theoriessocial epistemologytrustvalue capturevalue inquiryvalue theory