Do conspiracy theorists see more patterns in randomness? Apparently not

Three experiments found no difference in conspiracists’ information processing

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[bluloo]

QuidNYC[/url]":14xczw27]Whether or not such people actually think differently, there's got to be an identifiable psychological component. Grandiosity? Those bitten hardest by the conspiracy theory bug seem to take particular joy in asserting their superiority over the "sheeple." And once you've started viewing the entire world through that lens (with confirmation bias), I'm sure it's easy to keep going.

IME, you can say much the same about various groups of people, including fans of winning sports franchises, those supporting various "scientific" causes, etc.
I think that's a growing tendency reflecting broader sociocultural forces, rather than being limited to "conspiracy theorists".

Based on this, and prior research, I think it has at least as much to do with the broader culture and belief formation (and potentially, the tendency to see larger patterns where none exist), than a specific tendency to see patterns in the simplest of random phenomena.

 

[bluloo]

Dilbert[/url]":3f0icfoj]IME (at work in a tech field) techs and engineers overheard rambling on about zero point energy, moon hoax, face on mars, Alex Jones, birth certificates, etc etc etc.... also see causation in patterns that do not and often cannot be causal. There's nothing worse than a conspiracy theorist in a position where they have to troubleshoot. Troubleshooting is often about discovering valid causation patterns. And the conspiracy nutjobs are terrible at it.

I know it contradicts these findings. It's just what I've observed.

It doesn't necessarily contradict the study findings, as they only looked at very simple systems. The perceived patterns, nature and strength of relationships between entire knowledge systems of information (vs a simple string of letters or numbers) is going to be more complex.

 

[bluloo]

athan[/url]":14fjtvlw]I wonder where conspiracy theorists would tend to land on the myers-briggs test, or at least if they tend to be emotionally/logically motivated.

My money is a skew towards logical thinking. Really, I bet there's a maddening feedback loop. Logical argument for conspiracy met with emotional dismissal, driving a person to find more logical arguments--even less grounded in reality--met with an even harder eyeroll.

Your general sentiment not withstanding, Meyers-Briggs isn't regarded as a valid instrument.
Though relatively common, it's basically pop-culture info-tainment, and heavy on the entertainment and rather light on the info.