I read an interesting study recently about people who are prone to believing conspiracy theories and more outlandish claims. It was pretty sad actually, but makes a lot of sense.
They found that in a majority of cases, there was an unresolved reinforced micro-trauma from childhood, where the person believed themselves to be intelligent (whether or not that was the case) but that their intelligence growing up wasn't recognised. Therefore they were drawn to things like conspiracy as adults, as it gave them the opportunity to be able to believe and state that they were more intelligent than normal people, because they were able to see patterns and events differently. Of course, the conspiracies encourage this by calling other people "sheep" and claiming that those "in the know" were the much vaunted "critical thinkers" in comparison to others. It also gave them the opportunity to say things akin to "see, I am clever", and therefore resolving that early trauma, by coming back and claiming "I was right all along" as some kind of dominion over what everyone else was thinking.
Made a lot of sense.