'The research showed that people who favored the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile'From personal experience with leaving comments critical of conventional views expressed in mainstream internet sites, I have often experienced extremely hostile ridicule. It seems to me that people who do not question authorities are people who have abandoned any effort to think for themselves. They are like children who never grow up and come to a mature understanding that no one person's views of reality are correct all the time. Thus their egos are especially vulnerable to people who question conventional views, and as a result they lash out at those who question. This can be true for people on the political left--although usually for different reasons--as well as people on the right. For such people the only option is to select which authorities to believe. Too often their choice is someone or source that exudes power and wealth.
We are all socialized to believe authority figures. This naturally occurs given the long years of childhood dependency on parents, but it is strongly reinforced by ruling classes in all institutions simply because of the basic illegitimacy of their self-serving rule. Their continued rule depends to a considerable extent on their subjects' willingness to believe the authorities that they have appointed to every institution.