New psychological research helps explain why some see
intricate government conspiracies behind events like 9/11 or the Boston
bombing
Why do so many doubt the U.S. was there?
Image: NASA
Did NASA fake the moon landing? Is the government hiding Martians in Area 51? Is
global warming a hoax? And what about the Boston Marathon bombing…an “inside job” perhaps?
In the book “The Empire of Conspiracy,” Timothy Melley explains that
conspiracy theories have traditionally been regarded by many social
scientists as “the implausible visions of a lunatic fringe,” often
inspired by what the late historian Richard Hofstadter described as “the
paranoid style of American politics.” Influenced by this view, many
scholars have come to think of conspiracy theories as paranoid and
delusional, and for a long time psychologists have had little to
contribute other than to affirm the psychopathological nature of
conspiracy thinking, given that conspiricist delusions are commonly
associated with (schizotype) paranoia.
Yet, such pathological explanations have proven to be widely
insufficient because conspiracy theories are not just the implausible
visions of a paranoid minority.
For example, a national
poll
released just this month reports that 37 percent of Americans believe
that global warming is a hoax, 21 percent think that the US government
is covering up evidence of alien existence and 28 percent believe a
secret elite power with a globalist agenda is conspiring to rule the
world. Only hours after the recent Boston marathon bombing, numerous
conspiracy theories were floated ranging from a possible ‘inside job’ to
YouTube
videos claiming that the entire event was a hoax.
So why is it that so many people come to believe in conspiracy theories?
They can't all be paranoid schizophrenics. New studies are providing
some eye-opening insights and potential explanations.
For example, while it has been
known
for some time that people who believe in one conspiracy theory are also
likely to believe in other conspiracy theories, we would expect
contradictory conspiracy theories to be negatively correlated. Yet, this
is not what psychologists Micheal Wood, Karen Douglas and Robbie Suton
found in a recent
study.
Instead, the research team, based at the University of Kent in England,
found that many participants believed in contradictory conspiracy
theories. For example, the conspiracy-belief that Osama Bin Laden is
still alive was positively correlated with the conspiracy-belief that he
was already dead before the military raid took place. This makes little
sense, logically: Bin Laden cannot be both dead and alive at the same
time. An important conclusion that the authors draw from their analysis
is that people don't tend to believe in a conspiracy theory because of
the specifics, but rather because of higher-order beliefs that support
conspiracy-like thinking more generally. A popular example of such
higher-order beliefs is a severe “distrust of authority.” The authors go
on to suggest that conspiracism is therefore not just about belief in
an individual theory, but rather an ideological lens through which we
view the world. A good case in point is Alex Jones’s recent
commentary
on the Boston bombings. Jones, (one of the country’s preeminent
conspiracy theorists) reminded his audience that two of the hijacked
planes on 9/11 flew out of Boston (relating one conspiracy theory to
another) and moreover, that the Boston Marathon bombing could be a
response to the sudden drop in the price of gold or part of a secret
government plot to expand the
Transportation Security
Administration’s reach to sporting events. Others have pointed their
fingers to a ‘mystery man’ spotted on a nearby roof shortly after the
explosions.
While it remains unsure whether or not credence is given to
only some or all of these (note: contradicting) conspiracy theories,
there clearly is a larger underlying preference to support
conspiracy-type explanations more generally.
Interestingly, belief in conspiracy theories has recently been linked to the rejection of science. In a paper published in
Psychological Science,
Stephen Lewandowsky and colleagues investigated the relation between
acceptance of science and conspiricist thinking patterns. While the
authors' survey was not representative of the general population,
results suggest that (controlling for other important factors) belief in
multiple conspiracy theories significantly predicted the rejection of
important scientific conclusions, such as climate science or the fact
that
smoking causes lung
cancer. Yet, rejection of scientific principles is not the only possible consequence of widespread belief in conspiracy theories.
Another recent
study
indicates that receiving positive information about or even being
merely exposed to conspiracy theories can lead people to become
disengaged from important political and societal topics. For example, in
their study, Daniel Jolley and Karen Douglas clearly show that
participants who received information that supported the idea that
global warming
is a hoax were less willing to engage politically and also less willing
to implement individual behavioral changes such as reducing their
carbon footprint.
These findings are alarming because they show that conspiracy theories
sow public mistrust and undermine democratic debate by diverting
attention away from important scientific, political and societal issues.
There
is no question as to whether the public should actively demand truthful
and transparent information from their governments and proposed
explanations should be met with a healthy amount of scepticism, yet,
this is not what conspiracy theories offer. A conspiracy theory is
usually defined as an attempt to explain the ultimate cause of an
important societal event as part of some sinister plot conjured up by a
secret alliance of powerful individuals and organizations. The great
philosopher Karl Popper argued that the fallacy of conspiracy theories
lies in their tendency to describe every event as 'intentional' and
'planned' thereby seriously underestimating the random nature and
unintended consequences of many political and social actions. In fact,
Popper was describing a cognitive bias that psychologists now commonly
refer to as the “fundamental attribution error”: the tendency to
overestimate the actions of others as being intentional rather than the
product of (random) situational circumstances.
Since a number of studies have shown that belief in conspiracy theories is associated with feelings of
powerlessness, uncertainty and a general lack of
agency and control,
a likely purpose of this bias is to help people “make sense of the
world” by providing simple explanations for complex societal events —
restoring a sense of control and predictability. A good example is that
of climate change: while the most recent international scientific
assessment
report
(receiving input from over 2500 independent scientists from more than a
100 countries) concluded with 90 percent certainty that human-induced
global warming is occurring, the severe consequences and implications of
climate change are often too distressing and overwhelming for people to
deal with, both cognitively as well as emotionally. Resorting to easier
explanations that simply discount global warming as a hoax is then of
course much more comforting and convenient psychologically. Yet, as Al
Gore famously pointed out, unfortunately, the truth is not always
convenient.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive
science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper
that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind
Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the
Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Sander van der Linden is a doctoral candidate in
social-environmental psychology at the London School of Economics and
Political Science (Grantham Research Institute) and currently a visiting
research scholar with the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication
at Yale University. His research focuses on behavioral change, the
psychology of communication and the construction of human risk
perception.
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