What Are Conspiracy Theories?
Conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events,indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.
My Take on Conspiracy Theories
Many conspiracy theories relate to government plans and elaborate murder plots. Conspiracy theories usually deny consensus or cannot be proven using the historical or scientific method, and are not to be confused with research concerning verified conspiracies such as Germany’s pretense for invading Poland in World War II.
In principle, conspiracy theories are not always false by default, and their validity depends on evidence, just as in any theory. However, they are often discredited due to the cumbersome and improbable nature of many of them.
Psychologists usually attribute belief in conspiracy theories and finding a conspiracy where there is none to a number of psychopathological conditions such as paranoia, narcissism, and insecure attachment, or to a form of cognitive bias called “illusory pattern perception”. However, the current scientific consensus holds that most conspiracy theorists are not pathological, precisely because their beliefs ultimately rely on cognitive tendencies that are neurologically hardwired in the human species and probably have deep evolutionary origins, including natural inclinations towards anxiety and agency detection.
Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories
Along the lines of the above passage we also need to understand why common people believe in these theories so to explain this I looked for some examples of conspiracy theories and asked myself various questions that I’ve answered further in the case study.
Over the past year as COVID-19 rocketed around the world, conspiracy theories quickly followed. Last spring, dozens of cell phone towers set a flame across Europe, amid conspiracy theories that the 5G towers were spreading COVID-19. In January, a Wisconsin pharmacist was charged with deliberately destroying hundreds of doses of the newly available COVID 19 vaccine because he believed a conspiracy theory that the vaccine would change human DNA. And some people are asserting that the Chinese engineered the virus itself.
These aren’t the only conspiracy theories making inroads right now. A September Pew Research Center survey found that more than half of Americans have heard at least a little about QAnon, the complicated web of pro-Trump conspiracy theories that originated on the message board 4chan. In November, two candidates who voiced support for QAnon theories were elected to Congress.
So How Do Conspiracy Theories Like These Get Started, And Why Do They Persist?
Who is most likely to believe them and why? Is there any way to combat conspiracy theories once they’re out there? And what are the consequences for individuals and societies when they spread?
So to answer these questions I took help of a podcast named flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life.
This conversation was between Kim Mills, our host and his guest Dr. Karen Douglas, a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent in the UK. Dr. Douglas has spent more than a decade studying conspiracy theories, and she answered a few of my questions that were about their history, causes, and consequences.
What Counts As A Conspiracy Theory? What Are Their Common Characteristics?
Well, a good place to start answering these questions is by accepting the fact that a conspiracy theory is a proposed plot carried out in secret, usually by a powerful group of people who have some kind of sinister goal. So something to gain from what they’re doing and they usually don’t have people’s best interests at heart. Usually, their own interests at heart.
Some people think that the belief in conspiracy theorists has been on the rise in recent years fueled by social media, but a paper a few years ago concluded that wasn’t necessarily true. Instead, it was found that conspiracy theories have always thrived during times of crisis and social upheaval with examples going back as far as the burning of Rome while Nero was away, and that the last decade hasn’t been particularly more conspiracy prone than the past
Conspiracy theories have ways of being with us. Believing in conspiracy theories and being suspicious about the actions of others is in some ways quite an adaptive thing to do. We don’t necessarily want to trust everybody and trust everything that’s happening around us. And so they have always been with us and to some extent.
People have always believed in conspiracy theories. As far back as we can remember, people have been having these conspiracy beliefs and having these suspicions about the actions of individuals. This is just the way that we are wired up to some degree. And in terms of how we measure the extent to which people believe in conspiracy theories, can be done in a variety of different ways.
As a social psychologist one would normally measure a belief in conspiracy theories by simply asking people questions about the extent to which they endorse a particular idea or the extent to which they believe a particular statement is true.
To look at this from another angle, conspiracies may change over time, but have there been times in history when conspiracy theories have spiked?
Even if we can’t say for sure that social media has increased conspiracy theories, it’s certainly changed the way in which people access and share this information,also I feel that in many cases, for people who have an underlying tendency to believe in a particular conspiracy theory or ideologies in general, it’s much easier for people to find this sort of information now than it has ever been before.It is very obvious that they seek out this information online by going to random sources that polarize their opinions about particular conspiracy theories furthermore. Even if we don’t have evidence that conspiracy theorizing has increased, time will tell whether or not that’s true. I do think that people’s attitudes have become stronger as a result of interacting , sharing and consuming this information on social media and on the internet generally.
The Psychological Factors That Motivate People To Believe In Conspiracy Theories
Research laid out three areas that are called epistemic, existential and social motives. We argue that people are drawn to conspiracy theories in an attempt to satisfy three important psychological motives.
The first of these motives are epistemic motives. I guess in a nutshell, epistemic motives really just refer to the need for knowledge and certainty and the motive or desire to have information. And when something major happens, when a big event happens, people naturally want to know why that happened. They want an explanation and they want to know the truth. But they also want to feel certain of that truth.
And some psychological evidence suggests that people are drawn to conspiracy theories when they do feel uncertain either in specific situations or more generally. And there are other epistemic reasons why people believe in conspiracy theories one of the most common being lack of awareness people with lower levels of education tend to be drawn to conspiracy theories. And we don’t argue that it’s because people are not intelligent. It’s simply that they haven’t been given access to the tools to allow them to differentiate between credible sources and non-credible sources. So they’re looking for that knowledge and certainty, but not necessarily looking in the right places.
The second set of motives, we would call existential motives. And really they just refer to people’s needs to be or to feel safe and secure in the world that they live in. And also to feel that they have some kind of power over the things that happen to them as well. So again, when something happens, people don’t like to feel powerless. They don’t like to feel out of control. And so reaching out to conspiracy theories might, at least allow people to feel that they have information that at least explains why they don’t have any control over this situation. This Research has also shown that people who feel disillusioned do tend to gravitate more towards conspiracy theories.
The final set of motives we would call social motives refer to people’s desire to feel good about themselves as individuals and also feel good about themselves in terms of the groups they belong to. And I guess at the individual level, people like to have high self-esteem. And potentially one way of doing that is to feel that you have access to information that other people don’t necessarily have.
And this is quite a common rhetorical tool that people use when they talk about conspiracy theories, that everybody else is some kind of sheep, but that they know the truth. They have the truth. And having that kind of belief, I guess, feeling that you’re in possession of information that other people don’t have, can give you a feeling of superiority over others.
Since we talked about education level as being a factor. Other demographic categories also include in them such as age etc. In terms of age the research suggests that older people believe in conspiracy theories less than younger people do.
What Makes A Conspiracy Theory Catch On And Have Staying Power?
It’s very true that some conspiracy theories stand the test of time and others just disappear. I think there must be certain features of conspiracy theories, the ones that last and those that don’t. I personally know exactly the one thing that tends to be very, very common is that the event that is explained by the conspiracy theory is very, very large and important and usually involves something of great political or social significance.
A very fascinating thing I wanted to point out is the flat earth conspiracy theory, which has been around forever but kind of died away for a long time and then in recent years just seems to have gotten popular again, I have a theory about that conspiracy theory, that just generally tells that people are becoming less trustful of science and scientists at the present time, which is why we might be seeing these sorts of ideas making a bit of a comeback. it’s really fascinating, because it’s not that even though some of them disappear, they go away, but then they come back again or come back again in a different form or certain conspiracy theories about particular things, like say anti-vaccine or health-related conspiracy theories can kind of reinvent themselves for new things that happen, like 5G conspiracy theories, about people getting sick from masks and things like that.
So these sorts of conspiracy theories have always been there. They kind of mutate but at the same time also change.
I think the real question we should be asking ourselves is: Is there any way to effectively debunk a conspiracy theory once it’s out there?
eg:the anti-vaxxers, the fact that the Lancet article that led to a lot of beliefs that children were becoming autistic as a result of vaccines. And then it turned out that that article was bogus. It was based on faulty data and retracted, yet some people are still hanging on to that.
So Is There A Way To Stop These Theories From Continuing To Swirl?
There are ways to do this, but it’s extremely challenging. It’s very, very difficult. Once these conspiracy theories are out there and people believe them, then sometimes people can very, very strongly hold on to these beliefs and defend them very, very strongly as well.
From other areas of psychology we know that attitudes that are very strongly held are difficult to dispute, so, yes, it is a challenge, but there are things that can be done. And a lot of research that, especially in very, very recent years as well, has started to come out regarding how you address misinformation? And giving people the facts does work under certain situations.
We’ve actually found that it’s quite effective to provide people with factual information, and provide people with the facts. And this was particularly about vaccines before they’re exposed to conspiracy theories, and then the conspiracy theory fails to gain attraction. But once the people have been exposed to the conspiracy theory, giving them the appropriate or correct information afterwards doesn’t really work. So, others have taken this information and have started to look at ways to inoculate people against misinformation and to inoculate people against conspiracy theories and fake news and all sorts of other things, which seems to be working as well. So, in other words, you give people either the correct information or some piece of weak misinformation before they’re exposed to the worst of it, then that helps them to be able to resist it.
There are other techniques that people have used, that researchers have used as well, and just to give you one other example, some researchers have looked at the idea of presenting people with a pre-warning or a forewarning that they might be exposed to misinformation. And if people believe that information that they might receive could be misleading, and they have that information up front, then that can sometimes help them to resist the misinformation as well. Now, I think these are all really, really valuable tools, but of course, sometimes the misinformation is already out there so it’s difficult to get to people beforehand. So, then, you have to resort to, I guess, traditional debunking techniques, such as going in with consistent, strong counter arguments.
But I think that these other techniques provide real opportunities to help people to resist conspiracy theories in general that they might come across in the future. So, if you give people these sorts of ways to critically think about information and think, “Well, okay, I could be exposed to misinformation. That misinformation is out there, so I’m going to be on the lookout for it,” then it might actually help people to resist it when they come across it next time.
And it is also like the techniques that they’re trying to use right now with the COVID-19 vaccines, telling people up front that if you happen to be particularly allergic, you might have a reaction. This is what to expect. And yet, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole because they talk about all of this and they’re trying to be as transparent as possible, and yet, along comes somebody who says that the mRNA that’s involved in this is actually going to change the DNA in your body. How do you fight that?
Indeed,It is very, very difficult, and there are new conspiracy theories all the time. It is exactly like that game. You’ve got one and then you’re constantly trying to hit another one away. It is very, very challenging. There’s a lot out there, a lot going on out there.
And of course, this is all complicated by the fact that sometimes conspiracies do exist and sometimes people may have deep-seated, valid reasons to distrust authority. So, for example, public opinion polls have found that Black Americans are less likely to say they’ll take the COVID vaccine and more wary of its safety because they have a long history of being abused and mistreated by the medical establishment. So, is there a way for people to balance this awareness with a healthy skepticism of conspiracy theories? Yes. Again, this is extremely challenging, and there is no doubt that some people have very good reasons to be suspicious of these sorts of things because of past events. And so, the challenge becomes even greater. And I don’t know the solution to this, apart from the fact that people who are attempting to fight the misinformation will need to be sensitive to these concerns and perhaps be more targeted in their efforts to debunk misinformation, being sensitive to these historical events as well.
So, it can’t necessarily be a one size fits all approach to misinformation, just can’t be because everybody’s circumstances are different, and we know that different communities feel differently about vaccines and various other things as well, for very good reasons. So, that, of course, is a huge challenge for anybody trying to deal with potential misinformation about vaccines and other things, but also, yeah, particularly with COVID, and a reluctance to take the vaccine.
The aspects of conspiracy theory that one should look forward to is the deliberate use of conspiracy theories as a political device. So, I’ve been doing some research, looking at how people perceive others who seem to use conspiracy theories, and whether or not they see those actions as intentional or deliberate, and also what the effects are of that. I’ve also been interested in the term conspiracy theory itself and the term conspiracy theorist and how people use those terms, whether they use them to, I guess, specifically put down other people’s ideas, or if they simply use these terms when they just don’t believe that they don’t believe a particular idea, and also the effects of these terms on whether or not someone will actually believe something.
My research is also focused a lot on the consequences of believing in conspiracy theories as well. So, in different areas like in vaccines, climate change, politics in various different domains, specifically what impact do conspiracy theories have on people’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors
It’s an amazing area for scrutiny, and to better understand some of the ways that people’s minds work.2 case studies that I analyzed while writing this article were the death of Princess Diana and Trump cheated out of elections.