Unraveling the Conspiracy Mind: Understanding Belief Systems and Psychological Tendencies
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As early as in 1963, it was clear to some psychologists that many Americans tended to attribute anything they disliked to the intentional design of a few influential ‘others’. These were beliefs based on fudgy claims which their believers considered ‘facts’ nonetheless. Then the internet accelerated the circulation of such beliefs and America is now awash with such beliefs, popularly known as conspiracy theories. In a 2013 poll, 50% of Americans questioned seemed convinced that there was some larger conspiracy at work in the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, while 4% endorsed the notion that ‘shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining power.’
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Most psychologists now agree that almost all conspiracy theorists, irrespective of which conspiracy theory they subscribe to, have one thing in common: a generic worldview which makes them more prone to believe in wild hypotheses. In short, the believer’s mentality matters more than the contents of the belief itself do. In other words, it’s not how believable the hypothesis is but how ready to believe is the believer. Naturally, a number of studies have already been conducted to understand the mindset. Most scholars blame the conspiracy mentality on a profound failure to control things the believers experience, whether due to chance or due to the machinations of others. In one study, research subjects who were asked to recount things over which they had no control (e.g. the weather), before being told about a conspiracy theory, were more likely to accept the theory than those who were asked to recount things on which they did have control (e.g. what they wore or ate) before being told about the conspiracy theory. Of course it is possible that those who have control over fewer things or little control over whatever they are supposed to control need to believe that ‘others’ control a lot because that may provide them with a face saver – “I got nothing because someone else has got a lot” – if they believe that the number of people who can have significant control over things has a pretty low upper limit.
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However, this compensatory theory portrays conspiracy theorists as nothing but the poor victims of control deprivation, clinging to conspiracy as the last defense against a chaotic world. This pitiable image is contradicted by the often vocal, evangelizing conduct of actual conspiracy theorists, their claims to superior insight, and their habit of degrading those who disagree with them. Instead of being a make-believe defense against the perceived lack of control, belief in conspiracy theories might be a self-serving boast about one’s exclusive knowledge and born of a deep-seated need for uniqueness. To test this hypothesis, Professor Imhoff matched the extent to which people described themselves as needing to feel unique and the extent to which they endorsed different conspiracy theories. People who were generally prone to accept a conspiracy theory were found more likely to believe theories that were rarely believed. Of course, correlation does not imply causation. It could also be that belief in a conspiracy theory makes people hunger for a unique status. So, a follow up experiment was conducted. It was actually found that those with a higher conspiracy mentality (already correlated with a higher need for uniqueness) were more likely to endorse a specific conspiracy after being told that fewer people believed in it than after being told that many people did.
