PARANOID CONSPIRACIES: a Social Psychological View of Irrational Beliefs, a talk by Evan Harrington

I believe that debunking conspiracy theories is one of the greatest social services rendered by skeptics. I remind people that Adolf Hitler convinced people to believe in and make a natural reaction to a claim of an evil conspiracy threatening Europe. Lately, my investigation of Dennis Lee's free energy machines is stymied only by the power of his claim that a international multigenerational conspiracy is covering up free energy. Also, both Fred Mitchell and I have been voices of reason within militia discussion groups on the internet. So naturally, I was thrilled to be able to hear social psychologist Evan Harrington speak on the psychology of conspiracy thinking in February of 1997.

Evan focused on what conspiracy beliefs do for the holder and what are predictors for believing in conspiracy theory. Carl Hoagland studied how to getAmerica behind the WW II war effort and examined how to get people to believe things. Apparently, high credibility sources will convince people quickly, but low credibility sources have a "sleeper effect" of more slowly changing people's beliefs. Once someone ascribes to a belief, they tend to forget if it originated from a low credibility source. Appeals to emotion, particularly evoking fear, seem to be powerful ways to manipulate public thought. Hitler was a master of this. The most common dangerous conspiracy theories running amuck today are: "black helicopters will whisk free thinking Americans to newly built concentration camps" and "the actions at Waco were a deliberate effort to exterminate Christians". Evan pointed out that theories of "Cognitive Dissonance" explain much conspiracy belief. Apparently, if your attitudes and behaviors clash, than one will have to change. In the case of belief of irrational - the stakes seem to rise. For example, if the conspiracy believer finds that others don't share the belief, this creates a conflict. The belief can either be dropped or the other person can be viewed as a dupe of the powerful conspiracy.

Evan used the example of flight 800 rumors on the internet which tend to build off each other. Repeated circular references can amplify the power of rumors. Such rumors seem to breed best during periods of uncertainty and work best when not personally relevant. A good example of mass hysteria was given of a chewing gum in Egypt from Israel purported to cause helpless females to be overcome by primitive urges. We learned that there have been hundreds of cases of mass psychogenic illness where waves of people parrot each other's belief of having some strange symptom.

Another psychological force bolstering conspiracy thinking is " Social Identity Theory " where people groups tend to be enforced by denegrating other groups. Bigoted behavior in America is most prevalent among unsuccessful people predisposed to looking for others to blame for their failures. Evan showed tape of Nation of Islam Leader promising that large UFOs would soon rain down destruction on white America. I was both amused and frightened by the claim. Evan identified the psychological trait ofanomia (feeling of insecurity and that the world is going to hell ) has been found very prominent among conspiracy thinkers. After WW II a study was done to find out what kind of people are most likely to become oppressive (i.e. Nazis). The developed an "F" scale to try to measure the likelihood of becoming fascist. Newer researchers have been defining aspects of behavior associated with Authoritarianism such as aggression, conventionalism, and submission to authoritarianism. The conventionalism attribute makes them embrace older established mores (i.e. tight biblical-based Christianity) and see newer attitudes as a grave threat. At first you would expect an authoritarian person to back our own government - but these people tend to view our government as corrupt. More authoritarian people tend to really lower the boom on people in simulated jury conditions. They also tend to be highly eroto-phobic - they tend to have extremely repressed views of sex. (Reviewer's note: two childhood friends of mine who love right wing extremist conspiracy theory are extremely sexually repressed.) Conspiracy thinkers tend be Dichotomy Thinkers. They tend to simply view all things as being either evil or good. They tend to be losers who feel part of the big picture by being one of the elect able to spot the conspiracy. The theory allows them to easily explain away misfortune. Authoritarian people are predisposed toward believing that one set of rules should be very strictly enforced. Conspiracy believers have a much higher than usual tendency to be authoritarian -- 70% of people believe that a conspiracy killed JFK. 64% of people feel personally victimized by conspiracy.

There have been studies of situational determinates of behavior: apparently, southern lynchings have gone up when cotton prices go down. It is usually people in lower economic strata who tend to view other groups as evil.

Evan made a fascinating personal observation that almost none of the many attempted assassinations have spawned conspiracy theories whereas successful assassinations and many natural deaths have been attributed to myriads of conspiracy claims.

Evan occasionally checks his email at: evan-h@vm.temple.edu