Why do people believe conspiracy theories?

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a lot — about science, about how to connect socially while physically distant, and about how we can, with a little creativity, do just about anything from home. It's also taught us — more dramatically than perhaps anything in living memory — how many of our friends and relatives are absolutely obsessed with conspiracy theories. Robert Carrothers, associate professor of sociology at Ohio Northern University, said it's similar to the "urban legend" phenomenon. You might hear a story that sounds, on some level, like it might be legitimate. And you think "Wow, that's a great story." So you share it — and these days, on social media, the story spreads like wildfire. Only it's not true. We tend to share the conspiracy theory stories because we all want to be the one who "has the answers," Carrothers said. That is: "We like to be the smart one." Carrothers said when you look at the urban legend, either it's trying to tell you that "the world's a really scary place" or it is "reinforcing some established norms" — that is, things you already believe. Maybe you're already skeptical of the government, or doctors. Perhaps you throw in that wearing a mask sounds like something "those crazy Big Pharma people" would tell you to do. He said there's a concept in social psychology called cognitive dissonance. You have "made a choice" — so you tend to downgrade all the other options. He said it's like if you're buying a house, look at three houses and choose one. Afterward, you'll explain that one of the others had a bad roof — meaning that clearly, of course, you made the right choice — even if this isn't actually true. Similarly, if you've already decided the coronavirus is "just the flu" and no big deal, you are going to look for information that supports that, he said. "People don't ever like to admit they're wrong," said Diana Montague, a communications professor at the University of Findlay who spent the past academic year exploring and educating the community on the importance of media literacy. But she said you learn as you get more information that what you had thought was true was actually just the best information you had at the time. It takes work to do more thorough research, and we live in a world of instant gratification, she said. But she said it's possible to, for example, do a reverse image search to find out if an image has been doctored. "There are resources out there," she said. So, do that work before you retweet, she said. Carrothers pointed out that this virus is referred to as the "novel" coronavirus — meaning, it is new. "At the beginning of this, there was so much unknown," he said. And, he said, "This is so new that even the experts are learning as they go." He said shortly after the pandemic began, when ONU was still holding face-to-face classes before going to remote learning, a student told him their mother had noticed that a can of Lysol says on the label it kills coronavirus — proving it's a conspiracy and "they knew this was coming." But, of course, the novel coronavirus is one of many coronaviruses that exist. Another is the common cold. People have been anxious. And it has been hard to think about this virus coming from out of nowhere, "and it's crazy contagious and it's killing people," Carrothers said. It might sound like a random event in a scary movie. It's much easier to declare, "I bet the government made this." Or China created it. Or Bill Gates, so he could "put chips in our head." He said it's easier to create a "relatively simplistic conspiracy" to explain your fear away — the conspiracy is itself scary, but not as scary as reality. "Any time people are worried or afraid, or just anxious or stressed, they're looking for anything that will calm that a little bit," he said. He said when you see people physically attacking store workers over mask requirements, "it really is just a reaction out of fear." Everybody's afraid, and no one knows what to do about it. And conspiracy theories tend to build on themselves, growing larger and larger, piling on "fear after fear after fear," Carrothers said. Montague said so much of life is uncertain right now. People are "grappling for certainty" and for "a sense of control," she said. "It's hard not knowing what's going to happen," she said. Carrothers said ideally, everyone would understand science better, and understand that in science "something's true until it's not"; that scientists think they know the answer, but then more information might come along that might make them realize they didn't. He said the truth is that masks will not keep you 100% safe. But "that's not a gotcha" or admitting that they don't work. "Condoms don't work 100% of the time either," he said. "It doesn't mean you stop using them." Not long after the moon landing in 1969, there were people who said it had been faked, Carrothers said. But back then, if you believed this you would tell a few people — maybe 100 or so, if you'd concocted a "really good story." "Today if you've got a thousand followers on Twitter, you can tell that whole group," he said. And just like in the game of telephone, you might share a story with someone else, who shares it with someone else, and so on. But the details may change along the way. He said this is something that happens with true stories as well as conspiracy theories — maybe you summarize a news article you read, but you don't summarize it very well. Montague said the internet "allows each of us to be a publisher to the entire world." She said she is a big proponent of free speech — but there is a responsibility that comes with it, too. You can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, she said. People "give so much credence to (social media)… Everything they see on social media, they believe," she said. She advises simply stepping away from social media altogether at times. In the internet age, when we have access to so much information, a lot of what would have been called "knowledge" before now starts to look, instead, like faith, Carrothers said. We already have our beliefs, so we look for evidence that supports that belief. Instead of setting out to get a lot of points of view, we go to the place online that we "trust," where we get the information that makes us comfortable, that makes us feel good. So what to do about it? If you have that one cousin who always shares conspiracy theories on social media (and most of us do), Carrothers advises refraining from calling them "dumb." And "shaming people doesn't seem to work very well." These approaches tend to cause the person to initiate "defenses" and make them want to fight with you, he said. You may want to argue with them online — but "that's a full-time job," Carrothers said. He advised instead trying to have a discussion, presenting information in a logical way. Encourage the person to think logically or rationally. Acknowledge that they can believe whatever they choose, but point out that you have facts on your side. You might point out that, for their version of what is happening to be true, that would mean that so very many people had collaborated to keep the truth from coming out. Citing a quote from someone else, Carrothers said no one who believes there is a giant government conspiracy has ever tried to run a group of people. He said people may in their mind think that "the government" is a monolith. It's comprised of "government" workers, who make their living off of the government. In truth, he said, they punch out for the day, and then "they go home, and they stop for pizza and they watch some Netflix." That is, the government workers are actually just people. But he said it's easier to think of the world as being full of people who are clearly good and people who are clearly bad, with no shades of gray. To believe that there are "a few of us fighting the good fight for truth and justice" up against an entire much larger group of people who are all evil. He said social psychologists have in recent years found that there is a backfire effect, that when you keep throwing a lot of facts at people, they tend to dig their heels in. Instead of information and knowledge opening up people's minds, it causes them to double down, he said. These days, Montague said, "it's even more important to check your sources" before spreading information than it used to be. "If it's medical information, then you go to medical experts," she said. Or, put another way, "Science matters."