Amelia Earhart, some people say, didn’t die when her plane crashed but secretly returned to the U.S. and lived on until the 1980s under an assumed name. Other people say she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, actually didn’t crash but were shot down by Japanese planes because Earhart was really a spy on a secret mission. Or perhaps she really made an emergency landing on a reef, where she lived for a short time as a castaway.
Along those lines, perhaps you’ve heard that Paul McCartney died many years ago and was replaced by a body double? Or that scientists in Ong’s Hat, New Jersey, invented a time machine? Many other well-known conspiracy theories, in addition to these, are less humorous or innocent: The events of September 11, 2001, have been called an “inside job,” and many people suspect that Bill Gates used the COVID vaccine to surreptitiously implant microchips in the human body.
Such beliefs can cause significant harm and even negatively affect the people you love. To do what you can for these people, it will help to use your empathy to better understand why they’re motivated to believe in ideas like these. As the Medical Journal of Australia puts it, those who are attracted to conspiracy theories are struggling to satisfy three main psychological needs: epistemic, existential, and social.
Epistemic needs address the basic human need for understanding. When tragic events occur, people often feel a strong desire to make sense of them—and to feel the stability of certainty. Conspiracy theories seem to offer this certainty by presenting a clear and simple explanation for potentially confusing phenomena. Paradoxically, this information may come with a heightened sense of validity because it seems to be withheld by those in power. Pushing away doubts and feelings of ignorance with conspiracy-themed clarity can, therefore, make people feel better informed, whereas a lack of knowledge would only foster uncertainty.
Existential needs, by contrast, represent a very human response to our lack of safety in an uncontrollable world: anxiety. Catastrophic dangers like plane crashes or strange new diseases can chip away at our feelings of security, whereas knowledge and understanding feel like sources of control. To shore up their need for safety, some people gravitate to information that feels as though it offers power over such uncontrollable events. “Forbidden” knowledge—the kind that people ridicule or dismiss—might even offer an exaggerated or more special sense of such power.
Most people also have a need to belong to a valued group. The belief that you have gained access to special information, along with like-minded companions, conveys a sense of belonging to a group limited to a select few. According to a 2021 article in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, beliefs about such an in-group—those who agree with the conspiracy-fed view of the world—may become especially positive and inflated in importance, even as correspondingly negative assumptions may adhere to those who do not accept the conspiracy worldview. This means that maintaining one’s conspiratorial beliefs in the face of criticism can offer a sense of personal benefit by feeding one’s self-esteem and conveying a sense of uniqueness while also promoting closer association with other people with shared beliefs.
Conspiracy-minded beliefs often encompass a great many contradictions. According to a 2013 article in Scientific American, these contradictions generally do not create doubt, and believers don’t seem to need to resolve them. People who think the United States did not kill Osama bin Laden—because he was already dead when the Marines invaded his compound—are also more likely to believe he is still alive. Similarly, those who feel certain that Princess Diana faked her death are more likely to believe that she was deliberately killed by others. In examples like these, a believer’s distrust of authority can outweigh their use of logic.
Such beliefs can cause harm—by alienating people from their family and friends, for instance, or by increasing their feelings of anxiety. Marques et al., in the above-mentioned article in the Medical Journal of Australia, asserted that conspiracy-minded beliefs about COVID-19 testing or the effectiveness of masks were correlated with reduced mask-wearing compliance and a corresponding increase in the likelihood of testing positive for the virus.
Nevertheless, you may find yourself embroiled in a relationship with someone who believes things that you do not, and in such circumstances, you will need to find productive ways to communicate. Fact-based arguments may produce defensiveness rather than listening and acceptance. (Even worse, your arguments might be thrown in your face as something “they” want you to believe.)
The least effective argument against a conspiracy, as you might imagine, is a mocking, sarcastic tone or an effort at ridicule. Research suggests that the use of such strategies usually only produces very small effects.
The best you can hope for when talking to a conspiracy believer, it turns out, is to try to “inoculate” them against developing similar beliefs in the future. Helping your friend or family member recognize inaccurate information or identify unreliable sources can make a difference when they’re confronted with such sources again. However, this may only work if presented before the person is exposed to the conspiracy theory: As noted in Marques et al., “giving individuals factual information can decrease the effects of specific health-related conspiracy theories and misinformation more generally,” but “one study showed that providing… counterarguments was effective in improving [anti-conspiracy behavior] if presented before [hearing] conspiracy theories but not after.”
In the past I’ve offered other, more general suggestions about improving communication about sensitive topics. When it comes to conspiracy theories, many of these suggestions apply: Be open-minded, listen without judging or commenting, and try not to act defensively. Be curious about the origins of the conspiracy theory—perhaps by asking where your loved one first heard of it, or how it may have changed their behavior. Be receptive, too, by offering encouraging verbal responses—like rephrasing their statements to show them you’re taking in what they’re saying. Ask them how the information they’ve learned has made them feel. You may even want to go as far as to ask what they gain from their beliefs.
On the way to developing some discrepancy between your friend’s factual and non-factual beliefs, you’ll also want to affirm the importance of critical thinking. Sometimes, you might suggest, it’s important to make sense of contradictory information, or facts that we wish weren’t true. Many people who believe in conspiracies often talk about “doing their own research,” a phrase which seems to suggest disregarding common knowledge or peer-reviewed sources of information; at the very least, this means they should agree with you that the act of reading and interpretation is important. You might share your own analysis of a bit of information, while indicating in a nonjudgmental way that it differs from theirs.
Developing an analytic frame of mind can do a lot to inoculate someone against future counterfactual beliefs. Accordingly, focusing on the future is important, as it can facilitate a conversation by turning it away from disagreements about the past or the present. Figuring out what you can control, and finding ways to gain such control, can help conspiracy believers reduce their anxieties about what’s coming next.
Lastly, although conspiracy theories take up a lot of space in the news and can attract a lot of discussion, the truth is that they may not be as pervasive as they seem. In three 2021 studies, Cookson et al. found that people tend to overestimate the prevalence of others’ conspiracy beliefs. Similarly, Uscinski and colleagues (2022) discovered no evidence that these beliefs have grown in popularity over the past few years, despite impressions to the contrary. Conspiracy-related thinking does not fairly represent most people’s understanding of the world and does not guide or inform the behavior of the majority of reasonable people.
Although it may be difficult to empathize with a conspiracy-minded person, the dangers these beliefs may pose—in terms of alienation from one’s community, distrust of institutions, and avoidance of potentially health-promoting or life-saving interventions—suggest that it’s important to make an effort. With sufficient patience, empathy and understanding, it is possible to help people whose beliefs have put them at risk of such harm.
References
Cookson, D., Jolley, D., Dempsey, R. C., & Povey, R. (2021). “If they believe, then so shall I”: Perceived beliefs of the in-group predict conspiracy theory belief. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 24(5), 759-782.
Marques, M. D., Douglas, K. M. & Jolley, D. (2022, April 17). Practical recommendations to communicate with patients about health-related conspiracy theories. Medical Journal of Australia, 216(8), 381-384.
Shure, C. (2013, Sept 1). Insights into the personalities of conspiracy theorists. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/insights-into-the-personalities-conspiracy-theorists/
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