The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories

Jan-Willem Prooijen, Jan-Willem van Prooijen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781315525396
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Who believes in conspiracy theories, and why are some people more susceptible to them than others?

What are the consequences of such beliefs?

Has a conspiracy theory ever turned out to be true?

The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories debunks the myth that conspiracy theories are a modern phenomenon, exploring their broad social contexts, from politics to the workplace. The book explains why some people are more susceptible to these beliefs than others and how they are produced by recognizable and predictable psychological processes.

Featuring examples such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and climate change, The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories shows us that while such beliefs are not always irrational and are not a pathological trait, they can be harmful to individuals and society.

1
Psychology of Conspiracy Theories

The 9/11 terrorist strikes are not only among the most impactful events in modern history but also among the best-documented ones. Professional news crews and New York City residents made live video recordings as this terrible event unfolded, which were widely broadcasted. We all have seen the footage of United Airlines Flight 175 crashing in the South Tower of the World Trade Center from any possible angle and were able to see how these impressive buildings collapsed like a house of cards. But although the footage is objectively the same, people appear to differ widely in what they are seeing in these recordings. Many people see how a passenger plane that was hijacked by suicide terrorists exploded upon collision, ultimately causing the destruction of the Twin Towers. Many other people, however, see direct evidence for controlled demolition: Not suicide terrorist but the US government was responsible for the plane crash, and not the impact of the plane but explosives that were hidden within the buildings caused the destruction of the Twin Towers.

The allegations that the US government helped to cause 9/11 are reflected in conspiracy theories that one can easily find on Internet and social media. Large groups of concerned citizens – such as the “9/11-for-truth” movement – made documentaries, published books and articles, and organized rallies to convince the public that the US government is withholding the truth about these events. Furthermore, there are many different variants of 9/11 conspiracy theories. The relatively “milder” variants propose that the US government is merely an accessory, and for instance assume that public officials knew that the terrorist strikes were coming yet deliberately failed to prevent them. Other variants make allegations of a more active role for the US government and propose that public officials directly organized and carried out these attacks. These latter conspiracy theories often portray the 9/11 strikes as a “false-flag operation” – an attack that was designed to look as if it were carried out by other countries or organizations in order to justify far-reaching actions such as war. These false-flag 9/11 conspiracy theories are well known for claims such as that the airplanes were remote-controlled, that explosives caused the destruction of the Twin Towers, that the Pentagon was hit by a rocket instead of a passenger plane, and so on.

Whether we believe in them or not, such conspiracy theories surely are fascinating. Conspiracy theories appeal to a basic, dark fear that we all are string puppets under the control of powerful, sinister, and invisible forces. Conspiracy theories refer to hidden, secret, and malignant organizations that influence our lives without us being aware of it. Many conspiracy theories elicit a sense of “What if?” among people: Can these theories be true, and what would that imply for how we live our lives? Do we really understand the way that the world operates, or have we been deceived all along? There is something irresistibly mysterious, intriguing, but also frightening to a credible conspiracy theory, and therefore conspiracy theories have the potential to capture the attention of a broad audience.

Such widespread appeal can for instance be seen in the prominent place that conspiracy theories have in popular culture. Many well-known blockbuster movies are based on the central idea of people being deceived or threatened by a conspiracy of evil and hidden forces. In The Truman Show, the lead character played by Jim Carrey is unaware that his whole life actually is a popular reality show under the control of a TV station. Everyone he knows – his friends, his family, and even his wife – are part of the conspiracy designed to trick him into believing that he leads a normal life. Another example, which seems very different but is actually based on the same conspiratorial principle, is The Matrix – a movie in which viewers are led to believe that life as we know it is a virtual reality illusion that has been deliberately pulled over our eyes. Human beings actually are prisoners of a conspiracy of hostile and highly intelligent computers, who utilize our life energy as efficient batteries.

What connects The Truman Show and The Matrix is that they portray rather existential conspiracy theories, implying that our life in its most minor details can be controlled by a conspiracy without our knowledge. But there are also many movies that are based on more common conspiracy theories, depicting how government agencies or other organizations use excessive power to persecute citizens. Often these conspiracies have highly advanced technology at their disposal, which enables them to effectively track down their victims (e.g., Eagle Eye, The Net, Enemy of the State). Personally I am a big fan of the Netflix original series House of Cards, which describes how a corrupt politician makes a career (all the way to becoming US president) through lies, deception, bribery, intimidation, coercion, and even murder. These movies and series all share a key element of many conspiracy theories, which is a depiction of powerful people or institutions as evil-minded, dangerous, and largely operating in the shadows.

One factor that contributes to the widespread appeal of conspiracy theories is the possibility that they might actually be true – and in fact, conspiracies sometimes can and do occur. An infamous example of a real conspiracy at the highest political level is the “Iran-Contra affair”, which took place during the 1980s. US government officials were found to have secretly facilitated the sale of weapons to Iran (even though Iran was subject to an arms embargo) and then used the profits to secretly fund the Contra Rebels in Nicaragua (even though further funding of the Contras had been explicitly prohibited by Congress). Another real conspiracy was the so-called Tuskegee-syphilis experiment, in which scientists pretended to offer free health care to African-American men. In reality, they studied the natural development of untreated syphilis, involving 399 men who had syphilis but were unaware of their condition and 201 healthy men as a control group. The experiment lasted for 40 years (1932 to 1972). During this time, these men were never informed that they were taking part in an experiment, nor were they informed about their actual medical condition, and their illness was left untreated. As a result, many men suffered the consequences of untreated syphilis, including death.

The Holocaust also was the result of a real conspiracy. While Jews were already widely persecuted and killed in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s, initially the Nazis had hoped that due to the hostile climate most Jews would leave the country voluntarily. This did not happen on the scale desired by Hitler, however, and in January 1942 a conspiracy of 15 high-ranked Nazis and SS-officers secretly gathered in a villa at Wannsee near Berlin. Although Hitler did not attend in person, the meeting had the purpose of designing a concrete plan to carry out Hitler’s recent orders – which boiled down to “physically exterminating” all of the Jews in Europe. This meeting, commonly known as the “Wannsee conference”, marked the beginning of the mass deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps, where they were murdered in gas chambers on an unprecedented scale. The Holocaust is now recognized as one of the biggest tragedies in human history. Yet it was not until 1947 that a legal prosecutor found evidence that the Wannsee conference actually took place, by discovering the strictly classified minutes of this secret meeting.

This book is about the psychology of conspiracy theories. There are many different conspiracy theories that circle the Internet, some of them plausible or at least theoretically possible (e.g., perhaps secret service agencies sometimes do push the limits of what is legally or morally acceptable, as the Snowden revelations suggest), others are rather outlandish and highly unlikely to be true (e.g., the conspiracy theory that the earth is ruled by a race of alien lizards disguised as humans). Furthermore, there are many examples of actual conspiracy formation throughout history – ranging from modern times (Angela Merkel’s mobile phone really was tapped by the US secret service) to for instance the Roman Senate conspiracy that killed Julius Caesar – and hence, not all conspiracy theories are necessarily irrational. Despite all the differences among the conspiracy theories that people endorse, in the present book I will argue that people’s tendency to believe in conspiracy theories is rooted in similar, recognizable, and predictable psychological processes.

What is a Conspiracy Theory?

Although various definitions of conspiracy theories exist, the one that I favor is “the belief that a number of actors join together in secret agreement, in order to achieve a hidden goal which is perceived to be unlawful or malevolent”.¹ This is a broad definition, and accordingly, conspiracy theories can take many forms and emerge in many different spheres of life. People can hold conspiracy theories about the government, or governmental institutions (e.g., secret service agencies). People can hold conspiracy theories about entire branches of industry (e.g., the pharmaceutical industry) or about scientific research (e.g., climate change conspiracy theories). Employees on the work floor also often hold conspiracy beliefs about their management, such as beliefs that managers have a hidden agenda to pursue selfish goals. Conspiracy theories may occur in sports (e.g., beliefs that the referee was bribed by the opposing team). Also in their personal life, people may hold conspiracy theories by thinking that others conspire against them personally – although the latter, more personally oriented forms of conspiracy theories are in scientific discourse regarded as examples of “paranoia” and are qualitatively different from conspiracy beliefs that make assumptions of how large groups of citizens are being deceived by formal authorities.

To specify the definition of conspiracy theories further, I propose that any belief needs to possess at least five critical ingredients in order to qualify as a conspiracy theory. They are:

1. Patterns – Any conspiracy theory explains events by establishing nonrandom connections between actions, objects, and people. Put differently, a conspiracy theory assumes that the chain of incidents that caused a suspect event did not occur through coincidence.
2. Agency – A conspiracy theory assumes that a suspect event was caused on purpose by intelligent actors: There was a sophisticated and detailed plan that was intentionally developed and carried out.
3. Coalitions – A conspiracy theory always involves a coalition or group of multiple actors, usually but not necessarily humans (examples of nonhuman conspiracy theories are The Matrix and the “alien lizard” conspiracy theories). If one believes that a single individual, a lone wolf, is responsible for a suspect event, this belief is not a conspiracy theory – for the simple reason that it does not involve a conspiracy.
4. Hostility – A conspiracy theory tends to assume the suspected coalition to pursue goals that are evil, selfish, or otherwise not in the public interest. Certainly people may sometimes suspect a benevolent conspiracy, and benevolent conspiracies indeed do exist (as adults we conspire every year to convince children of the existence of Santa Claus). But in the present book, as well as in other literature on this topic, the term “conspiracy theory” is exclusive to conspiracies that are suspected to be hostile. Belief in benevolent conspiracy theories is likely to be grounded in different psychological processes than described in this book.
5. Continued secrecy – Conspiracy theories are about coalitions that operate in secret. With “continued” secrecy, I mean that the conspiracy has not yet been exposed by hard evidence, and hence its assumed operations remain secret and uncertain. A conspiracy that is exposed and hence proven true (e.g., the Wannsee conference) is no longer a “theory”; instead, it is an established example of actual conspiracy formation. Conspiracy theories are thus by definition unproven.

These five qualities distinguish belief in conspiracy theories from many other beliefs that people may hold. Take, for instance, the common supernatural belief that it is possible to get into contact with the souls of deceased relatives. Such belief in the existence of ghosts shares at least two and arguably three of the key ingredients of conspiracy beliefs, but not all five of them. Belief in ghosts involves patterns (i.e., it makes assumptions of how life after death develops in a nonrandom fashion; furthermore, believing in ghosts is likely to influence how one causally explains mysterious events in life) and it also involves agency (i.e., the ghosts are typically assumed to have goals, emotions, and desires, and they are for instance capable of communicating with living people through a medium). Belief in ghosts does not require “continued secrecy”, but one might say that there are at least parallels with this ingredient, as ghost beliefs are also unproven, pertain to invisible forces, and are characterized by mystery. But the coalition and hostility elements are lacking, at least as necessary requirements for this belief. Ghosts may be considered to be hostile, but they do not necessarily need to be in order to believe in them. Furthermore, one does not need to make the additional assumption that groups of ghosts organize meetings to design plans of how to harm people. A core aspect of conspiracy beliefs that makes them unique as compared to other forms of belief is that such beliefs involve a secret and hostile group of actors.

Psychology of Conspiracy Theories

“Have you ever considered the possibility that our theories might be true?” This is a question that I regularly get through email from Dutch citizens who are active on conspiracy websites. Often these messages have an angry tone, voiced by citizens who somehow feel offended by my research on conspiracy theories and who seem keen on persuading me that Ebola really was created in the lab, or that 9/11 really was an inside job. These messages typically (and wrongly) assume that if one studies the psychology of conspiracy theories, one necessarily proposes that all the conspiracy theories that people believe are invalid, or that people who believe in conspiracy theories are pathological. I have two responses to these email senders. The first is that, next time, they might wish to read the work of an academic more carefully before sending such an angry email – if they would have done so, they would have found out that besides conspiracy theories I also do research (and recently published a book) on the human tendency towards cheating and corruption, which includes the question why people sometimes actually conspire to pursue selfish ends.² It is well known that corruption – and hence, actual conspiracy formation – is common, and I do not know of a single scientist who argues otherwise.

But second, and more importantly, the psychology of conspiracy theories is not a question of which conspiracy theories are true or false – it is a question of who does or does not believe in them. There are many conspiracy theories that can be considered irrational in the face of logic or scientific evidence, and the fact that many people nevertheless believe in them is good reason to study this topic (more about that later). Furthermore, I am willing to submit here that I am highly skeptical of some of the rather grandiose conspiracy theories that circle the Internet. I find it highly implausible that Ebola was created in the lab. Furthermore, I firmly believe that 9/11 was carried out by a group of 19 Al Qaeda suicide terrorists – and this is not a conspiracy theory by the given definition, because the evidence to support this claim is so overwhelming that it is safe to say that the conspiracy of these 19 terrorists has been exposed (i.e., there is no “continued secrecy”). Finally, while I consider it possible that Lee Harvey Oswald received help from unknown others while preparing to assassinate JFK (and hence that there may have been a conspiracy), I consider it unlikely that this help came from the CIA, the Russians, or the Cubans. But what I think about these conspiracy theories is not the focus of this book.

This book focuses on the psychology of conspiracy theories, which is the scientific study of why some people are more likely than others to believe in conspiracy theories. Typical questions that are part of the psychology of conspiracy theories are: What personality factors determine whether someone believes or disbelieves conspiracy theories? To what extent does belief in one conspiracy theory (e.g., about the pharmaceutical industry) predict the likelihood of believing in a different conspiracy theory (e.g., JFK)? In what situations are people more and in what situations are people less likely to believe in conspiracy theories? And what are the consequences of conspiracy theories for believers’ feelings and behaviors? To study these issues, one does not need the conspiracy theory that is under investigation to be necessarily false, nor does newly emerging evidence that an actual conspiracy occurred compromise any of the conclusions that are drawn in this research area.

Let me briefly illuminate this principle by drawing a comparison with the psychology of religion. Many social scientists study religious beliefs, and one typical finding in this research domain is that religious people cling more strongly to their faith in unpredictable, frightening situations. (I’m sure many readers recognize the desire to say a little prayer when they are scared.) The theory behind this finding is that people have a need to feel that they are to some extent in control of their environment. Unpredictable situations make people feel less in control, and as a consequence, people start relying more strongly on external sources of control – such as God.³ Is it necessary for this line of research to also prove or disprove – or at least make assumptions of – the actual existence of God? My answer would be a succinct “No”: The mere observation that people differ strongly in their religiousness is sufficient to raise the legitimate question why some people do, and others do not, entertain certain religious beliefs. The finding that people are more religious in frightening situations teaches us something about the psychological processes underlying religion. For instance, one possible interpretation of these research findings is that belief in God can be a source of comfort in scary situations. This conclusion does not make any judgment of the question whether God actually exists or not, nor does it imply a value judgment for believers or nonbelievers.

The principle for the psychology of conspiracy theories is the same: It is perfectly possible to study these beliefs without knowing for sure whether certain specific conspiracy theories are true or false. As a matter of fact, I know of one published research study that examined belief in a conspiracy theory that later on did turn out to be true. The study focused specifically on the Watergate affair. In 1972, a group of five men were caught burglarizing the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate hotel, Washington, DC. The burglary was part of a bigger scheme that involved influential Republicans spying on the Democratic Party for political gain, which included bugging the offices of Democratic opponents and other abuses of power. Many high-ranking White House officials, including President Nixon himself, initially denied any involvement after the burglars were caught. In the investigation that followed, however, the evidence increasingly suggested that Nixon actively tried to cover up his personal involvement in the burglary and other illegal activities associated with it. Eventually, the public release of tape recordings that Nixon had of meetings held in his office supported his role in a cover-up, leading him to resign his presidency on 9 August 1974.

Two academic researchers, Thom...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Preface
• 1 Psychology of conspiracy theories
• 2 When do people believe conspiracy theories?
• 3 The architecture of belief
• 4 The social roots of conspiracy theories
• 5 Conspiracy theories and ideology
• 6 Explaining and reducing conspiracy theories
• Further reading
• Notes
• References