WEBVTT - Why Do Some People Believe Conspiracy Theories?

0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.600
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff,

0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:12.440
<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogelbaum Here nine to eleven was an inside job.

0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:16.000
<v Speaker 1>The moon landing was faked. These are just a couple

0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.840
<v Speaker 1>of the most well known conspiracy theories out there. But

0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.400
<v Speaker 1>why do some people believe these things and others don't?

0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.080
<v Speaker 1>From research from a few years back, it appears that

0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:30.600
<v Speaker 1>the answer lies within the brains of the theorists themselves,

0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:35.520
<v Speaker 1>which affects how they see the world. The research article

0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.280
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about was published in twenty seventeen in the

0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.920
<v Speaker 1>European Journal of Social Psychology. In it, the researchers defined

0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.600
<v Speaker 1>conspiracy theory belief as the assumption that a group of

0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:51.920
<v Speaker 1>people colludes together in secret to attain evil goals. They

0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.880
<v Speaker 1>wanted to test whether belief in conspiracy theories was linked

0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:00.360
<v Speaker 1>to a phenomenon known as illusory pattern perception, that is,

0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:06.160
<v Speaker 1>seeing patterns where none really exist. First, they asked two

0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.200
<v Speaker 1>hundred and sixty four subjects to rate the strength of

0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.160
<v Speaker 1>their belief in both fictitious and well known conspiracy theories

0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.280
<v Speaker 1>on a scale of one to nine. Their belief in

0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:21.399
<v Speaker 1>supernatural phenomena like the horoscopes and telepathy was also ranked. Then,

0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:26.240
<v Speaker 1>the subjects participated in five different studies. In the first,

0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:28.520
<v Speaker 1>they were asked if they saw any patterns and a

0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.320
<v Speaker 1>series of random coin tosses. In the second study, they

0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:34.839
<v Speaker 1>were asked to guess what the next coin toss would

0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.360
<v Speaker 1>be after a series of random tosses. Some were instructed

0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.520
<v Speaker 1>to look for patterns and others weren't. The study authors

0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.840
<v Speaker 1>wrote in their article, perceiving patterns in randomly generated coin

0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:51.440
<v Speaker 1>toss outcomes was significantly correlated with both measures of conspiracy

0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.600
<v Speaker 1>beliefs and with supernatural beliefs. These findings are the first

0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.400
<v Speaker 1>to directly suggest a relationship between belief in conspiracy theories

0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:07.520
<v Speaker 1>and patterns perception, and conceptually replicate this relationship for supernatural beliefs. Then,

0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.280
<v Speaker 1>a third study found a link between irrational beliefs and

0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.960
<v Speaker 1>perception of patterns in chaotic paintings such as those by

0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.120
<v Speaker 1>Jackson Pollock, a known for his paint splatter art. In

0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.760
<v Speaker 1>other words, people with greater belief in conspiracy theories and

0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.480
<v Speaker 1>the supernatural saw more patterns in the art even though

0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:31.520
<v Speaker 1>there weren't any. The fourth study had the participants read

0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.400
<v Speaker 1>a blog that was either conspiracist, skeptic, or paranormal in

0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.880
<v Speaker 1>subject matter. The results showed that agreement with the conspiracist

0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:46.000
<v Speaker 1>or paranormal blogs predicted pattern perception, and the fifth study

0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.240
<v Speaker 1>manipulated an Internet article about the National Security Administration so

0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.760
<v Speaker 1>that there were two versions, one pro conspiracy and the

0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:58.520
<v Speaker 1>other anti conspiracy. Those who read the pro conspiracy version

0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.520
<v Speaker 1>were more likely to see patterns in the world events

0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:06.239
<v Speaker 1>described in the article. The fourth and fifth studies showed

0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:12.400
<v Speaker 1>how external influences affected people's perceptions. The authors wrote, taken together,

0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.720
<v Speaker 1>these findings support the assumption that illusory pattern perception is

0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:21.239
<v Speaker 1>a basic cognitive aspect of the conspiracy and supernatural beliefs

0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:27.480
<v Speaker 1>under investigation here and now. Regular old pattern perception is

0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.080
<v Speaker 1>important for human behavior because it helps us understand the

0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:35.000
<v Speaker 1>world by figuring out relationships, like a drinking water helps

0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.080
<v Speaker 1>with thirst, and being mean to someone will earn an

0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:42.680
<v Speaker 1>unfriendly reaction. If we couldn't see any patterns, we'd be

0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.160
<v Speaker 1>doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. It's

0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.080
<v Speaker 1>when we see patterns where they aren't that we may

0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:53.600
<v Speaker 1>get into trouble. Before the article this episode is based

0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.160
<v Speaker 1>on how stuff works. Spoke with a local expert of

0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.520
<v Speaker 1>sorts our coworker Ben Bollen, who's a co host of

0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:01.720
<v Speaker 1>the podcast Stuff They Don't Want You To Know, a

0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:06.240
<v Speaker 1>show that delves into fringe theories, conspiracy theories, and very real,

0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:11.520
<v Speaker 1>very proven conspiracies. He said, the really fascinating thing about

0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.800
<v Speaker 1>illusory pattern perception is that it can affect much more

0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.000
<v Speaker 1>than conspiracy theories. This is sort of the same thing

0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.719
<v Speaker 1>responsible for a lot of superstitions of the span of

0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.640
<v Speaker 1>human history. That's why we get those beliefs of good

0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.960
<v Speaker 1>or bad luck, because we constructed a pattern based on

0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:33.200
<v Speaker 1>the evidence available at the time. And now one might

0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.599
<v Speaker 1>think that the availability nowadays of accurate and scientific information

0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.359
<v Speaker 1>would negate belief in conspiracy theories, but just the opposite

0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.800
<v Speaker 1>has happened. According to Bolin, his own show got a

0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.600
<v Speaker 1>ton of hate mail after an episode disproving the notion

0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:53.400
<v Speaker 1>of a flat earth. He explained that confirmation bias leads

0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.280
<v Speaker 1>some people to believe what they want to believe and

0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.839
<v Speaker 1>totally shut out evidence to the contrary, no matter how legitimate.

0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:05.039
<v Speaker 1>He said, Now, with confirmation bias functioning in tandem with

0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.640
<v Speaker 1>this illusory pattern perception, people are not finding all the

0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:12.880
<v Speaker 1>information that's accurate. They're finding all the information whatsoever that

0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.680
<v Speaker 1>would fit into their view of this pattern. So more

0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.640
<v Speaker 1>information has actually accelerated the problem more than mitigating it.

0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.640
<v Speaker 1>This is reinforced by the feeling of accomplishment that often

0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:31.279
<v Speaker 1>accompanies belief in unproven theories. People think that they're doing

0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:36.159
<v Speaker 1>a noble thing by exposing such theories. Bolland said, they

0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.920
<v Speaker 1>feel a moral imperative to unearth the truth and spread

0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:45.040
<v Speaker 1>it to the masses. But finally, he warns, not all

0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.600
<v Speaker 1>conspiracy theories turn out to be incorrect. Some have at

0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.880
<v Speaker 1>least a grain of truth, and some are even bigger

0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.680
<v Speaker 1>than we imagine a take, for example, the Watergate scandal,

0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.359
<v Speaker 1>or how it turned out that banking giant HSBC was

0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.520
<v Speaker 1>routinely laundering money for drug traffickers. I've guessed on stuff

0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:05.960
<v Speaker 1>they don't want, you know know, a couple of times

0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.560
<v Speaker 1>myself to talk about how diamond cartels set the price

0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:15.080
<v Speaker 1>of these not actually rare stones, among other things. That's

0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.800
<v Speaker 1>one that the hides and planes sight using marketing campaigns

0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:24.080
<v Speaker 1>to convince consumers of diamond's value. But back in twenty sixteen,

0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.800
<v Speaker 1>a physicist calculated the number of people who would need

0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.560
<v Speaker 1>to be part of some of the alleged secret conspiracies

0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.520
<v Speaker 1>like the moon landing and how long they could keep

0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.600
<v Speaker 1>it together without it blowing open. He reported that for

0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.680
<v Speaker 1>the moon landing to have been a hoax, four hundred

0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:46.160
<v Speaker 1>and ten thousand people would have been involved, and statistically

0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:47.919
<v Speaker 1>they wouldn't have been able to keep a lid on

0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:55.520
<v Speaker 1>it for more than three years and eight months. Today's

0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.239
<v Speaker 1>episode is based on the article Yes, conspiracy theorists, brains

0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.000
<v Speaker 1>really are different on how stuffworks dot Com, written by

0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.440
<v Speaker 1>Aliah Hoyt. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership

0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.919
<v Speaker 1>with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.

0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.680
<v Speaker 1>Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.640
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows