Control vs. conspiracy

Being a science teacher, I'm perhaps to be excused if I think that a lot of the world's problems would be significantly mitigated if everyone learned more actual science.

It wouldn't fix everything, mind you.  Even I'm not gung-ho enough to think that.  But if we all could admit that anthropogenic climate change is real, that evolution happened, that vaccines work, that scientists aren't some kind of evil cadre of conspirators who would like nothing better than to destroy the Earth -- well, it would go a long way toward making this a much saner world.

This idea is bolstered by some research that I just ran across -- although it dates to 2008, I hadn't heard about it.  Entitled "Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception," by Jennifer Whitson and Adam Galinsky of the University of Texas, it describes research supporting the idea that when people feel confused or out of their depth, they have a tendency to see patterns that don't exist.  It's as if the mind becomes desperate to find something to hang on to, and attempts to force order from chaos.  The authors write:

Participants who lacked control were more likely to perceive a variety of illusory patterns, including seeing images in noise, forming illusory correlations in stock market information, perceiving conspiracies, and developing superstitions.  Additionally, we demonstrated that increased pattern perception has a motivational basis by measuring the need for structure directly and showing that the causal link between lack of control and illusory pattern perception is reduced by affirming the self.  Although these many disparate forms of pattern perception are typically discussed as separate phenomena, the current results suggest that there is a common motive underlying them.

Science writer Ed Yong draws a connection between this phenomenon and belief in conspiracy theories.  In his wonderful blog Not Exactly Rocket Science, Yong writes:

Obviously, the effect has both good and bad sides that should make for interesting discussions.  For a start, an ability to spot patterns isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It could be downright beneficial if it ramps up a person’s skill at spotting subtle trends that are actually real (although future studies need to test whether this actually happens). 

Even spotting false patterns could have psychological benefits if it restores a person’s sense of control, increases their confidence or even reduces their risk of depression.  Scientists, fond as we are of truth and fact, would typically argue that it’s better to get an accurate picture of the world around you.  Whitson and Galinsky agree but they also take a pragmatic stance, saying that “it may be at times adaptive [to allow] an individual to psychologically engage with rather than withdraw from their environment.” 

Of course, there are instances when making false connections can be downright damaging, especially if they’re used as the basis of bad, or even fatal, decisions.  Imagined pharmaceutical conspiracies or implications drawn about medicines from one-off anecdotes could drive people to embrace fruitless or potentially dangerous forms of alternative treatment.  People can avoid taking responsibility for, or psychologically coping with, events in their lives if they ascribe them to higher powers or sinister agencies.  And seeing too much meaning in the actions of others could lead to paranoia and severed social ties.

Which certainly supports the conjecture that belief in conspiracy theories would be stronger amongst people who feel that they have little control over their lives.  If you feel yourself to be at risk, if you think your home, family, or your entire way of life is in danger of being irreparably damaged, you begin to cast about for explanations -- because, after all, even a terrifying explanation is better than all of those bad things happening for no reason at all.  So you begin to put together pieces of information, all the while looking for a pattern.

And Whitson and Galinsky's research implies that if there is no pattern, your brain simply invents one.

See the pattern?  [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

It's not that I don't understand the drive people have for there to be an explanation.  The idea that bad things just happen because they happen -- that the world is so constructed that it raineth alike on the just and the unjust -- is a pretty bleak view.  

But there are a lot of things that we do understand, and that's where science education comes into play.  Whitson and Galinsky's research shows once we know more about those phenomena for which we do have an explanation, we not only make smarter decisions, but our feelings of befuddlement and confusion diminish.  We're less likely to find illusory patterns and miss the reality, or to be taken in by people who are muddying the situation because of a specific agenda (currently the case with the political attitudes toward climate change).  

It brings me back, as I have many times, to the wonderful quote by Carl Sagan: "It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."  

Order out of chaos

As regular readers of this blog know, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what motivates people to buy into irrational worldviews.

Some of them, of course, can be explained from wishful thinking.  The belief in an afterlife -- at least the more pleasant sorts -- is likely to stem from some desire to assuage the fear of death.  And the idea of divination, that you can predict what you're in for through supernatural means, may well come from a need for reassurance that the future isn't going to suck.

It's more of a mystery, however, why people would gravitate toward the less cheerful models of how the world works.  Conspiracy theories, and punitive sorts of religions, and belief in black magic and curses -- how can those be appealing?  I've wondered for some time if it may not be some kind of compensatory mechanism for feeling powerless, or because even a horrible meaning for the universe is better than no meaning.  But I've had no evidence for this other than "it seems reasonable."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

But now, Jennifer A. Whitson of the University of Texas' Department of Business Management, has co-authored a paper with Adam D, Galinsky (of Columbia University) and Aaron Kay (of Duke University) that puts a lens on these sorts of beliefs.  Entitled, "The Emotional Roots of Conspiratorial Perception, System Justification, and Belief in the Paranormal," the paper appeared in the Journal of Social Psychology earlier this year -- and it sheds some fascinating light on this rather dark facet of human understanding.

Whitson et al. designed an experiment to see if what was going on was a response to something ramping up our emotional state.  The authors write:

We predicted that experiencing emotions that reflect uncertainty about the world (e.g., worry, surprise, fear, hope), compared to certain emotions (e.g., anger, happiness, disgust, contentment), would activate the need to imbue the world with order and structure across a wide range of compensatory measures... It has long been known that people experiencing uncertainty engage in processes intended to reduce that uncertainty... We propose that emotions which embody an underlying appraisal of uncertainty about the world will instigate processes of compensatory control, e.g., attempts to regain a sense of perceived control over the uncertain landscape.  When people are gripped in the emotional vise of uncertainty, regardless of the valence of that emotion, they will engage in mental gymnastics to imbue the world with order — from putting faith in external sources of control like the government... to seeing illusory patterns, i.e., identifying a coherent and meaningful interrelationship among a set of unrelated stimuli.

So they tested 251 people, and and set up a situation where particular emotions would be heightened.  Different people were asked to focus on different kinds of emotions:

They were randomly assigned to one of eight emotions: happiness and contentment (certain and positive emotions), anger and disgust (certain and negative emotions), surprise and hope (uncertain and positive emotions), and worry and fear (uncertain and negative emotions).  Consequently, the design was 2 (certainty: certain, uncertain) × 2 (valence: positive, negative) between-participants, with two emotions in each cell... 

Participants were asked to, “Please recall a particular incident in which you were very [emotion]. What made you feel [emotion]? Recall this situation as vividly as you can. Please describe this situation in which you were [emotion] — what happened, how you felt, etc.”

The idea was that memories of situations in which strong emotions were experienced would create a re-experience of those emotions, and would change the test subject's perceptions of the world -- and thus, their confidence about how the universe operates.  And it worked:

When participants recalled an uncertain emotion, regardless of its valence, they demonstrated evidence of compensatory control in the form of greater government defense...  We further tested the robustness of the link from uncertain emotions to compensatory control by looking at a different means of imbuing one's world with structure and non-randomness — belief in conspiracies and paranormal activity (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008).  While beliefs in the existence of paranormal phenomena or vast conspiracies do not on their face appear comforting, they are appealing because they provide structure to the world, making it appear less random.  Indeed, there is evidence that even threatening beliefs which provide structure are preferred to believing that the world is made up of unpredictable and chaotic forces.  For example, individuals reminded of uncontrollable hazards in their environment will attribute increased influence to focal enemy figures (Sullivan, Landau, & Rothschild, 2010), and reduced control increases preferences for structured yet pessimistic outlooks on the progression of a disease versus less structured but more optimistic outlooks (Rutjens, van Haneveld, van der Pligt, Kreemers, & Noordewier, 2013).  Similarly, conspiracies simplify complex and unpredictable social environments by attributing events and behavior to one organized, malevolent force (Hofstadter, 1965 and Zonis and Joseph, 1994).  In general, “conspiracy theory gives causes and motives to events that are more rationally seen as accidents. By attributing motives to chance happenings, believers gain control of the uncontrollable” (Pipes, 1997).

So the Whitson et al. study confirms what I'd always suspected; beliefs in the paranormal, and in religions (even harsh, punitive ones), and in conspiracy theories, are attractive because they give answers and meaning in a universe that otherwise would be a random, chaotic hash.  Even in the absence of evidence, people who feel uncertain or fearful will gravitate toward something that makes sense of things -- even if that something is unpleasant, or makes no particular sense in and of itself.

For myself, I'd like to know the world as it is.  A reassuring falsehood is still a lie, and approaching the universe with honesty is more important to me than telling myself stories.  As Carl Sagan put it, in his essay, "A Universe Not Made For Us":

What do we really want from philosophy and religion?  Palliatives?  Therapy?  Comfort? Do we want reassuring fables or an understanding of our actual circumstances?  Dismay that the Universe does not conform to our preferences seems childish.  You might think that grown-ups would be ashamed to put such disappointments into print.  The fashionable way of doing this is not to blame the Universe—which seems truly pointless—but rather to blame the means by which we know the Universe, namely science. 

Science has taught us that, because we have a talent for deceiving ourselves, subjectivity may not freely reign. 

Its conclusions derive from the interrogation of Nature... and are not in all cases predesigned to satisfy our wants.