Conspiracy theories can have consequences
Exposure to ideas may lead to feeling powerless: study
The school massacre in Newtown was a government hoax designed to bolster gun control. The destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 was the result of a controlled demolition. Elvis faked his own death.
For every major event, there’s a conspiracy theory to explain it. And though the temptation is to treat it as harmless paranoia, a new study finds mere exposure to such information can have serious social consequences.
Researchers from the University of Kent in the U.K. found simply reading a conspiracy theory increased people’s feelings of powerlessness, which ultimately reduced their desire to politically engage. And this effect occurred even when the information wasn’t directly related to government.
Exposure to pro-conspiracy material on climate change, for example, not only made people less motivated to reduce their carbon footprint, it also negatively affected their interest in voting.
“When you’re exposed to a conspiracy — say, that the government is involved in secret plots — it can make you feel as though your actions won’t make a difference,” said doctoral student Daniel Jolley, the study’s co-author. “(It) appears to trigger a conspiratorial mindset.”
The research, published in the British Journal of Psychology, is the first to experimentally demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship between conspiracy theories and feelings of powerlessness. And this sense of reduced agency appears to weaken interest in democratic participation.
This bears out across two experiments conducted by Jolley and co-author Karen Douglas.
In the first, 168 university students read an article that either refuted a conspiracy theory about Princess Diana’s death or endorsed it. Afterward, those in the latter group reported heightened feelings of political powerlessness in comparison with the first group, along with reduced intentions to engage in politics.
In a second experiment with 191 university students, this process was repeated using articles that either presented climate change as a hoax or a legitimate phenomenon.
Those who read the conspiratorial material were more likely to report feelings of climate powerlessness, uncertainty and disillusionment, which in turn reduced their desire to act in environmentally friendly ways.
The researchers found this especially intriguing, as it implies political engagement could be negatively affected by conspiracies of every stripe. Indeed, there are alternative explanations for everything from the NASA moon landing to the death of Marilyn Monroe.
“There’s not just one type of person who believes in conspiracies. Millions of different people believe in them,” Jolley said.
To wit, a 2003 poll for ABC News found seven in 10 Americans believed John F. Kennedy’s assassination was the result of a broader plot. And new research by Fairleigh Dickinson University shows 63 per cent of registered U.S. voters believe at least one political conspiracy.
Jolley and Douglas acknowledge healthy skepticism can encourage government transparency and public debate. But they also note conspiracy theories potentially lead to societal disengagement — and a waning interest in political and environmental participation.
“Conspiracy theories aren’t necessarily just harmless fun,” Jolley said. “They may have potentially serious social consequences.”