Birthers, Deathers, And Glenn Beck: The Psychology Of Conspiracy Theories

They’re everywhere.

Secrets, lies, government cover-ups, elaborate frauds, vast networks of behind-the-scenes operations, back-room dealings, and conspiracies. The moon landing? A hoax. The Kennedy assassination? A government plot. The switch to digital television? The early stages of a real-life Big Brother program.

Obviously, these three particular conspiracy theories, as well as the vast majority of conspiracy theories in general, are discounted by the general public. Most of us laugh at the small minority of Americans who believe that the government is hiding evidence of UFOs, or that public water supply fluoridation is a Communist plot to take over the world, or that Paul McCartney died in 1966. However, disturbingly, other equally absurd theories have been gaining purchase in mainstream discourse in recent months. Foremost among these is the “birther” conspiracy, or the belief that President Obama was not born in the United States, which began with Internet rumors about his citizenship status during the 2008 primaries and has been fueled by such public figures as Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and, in recent weeks, Donald Trump. Other conspiracy theories, too, have received undeserved attention in the public sphere recently: Glenn Beck’s  “shadow government” George Soros Nazi-sympathizer theory, made famous by Beck’s chalkboard hysterics (and the subsequent mocking of Beck’s chalkboard hysterics), comes to mind, as does Rush Limbaugh’s claim that the economic crisis was started by Democrats in order to get President Obama elected.

And unfortunately, it appears that the conspiracy theory madness won’t be over anytime soon. The White House’s announcement late Sunday night that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALS in Pakistan and buried at sea launched a whole host of new theories, and President Obama’s decision not to release photos of bin Laden’s corpse has sparked what some are calling the “deather movement,” whose members doubt that bin Laden was killed at all. Glenn Beck, unsurprisingly, has even contributed his own theory to the mix.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of all of these conspiracy theories (and, indeed, conspiracy theories in general) is their sheer persistence in the face of concrete disproof. President Obama released his short-form birth certificate, a document that meets the United States’ legal requirements for proof of citizenship, back in June of 2008, two months before he even accepted the Democratic presidential nomination. Birther doubts, however, only increased–a New York Times poll published this past April found that 47% of Republicans doubted Obama’s status as a natural-born citizen, and even after Obama released the long-form certificate last week, polls found that 14% of Republicans and 10% of adults overall still do. Not even the public figures involved in the birther movement have given up in the face of the release of the long-form certificate–Trump has called for an official examination of the certificate’s authenticity, and Beck and Palin have both suggested that the release of the certificate was specifically timed to distract voters from Ben Bernanke’s press conference, held the same day.

How, now that the president has released both his short- and long-form birth certificates, can the birther conspiracy theory still persist? How are there still people who believe that the moon landings were faked, or that 9/11 was perpetrated by the U.S. government? How can people continue to hold irrational beliefs, even when presented with conclusive evidence that disproves them? Part of the answer lies in a psychological phenomenon called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias, which has been experimentally demonstrated dozens of times, is a cognitive bias wherein people selectively choose to accept or reject certain information based on whether it conforms to their existing beliefs. When presented with contradictory information, for example, people tend to believe the information that supports their pre-existing attitudes and dismiss the other information as untrue or unreliable, regardless of  its actual truth or falsity. Confirmation bias has the effect of reinforcing existing attitudes and prejudices, causing people to ignore evidence (even overwhelming or conclusive evidence) that contradicts their established viewpoints and instead seek out sources that confirm these viewpoints.

Confirmation bias, for these reasons, is the life blood of conspiracy theories. To dedicated believers, no amount of conclusive disproof could ever be enough–not a birth certificate, not a photo of bin Laden’s corpse, not even a video of the moon landing. The advent of the Internet has made it increasingly easy for people to filter their information and deliberately seek out sources that confirm their existing beliefs, no matter how heterodox or crazy those beliefs may be. While rationally debunking conspiracy theories may convince the general public of their falsity, it seems that there will always be fringe groups of dedicated believers who, no matter what, can only become further and further entrenched in their viewpoints.

The most productive thing the rest of us can do in the face of this confirmation bias-driven nonsense is to simply ignore these groups. If the media stopped paying attention to and engaging with people whose claims are not only unsupported but fully refuted by concrete evidence, like the birthers, then they would not have such a disproportionate and distracting influence on our public discourse, and we could focus on issues that matter. In the coming weeks, we will likely see an onslaught of new Osama bin Laden conspiracy theories. Please, for the sake of the majority of us, who don’t subscribe to such theories, and for the sake of productive discourse, let’s ignore them.

Image via.