Our caveman brains like conspiracy theories

Now I'm reading the interesting bestseller on practical psychology You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney that describes the scientifically proven ways that our caveman brains gloss over most information, take foolish logical shortcuts, fool us to protect our fragile egos, and constantly re-write our memories to preserve a "consistent" image of ourselves over time.  

A few of these tricks of the mind are mentioned below, such as confirmation bias. There are many, many others such priming, hindsight bias, apophenia, the availability heuristic and the just-world fallacy, that are hardwired into our subconscious minds by evolution, and very difficult for our relatively younger conscious, rational mind to combat. 

Just about the best we can do is admit that all of us fall prey to these tricks of the mind. 

(Priming seems like the most insidious of them all: literally seeing a picture of something for a fraction of a second, or a certain odor, can trigger the deeper, animal subconscious mind to bias how the "thinking" mind perceives subsequent events or makes "rational" judgments. The crazy thing McRaney repeats over and over, in all these psychological experiments, is how well people explain why they think or act the way they do, and actually believe it themselves -- they don't think they're lying! -- when in fact their stated reasons are total bullshit.)

Apropos, I have my own theory about political conspiracy theories. One of my dear conservative friends has lately begun to fall for many of them. I'll give my best guess why. 

For conservatives, most conspiracy theories boil down to two things: 1) either they want to believe that a corrupt, power-hungry federal government is out to tyrannize freedom-loving Americans, and they'll latch onto any evidence or coincidence to support that view and discard anything that doesn't; or, more disturbingly, 2) their pro-wealthy ideology prevents them from accepting the obvious and perfectly legal ways that the super rich trade money for political influence at the expense of the rest of us; therefore, conservatives must look for more abstruse, far-ranging explanations for why "the system" seems to gang up on us average folks.  

Anyhow, I totally agree with Michael Shermer's conclusion that, "when conspiracy-mongering leads to absurd conclusions and diverts our attention from real, pressing political issues and leads people to become politically apathetic, it can be a dangerous waste of time."

Unfrozen caveman conspiracy theorist.

Conspiracy theories: Why we believe the unbelievable

By Michael Shermer

November 27, 2013 | Los Angeles Times

With the passing of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy last week, and the accompanying fusillade of documentaries purporting to prove there was a conspiracy behind it, we might expect (and hope) that cabalistic conjecturing will wane until the next big anniversary.

Don't count on it. A poll this month found that 61 percent of Americans who responded still believe that JFK was the victim of a conspiracy, despite the fact that the preponderance of evidence points to Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin.

Why do so many people refuse to accept this simple and obvious conclusion? The answer: psychology.

There are three psychological effects at work here, starting with "cognitive dissonance," or the discomfort felt when holding two ideas that are not in harmony. We attempt to reduce the dissonance by altering one of the ideas to be in accord with the other. In this case, the two discordant ideas are (1) JFK as one of the most powerful people on Earth who was (2) killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone loser, a nobody. Camelot brought down by a curmudgeon.

That doesn't feel right. To balance the scale, conspiracy elements are stacked onto the Oswald side: the CIA, the FBI, the KGB, the Mafia, Fidel Castro, Lyndon Johnson and, in Oliver Stone's telling in his film "JFK," the military-industrial complex.

Cognitive dissonance was at work shortly after Princess Diana's death, which was the result of drunk driving, speeding and no seat belt. But princesses are not supposed to die the way thousands of regular people die each year, so the British royal family, the British intelligence services and others had to be fingered as co-conspirators.

By contrast, there is no cognitive dissonance for the Holocaust - one of the worst crimes in history committed by one of the most criminal regimes in history.

A second psychological effect is the "monological belief system," or "a unitary, closed-off worldview in which beliefs come together in a mutually supportive network," in the words of University of Kent researchers Michael J. Wood, Karen M. Douglas and Robbie M. Sutton in a 2012 paper titled "Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories." A conspiracy theory, they wrote, is "a proposed plot by powerful people or organizations working together in secret to accomplish some (usually sinister) goal." Once you believe that "one massive, sinister conspiracy could be successfully executed in near-perfect secrecy (it) suggests that many such plots are possible."

With this cabalistic paradigm in place, conspiracies can become "the default explanation for any given event." For example, the Kent researchers found that people who believe that Princess Diana was killed by MI6 were also more likely to believe that the moon landing was a hoax, that HIV was created in a laboratory as a biological weapon and that governments are hiding extraterrestrials. The effect is even more pronounced when the conspiracies contradict one another. People who believed that Diana faked her own death were "marginally more likely" to also believe that she was killed.

A third psychological effect is "confirmation bias," or the tendency to look for and find confirming evidence for what you already believe and to ignore disconfirming evidence. Once you believe, say, that 9/11 was an inside job by the Bush administration, you focus on the handful of anomalies that fateful day and connect them into a seemingly meaningful pattern, while ignoring the massive evidence pointing to Al Qaeda. JFK conspiracy theorists ignore the massive evidence pointing to Oswald while seeking deep meaning in trivial matters, such as the man with the umbrella on the grassy knoll, or the puff of smoke behind the picket fence, or the odd noises echoing around Dealey Plaza. Each become pregnant with meaning when the mind goes in search of cabals.

Such conspiracy-mongering may seem harmless, but there's a dark side. Another study this year by University of Kent researchers found that"exposure to information supporting conspiracy theories reduced participants' intentions to engage in politics, relative to participants who were given information refuting conspiracy theories." They attributed this effect to "feelings of political powerlessness." What can any of us regular folks do if the world is run by a handful of secret societies (like the Illuminati) or families (such as the Rockefellers or Rothschilds) or operatives (think CIA or KGB) operating clandestinely to establish a new world order?

What happens in history matters, and where conspiracies are real - as in the case of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln - we should ferret them out. But when conspiracy-mongering leads to absurd conclusions and diverts our attention from real, pressing political issues and leads people to become politically apathetic, it can be a dangerous waste of time.

Studies: Wealth makes us less generous

According to professor Dacher Keltner, "In just about every way you can study it, our lower-class individuals volunteer more, they give more of their resources — they're more generous."

Whaddya know?  Yet more evidence that wealth changes people for the worst.

As We Become Richer, Do We Become Stingier?

By Shankar Vedantam

September 3, 2013 | NPR

URL: http://n.pr/19fNorK

Researcher: Suicide bombers motivated by...suicide

Gee, whaddya know?  Sometimes the simple answer is the correct answer.  According to Lankford's research:

Far from being psychologically normal, suicide terrorists are suicidal. They kill themselves to escape crises or unbearable pain. Until we recognise this, attempts to stop the attacks are doomed to fail.

But what about what failed suicide bombers say was their motivation?  They lie, according to Lankford, especially Muslims, and their families are eager to believe them:

Traumatised parents want to believe that their children were motivated by heroic impulses. And suicidal people commonly deny that they are suicidal and are often able to hide their true feelings from the world.

This is especially true of fundamentalist Muslims. Suicide is explicitly condemned in Islam and guarantees an eternity in hell. Martyrs, on the other hand, can go to heaven.

So let's put the myth of the sober-minded suicide terrorist in the "They hate us for our freedom," category of self-serving fairy tales that don't make us any safer.

Martyr myth: Inside the minds of suicide bombers

By Adam Lankford

July 8, 2013 | New Scientist

URL: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929240.200

GOP's 10 psychological defense mechanisms

"Oww... I can't admit I've been wrong all these years and wasted my life!..."

Republicans, know thyself!  

Here's a list of psychological terms for what your brains invent (with examples) to defend your fragile egos when you are presented with incontrovertible facts and arguments from the likes of moi:  

• denial - "Tax cuts create more government revenue."
• displacement - Driving a pick-up truck into a mosque after 9/11.
• projection - Vociferously anti-gay Republican official/preacher/representative caught in a gay sexual tryst.  (Too many cases to mention).
• splitting - Obama accused of being simultaneously a crypto-Marxist and a crypto-Muslim.
• fantasy - Birtherism.
• rationalization - "We must cut future Social Security benefits for the young so that Social Security will be there for them in the future." (OK, that's just a non sequitur).
• regression - Glenn Beck's crying at everything.  Ditto John Boehner.
• acting out - Teabaggers mocking and throwing money at a Parkinson's patient who wanted Obamacare.
• (over)compensation - Romney's inexplicable lack of human touch is OK because he's a "classic executive" who excels at hard analysis.
• reaction formation - See anti-gay Republican homosexuals above.

According to experts, the only known cure for these forms of cognitive dissonance is to buy a Chevy Volt and vote for Obama. 

How the Republican brain plays defence

By Paul Rosenberg

August 26, 2012 | Al Jazeera

URL:  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/201282694814229952.html

Brain science: Why big bankers behave badly

Like most things in life, science can explain why big bankers are sleazeballs.  It's 30+ years of deregulation and financial bubbles that put at least two generations of bankers in permanent "kill" mode, focused on power, conquest and reward, while they're oblivious to risks and downsides.

It's evolution and brain science, folks.  It's incontrovertible.  And if you don't buy it then you're an ideologue.  These sleazeballs need a hard slap of negative reinforcement -- regulation, prosecutions, and jail time -- to re-wire their reptilian brains.

Bankers and the neuroscience of greed

The unconstrained power of bankers acts like a drug on their brains' reward systems, creating insatiable appetites

By Ian Robertson

July 2, 2012 | Guardian

URL:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/bankers-greed-brain-changes

10% of Wall St. bankers are psychopaths

As it turns out, "slimeballs" is not a very exact term for Wall Street bankers; clinically, they are "psychopaths." Good to know.

One Out Of Every Ten Wall Street Employees Is A Psychopath, Say Researchers

By Alexander Eichler

February 28, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/wall-street-psychopaths_n_1307168.html

Studies: Charitable giving irrational, favors pain, not totally altruistic

The facts of human beings' emotional, irrational reactions to appeals for charity is just one more reason not to depend on private charity to take care of our brothers and sisters in need.

We should take advantage of government's economies of scale and rely on professional bureaucrats' dispassionate planning to ensure an adequate social safety net for our fellow citizens.

Why Do We Give? Not Why Or How You Think

By Alix Spiegel

November 25, 2011 | All Things Considered on NPR

New findings in the science of charity reveals some counter-intuitive results. For instance, people will give more money to a single suffering person than to a population of suffering people, and also give more when some type of physical discomfort — for example, running a marathon — is involved.

GUY RAZ, HOST: This time of year, pleas for donations are as plentiful as eggnog and door-buster sales. Americans give around $300 billion a year to charity. And as NPR's Alix Spiegel reports, psychologists have started to look more closely at when and why we're motivated to give.

ALIX SPIEGEL, BYLINE: The science of charity took off in earnest in the late 1990s, but the series of papers that attempted to understand a puzzling psychological phenomena: When people give to charity, they'll give far more money to a single suffering person than to a population of suffering people, which charity researcher Chris Olivola, of the University of Warwick, says doesn't make a lot of sense.

DR. CHRIS OLIVOLA: You should be more interested in helping more people than fewer, right? You should be more interested in helping 10 sick children than you should be interested in helping one of those 10.

SPIEGEL: But that isn't how it works. In fact, Olivola says tell donors about even two hungry children or give them statistics about hungry children generally and donations will fall by half.

ALLA VOLA: In fact, I think one of the troubling results is if you give people the photo of the child and the statistics, people are less moved than just the child. So, statistics plus photo is just like statistics by itself.

SPIEGEL: These strange findings, says Alla Vola(ph), helped inspire other charity researchers. And last year, Alla Vola and a co-author published many of their resulting studies in a book called "The Science of Giving." This book includes all kinds of surprising experiments, which examine our quirky relationship to charity, including Alla Vola's own work on a kind of charity that now seems completely ordinary: marathoning for a cause.

VOLA: On the face of it, you know, it seems great that people are making this sort of, I would say, sacrifice, but if you stopped and think about, it's kind of puzzling, right?

SPIEGEL: Marathons and other charity events of that kind are essentially asking people to suffer real physical discomfort for the privilege of then giving money, a formula that Alla Vola says probably wouldn't fly in the commercial world. If I'm going to try to sell you a car, I don't ask you to run a race first. But with charity, Alla Vola says, the more you ask people to suffer, the better.

VOLA: When people anticipate they're going to have to suffer to raise money for a charity, then their willingness to contribute to that cause actually goes up.

SPIEGEL: So, for example, in his research, Alla Vola gathered groups of people, gave them each $5 then made it possible for them to contribute a portion of that money to what amounted to a charity. But for half of the participants, there was an additional requirement before they were allowed to donate.

VOLA: If you want to give any money to the group, you're going to have to put both your hands in very, very cold, painfully cold, water for 60 seconds - very painful task.

SPIEGEL: Now, the people who were not asked to suffer only gave about $3; and the people who were asked to suffer?

VOLA: What we found was that people in that condition, the cold water condition, gave more money. They gave four out of five dollars to the group, even though we basically give them incentive not to give.

SPIEGEL: Another interesting new finding comes from an Israeli psychologist at Ben Gurion University named Tehila Kogut. Kogut says that in Israel, like in America, people are constantly bombarded with telephone requests from charities seeking funds. And she says most of her friends have a method for dealing with these calls.

TEHILA KOGUT: They just don't pick up your phone when they don't recognize the number because they don't want to be asked for a donation. They say, why don't you say just no? Well, it's a problem to pick up the phone and say no.

SPIEGEL: To better understand why people avoid saying no, Kogut did a series of studies which ultimately made clear that people give to charity not just out of altruism or empathy but also curiously to protect themselves. Say you're called on a phone by a cancer charity and asked to donate. Well, the very act of being asked, Kogut says, brings on a miniature existential crisis.

KOGUT: They feel that if they say no, the probability that they will have cancer, it will increase. That this is an act of tempting fate.

SPIEGEL: Giving then is in part an attempt to ward off disaster. Now, as for implementing some of these insights, most of the researchers interviewed said that so far relatively few charitable organizations seem to be using the research on giving to shape their appeals. They should, though, Alla Vola says. (unintelligible) has a lot to say about when and why we give. Alix Spiegel, NPR News, Washington.

Any advert creates 'internal battle' in your brain

The "self-control region [of the brain] is in a tug of war with the parts of the brain affected by ads."

This info raises yet more doubts about just how free is humans' free will. Second, it makes me think of the $ hundreds of millions in political campaign spending every year, most of which goes towards TV commercials. Are we really making informed political choices, or just responding to non-conscious cues?

The good news is that every time you think critically about how ads work, you create new patterns in your brain that strengthen the self-control regions. Unfortunately, that's also why marketers spend $17 billion a year targeting ads at children, who have not yet developed the capacity and experience for critical thinking. Companies are hoping they can hard-wire those buying tastes and habits in children at a tender age so they'll continue on into adulthood.

This Is Your Brain On Ads: An Internal 'Battle'

By Maya Cueva

June 15, 2011 | All Things Considered on NPR

URL: http://www.npr.org/137175622

Psychologist: To defeat teabaggers, we must empathize

Here's a predictably mamby-pampy lib'rul response from a San Francisco psychologist who treats paranoid patients: We normal people must seek to empathize with the teabaggers. We must understand them, learn their "backstory." Give them a hug, maybe. No, on second thought, scratch the hugs: they're armed and ornery. Anyway, here's what makes a paranoiac:


"People can't tolerate feeling helpless and self-hating for very long. It's too painful, too demoralizing and too frightening. They have to find an antidote. They have to make sense of it all in a way that restores their sense of meaning, their feeling of agency, their self-esteem, and their belief in the possibility of redemption. They have to. They have no choice. That's just the way the mind works.

"The paranoid strategy is to generate a narrative that finally 'explains it all.' A narrative -- a set of beliefs about the way the world is and is supposed to be -- helps make sense of chaos. It reduces guilt and self-blame by projecting it onto someone else. And it restores a sense of agency by offering up an enemy to fight. Finally, it offers hope that if 'they' -- the enemy, the conspirators -- can be avoided or destroyed, the paranoid person's core feelings of helplessness and devaluation will go away."

Contrary to my theory that teabaggers are simply Republicans looking for an excuse to play dress-up and get out of the house, Dr. Bader says teabaggers could come from anywhere. (That sounds like a public health advisory: "Anyone could become a teabagger, even you. At the first signs of rabid anti-government paranoia, please consult a physician."):

"In the Times story about the Tea Party movement, the writer describes how most Tea Party activists are not loyal Republicans. 'They are frequently political neophytes,' he writes, 'who prize independence and tell strikingly similar stories of having been awakened by the recession. Their families upended by lost jobs, foreclosed homes and depleted retirement funds, they said they wanted to know why it happened and whom to blame.'

"They began listening to Glenn Beck, reading the Federalist Papers, books by Ayn Rand and George Orwell, and started visiting radical right-wing Web sites.

"The Times writer then makes a crucial observation: 'Many describe emerging from their research as if reborn to a new reality.'"

Even if fellow lib'ruls don't agree with his prescription, we should take note that, therapeutically speaking, teabaggers can't be reasoned with. I'm no shrink, but I coulda told ya that, for I have tried and tried to no avail:

"The 'problem' is that Tea Party activists move from legitimate feelings and normal longings to paranoid political positions that are dangerous and cruel. But because these positions serve an important psychological function, because they resolve an emotional dilemma, they can't be changed by rational argument. I have never been able to help a paranoid patient even a little bit by arguing with his or her view of reality. Not one bit."

Why We Need to Have Empathy for Tea Party Lunatics

If we don't understand how decent, god-fearing, victimized people can come to espouse such dangerous ideologies, we won't be able to fight them effectively.

By Michael Bader

March 2, 2010 | AlterNet

URL: http://www.alternet.org/news/145848/why_we_need_to_have_empathy_for_tea_party_lunatics_