English
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
The Beliefs of Unbelievers: From Conspiracies to
Mindfulness Meditation
Dr. FARIAS, Miguel 1
“The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies explain the history of the Trojan
War is gone. The gods are abandoned. But their place is filled by powerful men or groups
– sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer from
– such as the Learned Elders of Zion, or the monopolists, or the capitalists, or the
imperialists.” Karl Popper (2003, pp. 104-105).
Contemporary conspiracy theories, such as those surrounding the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, commonly function to explain a variety of social events (Swami & Coles, 2010).
Although most of these theories rely on politico-economical ideologies, many conspiracy
beliefs involve supernatural ideas, such as the belief that aliens are abducting American
citizens (Banaji & Kihlstrom, 1996; Newman & Baumeister, 1996). Many conspiracy beliefs
are not easily falsifiable and may even be resistant to counterevidence provided by
experts, given that experts are often perceived to be part of the conspiracy (Sharp, 2008).
The present study focused on one of the most popular contemporary conspiracy theories,
presented in the highly successful novel The Da Vinci Code (Brown, 2002). The novel
suggests that the Roman Catholic Church kept secret Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene,
from which sprang a “holy lineage” protected by a secret organization, the Priory of Sion.
We investigated participants’ baseline belief in the novel’s conspiracy claims, and
reassessed their beliefs after exposing them to counterevidence against these claims. Our
aim was to advance understanding of conspiracy beliefs by examining the psychological
factors that predict such beliefs, and by assessing the beliefs’ resilience. Examining the
1
Brain, Belief and Behaviour Research Group, Coventry University - [email protected]
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predictors of belief in contemporary conspiracy theories may help identify individuals who
are particularly attracted to such theories.
Previous research has suggested that conspiracy beliefs serve a psychological
function by providing a sense of meaning and control. Social anomie, lack of trust, and
feelings of powerlessness are among the main predictors of belief in conspiracies
(Abalakina-Paap, Stephan, Craig, & Gregory, 1999; Goertzel, 1994). A recent review
suggested that these predictors and their relationships to conspiracy beliefs can be
understood in the light of a psychological need to explain events, particularly complex
societal events (Swami & Coles, 2010); conspiracy beliefs may also allow one to direct
anger toward those perceived to be responsible for one’s social condition (Swami,
Chamorro-Premuzic, & Furnham, 2009). Research focusing on conspiracy beliefs in
particular populations (e.g., African Americans) suggests that these beliefs (e.g., that HIV
was purposefully spread among the African-American population) may arise as a form of
making sense of one’s marginalized social condition (Thorburn & Boggart, 2005). In
addition, experimental evidence indicates that when experiences of lack of control are
elicited by asking people to remember an uncontrollable threat, belief in conspiracies
increases (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). Although there is a scarcity of research in this area,
the
likelihood
of
an
association
between
conspiracy
beliefs
and
feelings
of
meaninglessness and uncontrollability has been established.
Research on other types of belief systems indicates that beliefs and worldviews
allow people to alleviate experiences of existential anxiety and threat. In particular,
research on terror management theory (TMT) has provided a wealth of experimental
evidence showing that supernatural beliefs are effective in protecting people against
existential threat arising from awareness of mortality. According to TMT, meaning making
is essential for people to be able to cope with the terror and meaninglessness generated
by awareness of their inevitable mortality (e.g., Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski,
1997). This terror can be kept at bay through the adoption of worldviews, which provide
individuals with consensual standards and values – systems of meaning – that transcend
their personal mortality. When reminded of death, people are motivated to defend their
worldviews by, for instance, derogating others who hold competing worldviews (for a
review, see Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010). Individuals who hold supernatural or
religious beliefs are often protected from the otherwise strong negative effects of death-
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related anxiety (e.g., Jonas & Fischer, 2006). Relative to secular beliefs, supernatural
beliefs may be more powerful in alleviating existential anxiety because they often promise
literal immortality and are less susceptible to rational-logical rebuttals (Vail, Rothschild,
Weise, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2010). We propose that the psychological
processes associated with the need to protect oneself from the paralyzing anxiety,
meaninglessness, and loss of control resulting from awareness of mortality may be one
factor underlying conspiracy beliefs.
We examined potential predictors of conspiracy beliefs in the context of the
tremendously popular novel The Da Vinci Code (Brown, 2002; hereafter, the DVC). The
novel led to the publication of more than 20 books in the English language alone, the
majority of which involved criticisms from Catholic and Protestant writers (Barrett, 2007).
These criticisms were exacerbated by author Dan Brown’s claims that the novel was the
product of significant historical research and offered an educational experience (Fenster,
2008). According to a survey of a nationally representative British sample, undertaken
shortly before the U.K. release of the film based on the DVC novel, by 2005 22% of British
adults had read the novel, which did impact their beliefs: Sixty-four percent of readers
believed that there was some truth to the idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had
children, in contrast to 30% of non-readers; and of those who had read the novel, 32%
thought that the Priory of Sion was a real organization, as compared to a mere 6% of nonreaders (Ivereigh, 2006).
In the present study, we investigated the functional nature of DVC-related
conspiracy beliefs by addressing their role as a way of dealing with existential anxiety. We
posited that DVC beliefs, like supernatural ones (Vail et al., 2010), would reduce the
negative impact of death-related anxiety by providing individuals with a cognitive
framework that explains significant societal-historical events in a new, secular light and is
emotionally comforting in its presentation of Jesus as a non-divine figure, an exceptional
but fundamentally human character.
We further propose that an individual’s complete network of beliefs can either
facilitate or hinder the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs. Unlike the concept of a
monological belief system (Goertzel, 1994), which is suggestive of a single mental module
for conspiracies, we argue that people tend to hold a wider network of beliefs that can be
either congruent or competing with conspiracy beliefs. We propose that the likelihood of
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endorsing a conspiracy belief will increase to the extent that one’s network of beliefs is
generally congruent with conspiracy beliefs, and decrease to the extent that it is
competing. In the context of the DVC conspiracy, Christian beliefs are an example of a
competing belief system, whereas secular spiritual beliefs, with their focus on an
alternative holistic reading of reality (Farias & Lalljee, 2008), are a good candidate for a
congruent belief system.
Based on past terror management research that has shown that reminders of death
increase people’s supernatural beliefs (Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006), we predicted that
greater anxiety about mortality would be associated with greater endorsement of spiritual
and religious beliefs (Christian and secular spiritual beliefs). We further predicted that
endorsement of the DVC conspiracy would be positively predicted by holding a congruent
belief system (secular spiritual) and negatively predicted by holding a competing belief
system (Christianity). Thus, we hypothesized that secular spiritual and Christian beliefs
would mediate the relationship between death-related anxiety and DVC conspiracy beliefs.
We also investigated the resistance of conspiracy beliefs to disconfirmation, another
novel contribution of the present study. There has been only one previous attempt to
examine the resilience of conspiracy beliefs to counterarguments, which failed to find
significant effects (Leman & Cinnirella, 2007). In a follow-up session conducted after the
initial assessment of DVC conspiracy beliefs, we exposed some participants to an “expert
opinion” disconfirming some of the key DVC claims2 and then measured their belief in the
DVC conspiracy again. We sought not only to understand how resilient conspiracy beliefs
are to counterevidence in general but, more specifically, also investigated the role of
congruent and competing beliefs in predicting belief resilience. We expected that the more
individuals endorsed secular spiritual beliefs, the less susceptible they would be to
counterevidence. Conversely, endorsing Christian beliefs was expected to make people
more likely to change their views on the DVC conspiracy after exposure to
counterevidence.
We also adjusted for a set of control variables in the main analyses. The nature of
the primary dependent measure, belief in the DVC conspiracy, may be particularly likely to
elicit social desirability concerns, and we therefore adjusted for socially desirable
responding. Similarly, participants who did not enjoy the novel are likely to respond
differently relative to those who did enjoy it, indicating that this was another important
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variable to adjust for. Finally, our expectation was that poorer factual knowledge regarding
the historical events relevant to the DVC conspiracy would be associated with an
increased likelihood of accepting the conspiracy.
Key-words: Belief. Unbelief. Conspiracy Theories. Mindfulness. Psychology of Religion.
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