Arguing with Conspiracy Believers Doesn't Work
On December 17, 2020, Tiffany Dover’s life changed, but not in a good way. A nurse in the COVID ward at CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, she was among the nation’s first given the new COVID vaccine. In a ceremony livestreamed on Facebook, she rose to speak after getting vaccinated but fainted. She revived almost immediately, explaining to the local NBC affiliate that she’s prone to passing out when feeling pain. That explanation didn’t spread much but the video of her falling into the arms of two nearby doctors did.
Within a day she was covered on Alex Jones’s InfoWars and other social media platforms as “evidence” that the COVID vaccine kills people. A fake death certificate also spread. Flooded with calls, the hospital made a video showing Tiffany alive and well. Conspiracy theorists claimed the video used a body double. Supervisors instructed Tiffany to stay off social media, believing silence would calm things down. It didn’t. Conspiracy believers soon “identified” a nurse colleague who looked similar to Tiffany as the body double and then harassed her.
Neither silence nor fact-based argument worked to quell the conspiracy theory.
Fact-based arguments only work for people open to them. Yet most people have a tendency to dig in when challenged. Allegiance to a conspiracy theory may be connected to political and/or cultural identity and social groups. The stress of being challenged and/or ostracized because of changing one’s mind can shut down reason.
So if silence and facts don’t always work, what can? One approach is encouraging people to suspend judgment. Research shows that people think better when they don’t jump to conclusions. Gordon Pennycook found that even a 30-second video asking people to think about the accuracy of what they could share with others cut the sharing of fake news in half. He also found that taking even just a moment to contemplate information made people three times more careful before sharing.
Suspending judgment means not jumping to conclusions. In an experiment by the University of Michigan’s Carmen Sanchez and David Dunning, participants were given results of a person fishing from one of two lakes, one in which most fish were red and the other in which most were gray. The person would catch one fish at a time and announce its color. Study participants were asked to decide which lake was being fished. Sanchez and Dunning found that those willing to pick the lake after catching only one or two fish – jumping to a conclusion - made more thinking errors on subsequent thinking tests.
Stepping back and taking time can help if conspiracy believers are willing to consult reputable sources to “check out” a purported conspiracy. FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com and Snopes.com often provide useful analysis of conspiracy theories. Of course, many conspiracy believers just won’t do that. Instead, they search for more “evidence” to support them. In Tiffany Dover’s case, NBC reporter Brandy Zadrozny states that Ms. Dover was later accused by QAnon believers of involvement in Pizzagate, a supposed pedophile ring operating from a pizza shop. The “evidence”: social media photos of pizza at her daughter’s birthday party and an old Halloween costume where she dressed up as the Little Caesars mascot.
In addition to refraining from arguing with a conspiracy believer, a New York Times article by Charlie Warzel offers additional tips though he cautions: don’t engage with someone who is threatening you:
o Be Gentle, Compassionate and Patient: The goal is not to convince someone they’re wrong but to help them think more carefully. Mocking them for their beliefs just won’t get you there, as a review of 24 studies by Cian O’Mahony at University College Cork in Ireland found.
o Ask Where Their Information Came From: Many people get information from websites with algorithms and economic interests that shape what they see. Yet users often don’t know the motivations of the people who run these sites. If we encourage people to think about that – not the information in the conspiracy theory itself - they might begin to question how much to rely on the “evidence” they have.
o Encourage Doubt: While some conspiracies have evidence, most do not. We can ask a believer: (1) what they’d expect to see happen if their conspiracy is real and whether available, objective evidence fits with that; (2) what information would challenge the conspiracy theory; (3) where they could find that evidence and whether it exists; and (4) what other facts might explain the alleged conspiracy.
o Don’t Debate on online platforms: As Warzel writes, “private discussions allow people to let their guard down” and avoid “performing” online. They also allow you to pick up on nonverbal behavior to help gauge how the conversation is going.
Admittedly, purveyors of conspiracies who have large, vested interests will be immune from these approaches. But we can choose whether or not to follow conspiracy spreaders. When we choose carefully – and help others do so – conspiracies are denied the oxygen on which they thrive.
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