In order to quell conspiracy ideation, is it helpful to try to counter the theories with logic and evidence or will that make matters worse?

 

In order to quell conspiracy ideation, is it helpful to try to counter the theories with logic and evidence or will that make matters worse?

I write extensively on human predators, exploitative groups.

My personal non-expert opinion is that people who believe in conspiracy theories fall into different categories. Some people are strongly motivated by ideology or personal mental and emotional issues. Evidence is extremely unlikely to persuade these people.

They were not persuaded by good evidence and are not likely to be convinced they are wrong by evidence, it's not absolutely impossible, but it is difficult and can take a very long time, if it is effective at all.

Individuals, for example who have been committed to a psychiatric hospital by their relatives or a court can eventually be convinced that the Scientology founder Ronald Hubbard was dishonest if they are exposed to a vast volume of evidence that he was not of good character, but I must stress that this unusual success was aided by the fact that the subject was not able to withdraw from the relationship and the fact that the people at the institution could control what information was available.

Usually if you tell a person who strongly, passionately, supports conspiracy theories that they are wrong it endangers any relationship you might have with them.

The issue was described in both the book A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger and The Knowledge Illusion by Philip Fernbach and Steven Sloman. People tend to avoid other people who tell them they are wrong, unless they are not at all invested in the beliefs that are contradicted, which is rare, or unless they have tremendous internal conflict (cognitive dissonance) over the belief and a conflicting belief that is not resolving.

Under these circumstances, according to cognitive dissonance theory as put forth by Festinger, we may seek disconfirming evidence when the amount of dissonance associated with a belief is extreme and not resolving by finding confirming evidence.

There are also specific issues involving people who are paranoid or who have been diagnosed with personality disorders and that also affects belief and reluctance to doubt beliefs.

If you feel that a particular individual is open to doubting and questioning then the possibility exists that education on critical thinking may be useful.

David Kyle Johnson has taught college students using the book How to Think About Weird Things by Theodore Schick, Lewis Vaughn. This book and similar work on critical thinking, such as the critical thinking model by Richard Paul have helped people who previously believed in things like UFOs and ghosts to realize there is a lack of good scientific evidence to support belief in these things.

But the pursuit of critical thinking is a very long road to go down to get significant results, a person must devote dozens or hundreds of hours to study and practice to get noticeable improvement, so you are only able to get somewhere if the person is willing to go far down the road and they don't abandon it.

You have to feel out the situation and decide whether the relationship can survive as you recommend the person study critical thinking. They might think you think that they are stupid, or crazy, or uneducated and then they may shun you.

It takes a delicate touch and the person needs to be stable and not upset about their reputation or implications that they are wrong.

Otherwise you should not upset them.