Why do so many people swallow falsehoods while rejecting verifiable facts and scientific data as "lies"? Many anti-vaxxers persist in their beliefs that vaccines and masks are useless or harmful, even after losing unvaxxed family members to covid! Any theories?
Grad school psych student here. The person who said this is the only time they've ever felt smart is onto something. It has a lot to do with narcissistic attention and need to belong - these are social rejects who haven't accomplished much in life, so joining the anti-vax cult feeds their narcissism and makes them feel like an important part of a group. Probably also the first time in their life they've been accepted as part of a group, so if they were to reject the group's anti-vax beliefs, they would be rejected by the group too.
Wrote a paper on this last semester, don't feel like digging up all my sources, but here's a few.
https://psyarxiv.com/4aebk/download?format=pdf
I'm finding my way around a new computer I just hooked up last night. The top of the news feature when I fired it up this morning showed this:
I'm likin' it already. I shall call it Truth Central.
I've recently started listening to Eric Hoffer's 'The True Believer' on Audible. It was written in 1951 and is more like a long essay than a scientific study (several times I've found myself arguing with him) but it's still a fascinating look at what sort of people are attracted to extreme mass movements and what attracts them. Some observations he makes:
- The biggest attraction of all is 'belonging' as it enables people to feel lifted out of an unsatisfactory life and reborn to new agency and dignity. I've seen conspiracy theorists celebrate a pointless failed protest (against a lockdown that had already ended!) because 'we met a lot of great guys.' It was obvious that the gathering itself was the point - being in a big crowd all shouting together
- Clever leaders exploit faux nostalgia and provide lots of items like uniforms, stickers, flags etc which all help with the sense of a new purpose. Hence MAGA caps and trucks plastered with flags, etc. Possibly also goatees? (Napoleon was well ahead of Hoffer here: he stated that 'men are led by toys')
- Very frequently there is a crossover between politics and religion - in the case of antivaxx, with both evangelical Christianity and New Age/wellness culture
- If you provide enough toys and group identity, you can get people to sacrifice themselves because their life apart from the group seems much less valuable.