Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time

by Michael Shermer

  These mixed results are due to what is known as person-by-situation effects, where a simple linear causal relationship between two variables rarely exists. Instead, to the question "does X cause Y?" the answer is often "it depends." Bennett, for example, concluded that the older women in her study had lost power, status, and especially loved ones, for which belief in the supernatural helped them recover. Sulloway and I concluded in our study that age and religiosity vary according to one's situation in relation to both early powerful influences and the later perceived impending end of life.

  4. Education and Belief

  Studies on the relationship between education and belief are, like intelligence, gender, and age, mixed. Psychologist Chris Brand (1981), for example, discovered a powerful inverse correlation of -.50 between IQ and authoritarianism (as IQ increases authoritarianism decreases). Brand concluded that authoritarians are characterized not by an affection for authority, but by "some simple-minded way in which the world has been divided up for them." In this case, authoritarianism was being expressed through prejudice by dividing the world up by race, gender, and age. Brand attributes the correlation to "crystallized intelligence," a relatively flexible form of intelligence shaped by education and life experience. But Brand is quick to point out that only when this type of intelligence is modified by a liberal education does one see a sharp decrease in authoritarianism. In other words, it is not so much that smart people are less prejudiced and authoritarian, but that educated people are less so.

  Psychologists S. H. and L. H. Blum (1974) found a negative correlation between education and superstition (as education increased superstitious beliefs decreased). Laura Otis and James Alcock (1982) showed that college professors are more skeptical than either college students or the general public (with the latter two groups showing no difference in belief), but that within college professors there was variation in the types of beliefs held, with English professors more likely to believe in ghosts, ESP, and fortune-telling. Another study (Pasachoff et al. 1971) found, not surprisingly, that natural and social scientists were more skeptical than their colleagues in the arts and humanities; most appropriately, in this context, psychologists were the most skeptical of all (perhaps because they best understand the psychology of belief and how easy it is to be fooled).

  Finally, Richard Walker, Steven Hoekstra, and Rodney Vogl (2001) discovered that there was no relationship between science education and belief in the paranormal among three groups of science students at three different colleges. That is, "having a strong scientific knowledge base is not enough to insulate a person against irrational beliefs. Students that scored well on these tests were no more or less skeptical of pseudoscientific claims than students that scored very poorly. Apparently, the students were not able to apply their scientific knowledge to evaluate these pseudo-scientific claims. We suggest that this inability stems in part from the way that science is traditionally presented to students: Students are taught what to think but not how to think."

  Whether teaching students how to think will attenuate belief in the paranormal remains to be seen. Supposedly this is what the critical thinking movement has been emphasizing for three decades now, yet polls show that paranormal beliefs continue to rise. A June 8, 2001, Gallup Poll, for example, reported a significant increase in belief in a number of paranormal phenomena since 1990, including haunted houses, ghosts, witches, communicating with the dead, psychic or spiritual healing, that extraterrestrial beings have visited earth, and clairvoyance. In support of my claim that the effects of gender, age, and education show content dependent effects, the Gallup poll found:

  Gender: Women are slightly more likely than men to believe in ghosts and that people can communicate with the dead. Men, on the other hand, are more likely than women to believe in only one of the dimensions tested: that extraterrestrials have visited earth at some point in the past. Age: Younger Americans—those 18 to 29—are much more likely than those who are older to believe in haunted houses, in witches, in ghosts, that extraterrestrials have visited earth, and in clairvoyance. There is little significant difference in belief in the other items by age group. Those 30 and older are somewhat more likely to believe in possession by the devil than are the younger group.

  Education: Americans with the highest levels of education are more likely than others to believe in the power of the mind to heal the body. On the other hand, belief in three of the phenomena tested goes up as the educational level of the respondent goes down: possession by the devil, astrology and haunted houses.

  Additional results from the survey included:

  An even more striking poll result was reported by Gallup on March 5, 2001, about the surprising lack of belief in and understanding of the theory of evolution. Specifically, of those Americans polled:

  45% agreed with the statement: "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."

  37% agreed with the statement: "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process."

  12% agreed with the statement: "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process."

  Despite enormous funds and efforts allocated toward the teaching of evolution in public schools, and the proliferation of documentaries, books, and magazines presenting the theory on all levels, Americans have not noticeably changed their opinion on this question since Gallup started asking it in 1982. Gallup did find that individuals with more education and people with higher incomes are more likely to think that evidence supports the theory of evolution, and that younger people are also more likely than older people to think that evidence supports Darwin's theory (again confounding the age variable). Nevertheless, only 34 percent of Americans consider themselves to be "very informed" about the theory of evolution, while a slightly greater percentage—40 percent—consider themselves to be "very informed" about the theory of creation. Younger people, people with more education, and people with higher incomes are more likely to say they are very informed about both theories.

  5. Personality and Belief

  Clearly, human thought and behavior are complex and thus studies such as those reported above rarely show simple and consistent findings. Studies on the causes and effects of mystical experiences, for example, show mixed findings. The religious scholar Andrew Greeley (1975), and others (Hay and Morisy, 1978), have found a slight but significant tendency for mystical experiences to increase with age, education, and income, but there were no gender differences. J. S. Levin (1993), by contrast, in analyzing the 1988 General Social Survey data, found no significant age trends in mystical experiences.

  But within any group, as defined by intelligence, gender, age, or education, are there any personality characteristics related to belief or disbelief in weird things? First, we note that personality is best characterized by traits, or relatively stable dispositions. The assumption is that these traits, in being "relatively stable," are not provisional states, or conditions of the environment, the altering of which changes the personality. Today's most popular trait theory is what is known as the Five Factor model, or the "Big Five": (1) Conscientiousness (competence, order, dutifulness), (2) Agree-ableness (trust, altruism, modesty), (3) Openness to Experience (fantasy, feelings, values), (4) Extroversion (gregariousness, assertiveness, excitement seeking), and (5) Neuroticism (anxiety, anger, depression). In the study on religiosity and belief in God Frank Sulloway and I conducted, we found openness to experience to be the most significant predictor, with higher levels of openness related to lower levels of religiosity and belief in God. In studies of individual scientists' personalities and their receptivity to fringe ideas like the paranormal, I found that a healthy balance between high conscientiousness and high openness to experience led to a moderate amount of skepticism. This was most clearly expressed in the careers of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and astronomer Carl Sagan (She
rmer, in press). They were nearly off the scale in both conscientiousness and openness to experience, giving them that balance between being open-minded enough to accept the occasional extraordinary claim that turns out to be right, but not so open that one blindly accepts every crazy claim that anyone makes. Sagan, for example, was open to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence which, at the time, was considered a moderately heretical idea; but he was too conscientious to accept the even more controversial claim that UFOs and aliens have actually landed on earth (Shermer 2001).

  The psychologist David Wulff (2000), in a general survey of the literature on the psychology of mystical experiences (a subset of weird things), concluded that there were some consistent personality differences:

  Persons who tend to score high on mysticism scales tend also to score high on such variables as complexity, openness to new experience, breadth of interests, innovation, tolerance of ambiguity, and creative personality. Furthermore, they are likely to score high on measures of hypnotizability, absorption, and fantasy proneness, suggesting a capacity to suspend the judging process that distinguishes imaginings and real events and to commit their mental resources to representing the imaginal object as vividly as possible. Individuals high on hypnotic susceptibility are also more likely to report having undergone religious conversion, which for them is primarily an experiential rather than a cognitive phenomenon—that is, one marked by notable alterations in perceptual, affective, and ideomotor response patterns.

  6. Locus of Control and Belief

  One of the most interesting areas of research on the psychology of belief is in the area of what psychologists call locus of control. People who measure high on external locus of control tend to believe that circumstances are beyond their control and that things just happen to them. People who measure high on internal locus of control tend to believe they are in control of their circumstances and that they make things happen (Rotter 1966). External locus of control leads to greater anxiety about the world, whereas internal locus of control leads one to be more confident in one's judgment, skeptical of authority, and less compliant and conforming to external influences. In relation to beliefs, studies show that skeptics are high in internal locus of control whereas believers are high in external locus of control (Marshall et al. 1994). A 1983 study by Jerome Tobacyk and Gary Milford of introductory psychology students at Louisiana Tech University, for example, found that those who scored high in external locus of control tended to believe in ESP, witchcraft, spiritualism, reincarnation, precognition, and were more superstitious than those students who scored high in internal locus of control.

  An interesting twist to this effect, however, was found by James McGarry and Benjamin Newberry in a 1977 study of strong believers in and practitioners of ESP and psychic power. Surprisingly, this group scored high in internal locus of control. The authors offered this explanation: "These beliefs [in ESP] may render such a person's problems less difficult and more solvable, lessen the probability of unpredictable occurrences, and offer hope that political and governmental decisions can be influenced." In other words, a deep commitment to belief in ESP, which usually entails believing that one has it, changes the focus from external to internal locus of control.

  The effect of locus of control on belief is also mitigated by the environment, where there is a relationship between the uncertainty of an environment and the level of superstitious belief (as uncertainty goes up so too do superstitions). The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1954), for example, discovered that among the Trobriand Islanders (off the coast of New Guinea), the farther out to sea they went to fish the more they developed superstitious rituals. In the calm waters of the inner lagoon, there were very few rituals. By the time they reached the dangerous waters of deep sea fishing, the Trobrianders were also deep into magic. Malinowski concluded that magical thinking derived from environmental conditions, not inherent stupidities: "We find magic wherever the elements of chance and accident, and the emotional play between hope and fear have a wide and extensive range. We do not find magic wherever the pursuit is certain, reliable, and well under the control of rational methods and technological processes. Further, we find magic where the element of danger is conspicuous." Think of the superstitions of baseball players. Hitting a baseball is exceedingly difficult, with the best succeeding barely more than three out of every ten times at bat. And hitters are known for their extensive reliance on rituals and superstitions that they believe will bring them good luck. These same superstitious players, however, drop the superstitions when they take the field, since most of them succeed in fielding the ball more than 90 percent of the time. Thus, as with the other variables that go into shaping belief that are themselves orthogonal to intelligence, the context of the person and the belief system are important.

  7. Influence and Belief

  Scholars who study cults (or, as many prefer to call them by the less pejorative term, "New Religious Movements") explain that there is no simple answer to the question "Who joins cults?" The only consistent variable seems to be age—young people are more likely to join cults than older people—but beyond that, variables such as family background, intelligence, and gender are orthogonal to belief in and commitment to cults. Research shows that two-thirds of cult members come from normal functioning families and showed no psychological abnormalities whatsoever when they joined the cult (Singer, 1995). Smart people and non-smart people both readily join cults, and while women are more likely to join such groups as J. Z. Knight's "Ramtha"-based cult (she allegedly channels a 35,000-year old guru named "Ramtha" who doles out life wisdom and advice, in English with an Indian accent no less!), men are more likely to join militias and other anti-government groups.

  Again, although intelligence may be related to how well one is able to justify one's membership in a group, and while gender may be related to which group is chosen for membership, intelligence and gender are unrelated to the general process of joining, the desire for membership in a cult, and belief in the cult's tenets. Psychiatrist Marc Galanter (1999), in fact, suggests that joining such groups is an integral part of the human condition to which we are all subject due to our common evolutionary heritage. Banding together in closely knit groups was a common practice in our evolutionary history because it reduced risk and increased survival by being with others of our perceived kind. But if the process of joining is common among most humans, why do some people join while others do not?

  The answer is in the persuasive power of the principles of influence and the choice of what type of group to join. Cult experts and activists Steve Hassan (1990) and Margaret Singer outline a number of psychological influences that shape people's thoughts and behaviors that lead them to join more dangerous groups (and that are quite independent of intelligence): cognitive dissonance; obedience to authority; group compliance and conformity; and especially the manipulation of rewards, punishments, and experiences with the purpose of controlling behavior, information, thought, and emotion (what Hassan 2000 calls the "BITE model"). Social psychologist Robert Cialdini (1984) demonstrates in his enormously persuasive book on influence, that all of us are influenced by a host of social and psychological variables, including physical attractiveness, similarity, repeated contact or exposure, familiarity, diffusion of responsibility, reciprocity, and many others.

  Smart Biases in Defending Weird Beliefs

  In 1620 English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon offered his own Easy Answer to the Hard Question:

  The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. .. . And such is the way of all superstitions, whether in astrology
, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, although this happened much oftener, neglect and pass them by.

  Why do smart people believe weird things? Because, to restate my thesis in light of Bacon's insight, smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

  As we have already seen, there is a wealth of scientific evidence in support of this thesis, but none more so than two extremely powerful cognitive biases that make it difficult for any of us to objectively evaluate a claim. These biases, in fact, are especially well manipulated by smart people: the Intellectual Attribution Bias and the Confirmation Bias.

  Intellectual Attribution Bias. When Sulloway and I asked our subjects why they believe in God, and why they think other people believe in God (and allowed them to provide written answers), we were inundated with thoughtful and lengthy treatises (many stapled multipage, typewritten answers to their survey) and we discovered that they could be a valuable source of data. Classifying the answers into categories, here were the top reasons given: