The earth is a disc, the coronavirus does not exist: many people can smile about such conspiracy theories. But a few take this for face -to -face coin: they seem to be trapped in an alternative reality. How does that come? The psychologist Robbie Sutton and his colleague Karen Douglas from the University of Kent describe the development as "Rabbit Hole Syndrome".
With the metaphor of rabbit construction, you alludes to a scene in Lewis Carroll's children's book »Alice in Wonderland«: Curiously, the little Alice follows a rabbit into a tunnel without thinking about how it ever comes out. And before she can think about it differently, she starts falling - and she falls and falls, and falls deeper.
As Sutton and Douglas describe in the journal "Current Opinion in Psychology", the belief in conspiracy also develops so unplanned. At first, the process is rather slow; the theories may arouse a little curiosity. But the more you deal with the theories, the more your own beliefs change, at first slowly, then more and more quickly, and at the same time frustration, uncertainty and the need for explanations grow – a self-reinforcing dynamic.
The fact that the way back is becoming increasingly difficult is also due to the fact that like -minded people meet the need for commitment and belonging. The exchange with them increases while other contacts lose. And with the new social network, social identity is also changing to that of a lateral thinker.
At the final stage, the convictions are consolidated. The process is now hardly reversible, the British psychologists write: the believer has dug deep into the construction. The stronger his faith, the more he thinks to recognize supposed patterns and causalities in this light – everything seems to be somehow connected with the great conspiracy. This thinking can take on a mystical dimension, characterized by radical skepticism towards reality.
According to Sutton and Douglas, it is unclear why only a minority in rabbit is disappeared. What does the vast majority stop of it? In any case, intelligence does not protect: If the circumstances are correct, everyone is susceptible to believe in conspiracy theories, said author Karen Douglas at the University of Basel at the end of October 2022. "People can randomly be drawn into conspiracy theories, and once they are in this labyrinth of alternative facts, it is difficult to find a way out." However, the development can be stopped - by going into a respectful conversation and encouraging it , analytically thinking about a problem.
