MISBELIEF ...What makes rational people believe irrational things

I’m sure that some of my atheist and agnostic friends could have urged me as a ‘God Botherer’ to read this book! But my motivation was to try and better understand why two friends have chosen, as Ariely puts it, to go down the “funnel of misbelief”. They have done this in regard to the Covid-19 vaccination  and in other respects also.

Dan Ariely is the James B Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University in the USA. He has spent many years of his career studying alternative points of view.

Here in Aotearoa-NZ that has a particular relevance as we await the findings of the Royal Commision into the Covid Pandemic and the Coalition Government’s intention to commission a second stage of investigation.

Ariely defines misbelief as “a distorted lens through which people begin to view the world, reason about the world and then describe the world to others. Misbelief is also a process- a kind of funnel that pulls people deeper and deeper”.

Ariely believes there are four crucial elements that interrelate  in a variety of ways and lead to significant misbelief. They are emotional, cognitive, personality and social. The bulk of the book is spent examining these four elements and suggesting ways to respond to them.

Ariely prefers the term ‘misbelief’ to the more loaded concept of ‘conspiracy theories’ but there is much in common between the two. Misbelief is of course as old as the hills and affects all sectors of society and all political, ideological and religious persuasions.

It usually starts, claims Ariely, with an emotional response that is unexpectedly stressful. He details an American woman whose son is sent home from school for losing his  face mask. The mother became angry and remonstrated with the school who defended their action in a manner unconvincing to the mother. Now highly stressed, she establishes in her mind that masks do more harm than good. She then seeks out others of a similar mind and so increasingly is pulled into a funnel of disbelief, and all from an initial stressful and emotional reaction.

Ariely claims that social science research has repeatedly shown that emotions tend to precede beliefs. As for the mother in question, it starts with an intense emotional response followed by a cognitive or reasoned explanation for it. That doesn’t mean the respone is always rational as, faced with choices, confirmation bias can kick in which leads a person to construct conclusions that jusify their original emotional response.

Personality elements also play a part as does social cohesion. Beliefs held in common have a self-reinforcing power which characterises all forms of belief. Ariely notes that in the funnel of misbelief, the social elements are the components that ‘seal the deal’ and make it exceedingly hard to escape.

Ariely goes on to assess some of the social consequences of misbeliefs and especially that of a diminishing sense of trust in many societies. He describes how various misbeliefs coalesce and how mistrust in one institution or set of values readily spreads. Mistrust begets mistrust and this is partly why the webs of misinformation have so many unexpected points of connection.

The book is peppered with examples of misbelief and misinformation in the USA including a number of instances where Ariely himself was subject to attacks from misbelievers. Ariely tries to stay positive and suggests a number of ways  of approaching people with entrenched misbeliefs. This does not include arguing or debating with misbelievers but  generally attempting to get alongside them and working towards some common ground.

Ariely is very strong on establishing trust both individually and socially and rightly claims that if we lose trust in each other and in society to function in expected ways, we become open to mistrust that underpins so much unbelief.

Mistrust then begets mistrust in a dangerous downward spiral.