scientificamerican--2020-11-23--People Drawn to Conspiracy Theories Share a Cluster of Psychological Features

Stephan Lewandowsky was deep in denial .
About six years ago the cognitive scientist had thrown himself into a study of why some people refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming and humans are responsible .
As he delved into this climate change denialism , Lewandowsky , then at the University of Western Australia , discovered that many of the naysayers also believed in outlandish plots , such as the idea that the Apollo moon landing was a hoax created by the American government .
“ A lot of the discourse these people were engaging in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he recalls .
Lewandowsky ’ s findings , published in 2013 in Psychological Science , brought these conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork .
Offended by his claims , they criticized his integrity online and demanded that he be fired .
( He was not , although he has since moved to the University of Bristol in England . )
But as Lewandowsky waded through one irate post after another , he discovered that his critics—in response to his assertions about their conspiratorial tendencies—were actually spreading new conspiracy theories about him .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of faking survey responses and of conducting the research without ethical approval .
When his personal Web site crashed , one blogger accused him of intentionally blocking critics from seeing it .
None of it was true .
The irony was amusing at first , but the ranting even included a death threat , and calls and e-mails to his university became so vicious that the administrative staff who fielded them asked their managers for help .
That was when Lewandowsky changed his assessment .
“ I quickly realized that there was nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he says .
The dangerous consequences of the conspiratorial perspective—the idea that people or groups are colluding in hidden ways to produce a particular outcome—have become painfully clear .
The gunman who shot and killed 11 people and injured six others in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018 justified his attack by claiming that Jewish people were stealthily supporting illegal immigrants .
In 2016 a conspiracy theory positing that high-ranking Democratic Party officials were involved in a child sex ring involving several Washington , D.C. , area restaurants incited one believer to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Luckily no one was hurt .
The mindset is surprisingly common , although thankfully it does not often lead to gunfire .
More than a quarter of the American population believes there are conspiracies “ behind many things in the world , ” according to a 2017 analysis of government survey data by University of Oxford and University of Liverpool researchers .
The prevalence of conspiracy mongering may not be new , but today the theories are becoming more visible , says Viren Swami , a social psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For instance , when more than a dozen bombs were sent to prominent Democrats and Trump critics , as well as CNN , in October 2018 , a number of high-profile conservatives quickly suggested that the explosives were really a “ false flag , ” a fake attack orchestrated by Democrats to mobilize their supporters during the U.S. midterm elections .
One obvious reason for the current raised profile of this kind of thinking is that the U.S. president is a vocal conspiracy theorist .
Donald Trump has suggested , among other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ted Cruz of Texas helped to assassinate President John F. Kennedy and that Democrats funded the same migrant caravan traveling from Honduras to the U.S. that worried the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter .
But there are other factors at play , too .
New research suggests that events happening worldwide are nurturing underlying emotions that make people more willing to believe in conspiracies .
Experiments have revealed that feelings of anxiety make people think more conspiratorially .
Such feelings , along with a sense of disenfranchisement , currently grip many Americans , according to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conspiracy theory can provide comfort by identifying a convenient scapegoat and thereby making the world seem more straightforward and controllable .
“ People can assume that if these bad guys weren ’ t there , then everything would be fine , ” Lewandowsky says .
“ Whereas if you don ’ t believe in a conspiracy theory , then you just have to say terrible things happen randomly.
” Discerning fact from fiction can be difficult , however , and some seemingly wild conspiracy ideas turn out to be true .
The once @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the 2016 presidential election is now supported by a slew of guilty pleas , evidence-based indictments and U.S. intelligence agency conclusions .
So how is one to know what to believe ?
There , too , psychologists have been at work and have uncovered strategies that can help people distinguish plausible theories from those that are almost certainly fake—strategies that seem to become more important by the day .
In May 2018 the American Psychiatric Association released the results of a national survey suggesting that 39 percent of Americans feel more anxious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primarily about health , safety , finances , politics and relationships .
Another 2017 report found that 63 percent of Americans are extremely worried about the future of the nation and that 59 percent consider this the lowest point in U.S. history that they can remember .
These feelings span the political spectrum .
A 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that the majority of both Democrats and Republicans feel that “ their side ” in politics has been losing in recent years on issues they find important .
Such existential crises can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ study in the Netherlands , researchers split college students into three groups .
People in one group were primed to feel powerless .
The scientists asked them to recall and write about a time in their lives when they felt they were not in control of the situation they were in .
Those in a second group were cued in the opposite direction .
They were asked to write about a time when they felt totally in control .
And still others , in a third group , were asked something neutral : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last night .
Then the researchers asked all the groups how they felt about the construction of a new subway line in Amsterdam that had been plagued by problems .
Students who had been primed to feel in control were less likely than students in the other two groups to support conspiracy theories regarding the subway line , such as the belief that the city council was stealing from the subway ’ s budget and that it was intentionally jeopardizing residents ’ safety .
Other studies have uncovered similar effects .
Swami and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2016 that individuals who feel stressed are more likely than others to believe in conspiracy theories , and a 2017 study found that promoting anxiety in people also makes them more conspiracy-minded .
Feeling alienated or unwanted also seems to make conspiratorial thinking more attractive .
In 2017 Princeton University psychologists set up an experiment with trios of people .
The researchers asked all participants to write two paragraphs describing themselves and then told them that their descriptions would be shared with the other two in their group , who would use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work with the person in the future .
After telling some subjects that they had been accepted by their group and others that they had been rejected , the researchers evaluated the subjects ’ thoughts on various conspiracy-related scenarios .
The “ rejected ” participants , feeling alienated , were more likely than the others to think the scenarios involved a coordinated conspiracy .
It is not just personal crises that encourage individuals to form conspiratorial suspicions .
Collective social setbacks do so as well .
In a 2018 study , researchers at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surveyed more than 3,000 Americans .
They found that participants who felt that American values are eroding were more likely than others to agree with conspiratorial statements , such as that “ many major events have behind them the actions of a small group of influential people.
” Joseph Uscinski , a political scientist at the University of Miami , and his colleagues have shown that people who dislike the current political party in power think more conspiratorially than those who support the controlling party .
Recently in the U.S. , a number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberals as conservatives have ascended to control the government .
These include the charge that the White House coerced Anthony Kennedy to retire from the U.S. Supreme Court and the allegation that Russian president Vladimir Putin is blackmailing Trump with a video of him watching prostitutes urinate on a Moscow hotel bed .
When feelings of personal alienation or anxiety are combined with a sense that society is in jeopardy , people experience a kind of conspiratorial double whammy .
In a study conducted in 2009 , near the start of the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a psychologist now at the University of Arizona , and his colleagues told one group that parts of their lives were largely out of their control because they could be exposed to a natural disaster or some other catastrophe and told another group that things were under their control .
Then participants were asked to read essays that argued that the government was handling the economic crisis either well or poorly .
Those cued about uncontrolled life situations and told their government was doing a bad job were the most likely to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be instigated by enemies rather than random chance , which is a conspiratorial hallmark .
While humans seek solace in conspiracy theories , however , they rarely find it .
“ They ’ re appealing but not necessarily satisfying , ” says Daniel Jolley , a psychologist at Staffordshire University in England .
For one thing , conspiratorial thinking can incite individuals to behave in a way that increases their sense of powerlessness , making them feel even worse .
A 2014 study co-authored by Jolley found that people who are presented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just chasing grant money , for instance—are less likely to plan to vote , whereas a 2017 study reported that believing in work-related conspiracies—such as the idea that managers make decisions to protect their own interests—causes individuals to feel less committed to their job .
“ It can snowball and become a pretty vicious , nasty cycle of inaction and negative behavior , ” says Karen Douglas , a psychologist at the University of Kent in England and a co-author of the paper on work-related conspiracies .
The negative and alienated beliefs can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as with the Pittsburgh shootings and the pizzeria attack .
But the theories need not involve weapons to inflict harm .
People who believe vaccine conspiracy theories , for example , say they are less inclined to vaccinate their kids , which creates pockets of infectious disease that put entire communities at risk .
It may be possible to quell conspiracy ideation , at least to some degree .
One long-standing question has been whether or not it is a good idea to counter conspiracy theories with logic and evidence .
Some older @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effect ” —the idea that refuting misinformation can just make individuals dig their heels in deeper .
“ If you think there are powerful forces trying to conspire and cover [ things ] up , when you ’ re given what you see as a cover story , it only shows you how right you are , ” Uscinski says .
But more recent research suggests that this putative effect is , in fact , rare .
A 2016 study reported that when researchers refuted a conspiracy theory by pointing out its logical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people .
And in a paper published online in 2018 in Political Behavior , researchers recruited more than 10,000 people and presented them with corrections to various claims made by political figures .
The authors concluded that “ evidence of factual backfire is far more tenuous than prior research suggests.
” In a recent review , the researchers who first described the backfire effect said that it may arise most often when people are being challenged over ideas that define their worldview or sense of self .
Finding ways to counter conspiracy theories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may therefore be an effective strategy .
Encouraging analytic thinking may also help .
In a 2014 study published in Cognition , Swami and his colleagues recruited 112 people for an experiment .
First , they had everyone fill out a questionnaire that evaluated how strongly they believed in various conspiracy theories .
A few weeks later the subjects came back in , and the researchers split them into two groups .
One group completed a task that included unscrambling words in sentences containing words such as “ analyze ” and “ rational @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more analytically .
The second group completed a neutral task .
Then the researchers readministered the conspiracy theory test to the two groups .
Although the groups had been no different in terms of conspiratorial thinking at the beginning of the experiment , the subjects who had been incited to think analytically became less conspiratorial .
Thus , by giving people “ the tools and the skills to analyze data and to look at data critically and objectively , ” we might be able to suppress conspiratorial thinking , Swami says .
Analytic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from ones that , crazy as they sound , are supported by evidence .
Karen Murphy , an educational psychologist at Pennsylvania State University , suggests that individuals who want to improve their analytic thinking skills should ask three key questions when interpreting conspiracy claims .
One : What is your evidence ?
Two : What is your source for that evidence ?
Three : What is the reasoning that links your evidence back to the claim ?
Sources of evidence need to be accurate , credible and relevant .
For instance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from your mom about whether the yellow color under your fingernails is a bad sign , ” Murphy says—that kind of information should come from someone who has expertise on the topic , such as a physician .
In addition , false conspiracy theories have several hallmarks , Lewandowsky says .
Three of them are particularly noticeable .
First , the theories include contradictions .
For example , some deniers of climate change argue that there is no scientific consensus on the issue while framing themselves as heroes pushing back against established consensus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A second telltale sign is when a contention is based on shaky assumptions .
Trump , for instance , claimed that millions of illegal immigrants cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election and were the reason he lost the popular vote .
Beyond the complete lack of evidence for such voting , his assumption was that multitudes of such votes—if they existed—would have been for his Democratic opponent .
Yet past polls of unauthorized Hispanic immigrants suggest that many of them would have voted for a Republican candidate over a Democratic one .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a far-fetched theory , rather than an actual conspiracy , is that those who support it interpret evidence against their theory as evidence for it .
When the van of the alleged mail bomber Cesar Sayoc was found in Florida plastered with Trump stickers , for instance , some individuals said this helped to prove that Democrats were really behind the bombs .
“ If anyone thinks this is what a real conservative ’ s van looks like , you are being willfully ignorant .
Cesar Sayoc is clearly just a fall guy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one person posted on Twitter .
Conspiracy theories are a human reaction to confusing times .
“ We ’ re all just trying to understand the world and what ’ s happening in it , ” says Rob Brotherton , a psychologist at Barnard College and author of Suspicious Minds : Why We Believe in Conspiracy Theories ( Bloomsbury Sigma , 2015 ) .
But real harm can come from such thinking , especially when believers engage in violence as a show of support .
By looking out for suspicious signatures and asking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it is still possible to separate truth from lies .
It may not always be an easy task , but it is a crucial one for all of us .

Stephan Lewandowsky was deep in denial. Nearly 10 years ago the cognitive scientist threw himself into a study of why some people refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming and humans are responsible. As he delved into this climate change denialism, Lewandowsky, then at the University of Western Australia, discovered that many of the naysayers also believed in outlandish plots, such as the idea that the Apollo moon landing was a hoax created by the American government. “A lot of the discourse these people were engaging in on the Internet was totally conspiratorial,” he recalls.
Lewandowsky’s findings, published in 2013 in Psychological Science, brought these conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork. Offended by his claims, they criticized his integrity online and demanded that he be fired. (He was not, although he has since moved to the University of Bristol in England.) But as Lewandowsky waded through one irate post after another, he discovered that his critics—in response to his assertions about their conspiratorial tendencies—were actually spreading new conspiracy theories about him. These people accused him and his colleagues of faking survey responses and of conducting the research without ethical approval. When his personal website crashed, one blogger accused him of intentionally blocking critics from seeing it. None of it was true.
The irony was amusing at first, but the ranting even included a death threat, and calls and e-mails to his university became so vicious that the administrative staff who fielded them asked their managers for help. That was when Lewandowsky changed his assessment. “I quickly realized that there was nothing funny about these guys at all,” he says.
The dangerous consequences of the conspiratorial perspective—the idea that people or groups are colluding in hidden ways to produce a particular outcome—have become painfully clear. The belief that the coronavirus pandemic is an elaborate hoax designed to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump has incited some Americans to forgo important public health recommendations, costing lives. The gunman who shot and killed 11 people and injured six others in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018 justified his attack by claiming that Jewish people were stealthily supporting illegal immigrants. In 2016 a conspiracy theory positing that high-ranking Democratic Party officials were part of a child sex ring involving several Washington, D.C.–area restaurants incited one believer to fire an assault weapon inside a pizzeria. Luckily no one was hurt.
The mindset is surprisingly common, although thankfully it does not often lead to gunfire. More than a quarter of the American population believes there are conspiracies “behind many things in the world,” according to a 2017 analysis of government survey data by University of Oxford and University of Liverpool researchers. The prevalence of conspiracy mongering may not be new, but today the theories are becoming more visible, says Viren Swami, a social psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University in England, who studies the phenomenon. For instance, when more than a dozen bombs were sent to prominent Democrats and Trump critics, as well as CNN, in October 2018, a number of high-profile conservatives quickly suggested that the explosives were really a “false flag,” a fake attack orchestrated by Democrats to mobilize their supporters during the U.S. midterm elections.
One obvious reason for the current raised profile of this kind of thinking is that the last U.S. president was a vocal conspiracy theorist. Donald Trump has suggested, among other things, that the father of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas helped to assassinate President John F. Kennedy and that Democrats funded the same migrant caravan traveling from Honduras to the U.S. that worried the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter.
But there are other factors at play, too. New research suggests that events happening worldwide are nurturing underlying emotions that make people more willing to believe in conspiracies. Experiments have revealed that feelings of anxiety make people think more conspiratorially. Such feelings, along with a sense of disenfranchisement, currently grip many Americans, according to surveys. In such situations, a conspiracy theory can provide comfort by identifying a convenient scapegoat and thereby making the world seem more straightforward and controllable. “People can assume that if these bad guys weren’t there, then everything would be fine,” Lewandowsky says. “Whereas if you don’t believe in a conspiracy theory, then you just have to say terrible things happen randomly.”
Discerning fact from fiction can be difficult, however, and some seemingly wild conspiracy ideas turn out to be true. The once scoffed-at notion that Russian nationals meddled in the 2016 presidential election is now supported by a slew of guilty pleas, evidence-based indictments and U.S. intelligence agency conclusions. So how is one to know what to believe? There, too, psychologists have been at work and have uncovered strategies that can help people distinguish plausible theories from those that are almost certainly fake—strategies that seem to become more important by the day.
Conspiracy theorists believe plots are behind many situations. Some hold that the Apollo moon landing was faked (left), others that the White House forced Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire (right). Credit: Getty Images (left); Brendan Smialowski Getty Images (right)
Others claim that Trump slogans on a mail bomber's van were put there to frame Republicans (left). The gunman who killed 11 synagogue members in 2018 claimed a Jewish group was undermining America (right). Credit: Alamy (left); Jeff Swensen Getty Images (right)
The Anxiety Connection
In May 2018 the American Psychiatric Association released the results of a national survey suggesting that 39 percent of Americans felt more anxious than they did a year ago, primarily about health, safety, finances, politics and relationships. A 2017 report found that 63 percent of Americans were extremely worried about the future of the nation and that 59 percent considered that time the lowest point in U.S. history that they could remember. Such feelings span the political spectrum. A 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that the majority of both Democrats and Republicans felt that “their side” in politics had been losing in recent years on issues they found important.
Such existential crises can promote conspiratorial thinking. In a 2015 study in the Netherlands, researchers split college students into three groups. People in one group were primed to feel powerless. The scientists asked them to recall and write about a time in their lives when they felt they were not in control of the situation they were in. Those in a second group were cued in the opposite direction. They were asked to write about a time when they felt totally in control. And still others, in the third group, were asked something neutral: to describe what they had for dinner last night. Then the researchers asked all the groups how they felt about the construction of a new subway line in Amsterdam that had been plagued by problems.
Students who had been primed to feel in control were less likely than students in the other two groups to support conspiracy theories regarding the subway line, such as the belief that the city council was stealing from the subway’s budget and that it was intentionally jeopardizing residents’ safety. Other studies have uncovered similar effects. Swami and his colleagues, for instance, reported in 2016 that individuals who feel stressed are more likely than others to believe in conspiracy theories, and a 2017 study found that promoting anxiety in people also makes them more conspiracy-minded.
Feeling alienated or unwanted also seems to make conspiratorial thinking more attractive. In 2017 Princeton University psychologists set up an experiment with trios of people. The researchers asked all participants to write two paragraphs describing themselves and then told them that their descriptions would be shared with the other two in their group, who would use that information to decide if they would work with the person in the future. After telling some subjects that they had been accepted by their group and others that they had been rejected, the researchers evaluated the subjects’ thoughts on various conspiracy-related scenarios. The “rejected” participants, feeling alienated, were more likely than the others to think the scenarios involved a coordinated conspiracy.
It is not just personal crises that encourage individuals to form conspiratorial suspicions. Collective social setbacks do so as well. In a 2018 study, researchers at the University of Minnesota and Lehigh University surveyed more than 3,000 Americans. They found that participants who felt that American values were eroding were more likely than others to agree with conspiratorial statements, such as that “many major events have behind them the actions of a small group of influential people.” Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami, and his colleagues have shown that people who dislike the political party in power think more conspiratorially than those who support the controlling party. In the U.S., political liberals put forth a number of unproved conjectures as conservatives ascended to control the government in recent years. These include the charge that the White House coerced Anthony Kennedy to retire from the U.S. Supreme Court and the allegation that Russian president Vladimir Putin is blackmailing Trump with a video of him watching prostitutes urinate on a Moscow hotel bed.
When feelings of personal alienation or anxiety are combined with a sense that society is in jeopardy, people experience a kind of conspiratorial double whammy. In a study conducted in 2009, near the start of the U.S.’s Great Recession, Daniel Sullivan, a psychologist now at the University of Arizona, and his colleagues told one group that parts of their lives were largely out of their control because they could be exposed to a natural disaster or some other catastrophe and told another group that things were under their control. Then participants were asked to read essays that argued that the government was handling the economic crisis either well or poorly. Those cued about uncontrolled life situations and told their government was doing a bad job were the most likely to think that negative events in their lives would be instigated by enemies rather than random chance, which is a conspiratorial hallmark.
Although humans seek solace in conspiracy theories, they rarely find it. “They’re appealing but not necessarily satisfying,” says Daniel Jolley, a psychologist at the University of Nottingham in England. For one thing, conspiratorial thinking can incite individuals to behave in a way that increases their sense of powerlessness, making them feel even worse. A 2014 study co-authored by Jolley found that people who are presented with conspiracy theories about climate change—scientists are just chasing grant money, for instance—are less likely to plan to vote. And a 2017 study reported that believing in work-related conspiracies—such as the idea that managers make decisions to protect their own interests—causes individuals to feel less committed to their job. “It can snowball and become a pretty vicious, nasty cycle of inaction and negative behavior,” says Karen Douglas, a social psychologist at the University of Kent in England and a co-author of the paper on work-related conspiracies.
The negative and alienating beliefs can also promote dangerous behaviors in some, as with the Pittsburgh shootings and the pizzeria attack. But the theories need not involve weapons to inflict harm. People who believe vaccine conspiracy theories, for example, say they are less inclined to vaccinate their kids, which creates pockets of infectious disease that put entire communities at risk.
Telling Fact from Fiction
It may be possible to quell conspiracy ideation, at least to some degree. One long-standing question has been whether it is a good idea to counter conspiracy theories with logic and evidence. Some older research has pointed to a “backfire effect”—the idea that refuting misinformation can just make individuals dig their heels in deeper. “If you think there are powerful forces trying to conspire and cover [things] up, when you’re given what you see as a cover story, it only shows you how right you are,” Uscinski says.
But other research suggests that this putative effect is, in fact, rare. A 2016 paper reported that when scientists refuted a conspiracy theory by pointing out its logical inconsistencies, it became less enchanting to people. And in a study published online in 2018 in Political Behavior, researchers recruited more than 10,000 people and presented them with corrections to various claims made by political figures. The authors concluded that “evidence of factual backfire is far more tenuous than prior research suggests.” In a review article, the researchers who first described the backfire effect said that it may arise most often when people are being challenged over ideas that define their worldview or sense of self. Finding ways to counter conspiracy theories without challenging a person’s identity may therefore be an effective strategy.
Encouraging analytic thinking may also help. In a 2014 study published in Cognition, Swami and his colleagues recruited 112 people for an experiment. First, they had everyone fill out a questionnaire that evaluated how strongly they believed in various conspiracy theories. A few weeks later the subjects came back in, and the researchers split them into two groups. One group completed a task that included unscrambling words in sentences containing words such as “analyze” and “rational,” which primed them to think more analytically. The second group completed a neutral task.
Then the researchers readministered the conspiracy theory test to the two groups. Although the groups had been no different in terms of conspiratorial thinking at the beginning of the experiment, the subjects who had been incited to think analytically became less conspiratorial. Thus, by giving people “the tools and the skills to analyze data and to look at data critically and objectively,” we might be able to suppress conspiratorial thinking, Swami says.
Analytical thinking can also help discern implausible theories from ones that, crazy as they sound, are supported by evidence. Karen Murphy, an educational psychologist at Pennsylvania State University, suggests that individuals who want to improve their analytic thinking skills should ask three key questions when interpreting conspiracy claims. One: What is your evidence? Two: What is your source for that evidence? Three: What is the reasoning that links your evidence back to the claim? Sources of evidence need to be accurate, credible and relevant. For instance, “you shouldn’t take advice from your mom about whether the yellow color under your fingernails is a bad sign,” Murphy says—that kind of information should come from someone who has expertise on the topic, such as a physician.
In addition, false conspiracy theories have several hallmarks, Lewandowsky says. Three of them are particularly noticeable. First, the theories include contradictions. For example, some deniers of climate change argue that there is no scientific consensus on the issue while framing themselves as heroes pushing back against established consensus. Both cannot be true. A second telltale sign is when a contention is based on shaky assumptions. Trump, for instance, claimed that millions of illegal immigrants cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election and were the reason he lost the popular vote. Beyond the complete lack of evidence for such voting, his assumption was that multitudes of such votes—if they existed—would have been for his Democratic opponent. Yet past polls of unauthorized Hispanic immigrants suggest that many of them would have voted for a Republican candidate over a Democratic one.
A third sign that a claim is a far-fetched theory, rather than an actual conspiracy, is that those who support it interpret evidence against their theory as evidence for it. When the van of the convicted mail bomber Cesar Sayoc was found in Florida plastered with Trump stickers, for instance, some individuals said this helped to prove that Democrats were really behind the bombs. “If anyone thinks this is what a real conservative’s van looks like, you are being willfully ignorant. Cesar Sayoc is clearly just a fall guy for this obvious false flag,” one person posted on Twitter.
Conspiracy theories are a human reaction to confusing times. “We’re all just trying to understand the world and what’s happening in it,” says Rob Brotherton, a psychologist at Barnard College and author of Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe in Conspiracy Theories (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2015). But real harm can come from such thinking, especially when believers engage in violence as a show of support. If we look out for suspicious signatures and ask thoughtful questions about the stories we encounter, it is still possible to separate truth from lies. It may not always be an easy task, but it is a crucial one for all of us.


scientificamerican--2020-11-23--To Understand How Science Denial Works, Look to History

2020 has been a historic year— and mostly not in a good way .
Among many things , we saw a historic level of disregard of scientific advice with respect to the COVID-19 virus , a disregard that made the pandemic worse in the U.S. than in many other countries .
But while the events of 2020 may feel unprecedented , the social pattern of rejecting scientific evidence did not suddenly appear this year .
There was never any good scientific reason for rejecting the expert advice on COVID , just as there has never been any good scientific reason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccines save lives , and that greenhouse gases are driving disruptive climate change .
To understand the social pattern of rejecting scientific findings and expert advice , we need to look beyond science to history , which tells us that many of the various forms of the rejection of expert evidence and the promotion of disinformation have roots in the history of tobacco .
Throughout the first half of the 20th century , most Americans saw science as something that made our lives better .
Science had deepened our understanding of the natural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diseases , light our homes and bring new forms of entertainment into our lives .
Perhaps most important , physicists helped to win World War II and became cultural heroes .
Chemists got their due , too .
As DuPont reminded us , we had “ better things for better living through chemistry.
” At General Electric , scientists and engineers were helping to “ bring good things to life.
” These were not just slogans ; corporate R & D really did produce products that measurably improved many American lives .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for science denial and disinformation .
The chief culprit in this darker story was the tobacco industry , whose playbook has been well documented by historians of science , technology and medicine , as well as epidemiologists and lawyers .
It disparaged science by promoting the idea that the link between tobacco use and lung cancer and other diseases was uncertain or incomplete and that the attempt to regulate it was a threat to American freedom .
The industry made products more addictive by increasing their nicotine content while publicly denying that nicotine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the industry was able to delay effective measures to discourage smoking long after the scientific evidence of its harms was clear .
In our 2010 book , Merchants of Doubt , Erik M. Conway and I showed how the same arguments were used to delay action on acid rain , the ozone hole and climate change—and this year we saw the spurious “ freedom ” argument being used to disparage mask wearing .
We also saw the tobacco strategy seeping into social media , which influences public opinion and which many people feel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and perhaps government regulation .
In October 2019 Congress held hearings to investigate the role of Facebook in potentially spreading misinformation .
In the summer of 2020 a report from civil-rights law firm Relman Colfax suggested that Facebook posts could contribute to voter suppression .
Climate scientists have complained that the social media giant contributes to the spread of climate denial by permitting false or misleading claims while hobbling responses by mainstream scientists by labeling their posts “ political.
” Without a historical perspective , we might interpret this as a novel problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this past September , a former Facebook manager testified in Congress that the company “ took a page from Big Tobacco 's playbook , working to make our offering addictive , ” saying that Facebook was determined to make people addicted to its products while publicly using the euphemism of increasing “ engagement.
” Like the tobacco industry , social media companies sold us a toxic product while insisting that it was simply giving consumers what they wanted .
Scientific colleagues often ask me why I traded a career in science for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of them , is just “ dwelling on the past.
” But , as the bard said in The Tempest : “ What 's past is prologue.
” If we are to confront disinformation , the rejection of scientific findings , and the negative uses of technology , we have to understand the past that has brought us to this point .
”

2020 has been a historic year— and mostly not in a good way. Among many things, we saw a historic level of disregard of scientific advice with respect to the COVID-19 virus, a disregard that made the pandemic worse in the U.S. than in many other countries. But while the events of 2020 may feel unprecedented, the social pattern of rejecting scientific evidence did not suddenly appear this year. There was never any good scientific reason for rejecting the expert advice on COVID, just as there has never been any good scientific reason for doubting that humans evolved, that vaccines save lives, and that greenhouse gases are driving disruptive climate change. To understand the social pattern of rejecting scientific findings and expert advice, we need to look beyond science to history, which tells us that many of the various forms of the rejection of expert evidence and the promotion of disinformation have roots in the history of tobacco.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, most Americans saw science as something that made our lives better. Science had deepened our understanding of the natural world, which helped us to cure diseases, light our homes and bring new forms of entertainment into our lives. Perhaps most important, physicists helped to win World War II and became cultural heroes. Chemists got their due, too. As DuPont reminded us, we had “better things for better living through chemistry.” At General Electric, scientists and engineers were helping to “bring good things to life.” These were not just slogans; corporate R&D really did produce products that measurably improved many American lives. But corporate America was also developing the playbook for science denial and disinformation.
The chief culprit in this darker story was the tobacco industry, whose playbook has been well documented by historians of science, technology and medicine, as well as epidemiologists and lawyers. It disparaged science by promoting the idea that the link between tobacco use and lung cancer and other diseases was uncertain or incomplete and that the attempt to regulate it was a threat to American freedom. The industry made products more addictive by increasing their nicotine content while publicly denying that nicotine was addictive. With these tactics, the industry was able to delay effective measures to discourage smoking long after the scientific evidence of its harms was clear. In our 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt, Erik M. Conway and I showed how the same arguments were used to delay action on acid rain, the ozone hole and climate change—and this year we saw the spurious “freedom” argument being used to disparage mask wearing.
We also saw the tobacco strategy seeping into social media, which influences public opinion and which many people feel needs to be subject to greater scrutiny and perhaps government regulation. In October 2019 Congress held hearings to investigate the role of Facebook in potentially spreading misinformation. In the summer of 2020 a report from civil-rights law firm Relman Colfax suggested that Facebook posts could contribute to voter suppression. Climate scientists have complained that the social media giant contributes to the spread of climate denial by permitting false or misleading claims while hobbling responses by mainstream scientists by labeling their posts “political.”
Without a historical perspective, we might interpret this as a novel problem created by a novel technology. But this past September, a former Facebook manager testified in Congress that the company “took a page from Big Tobacco's playbook, working to make our offering addictive,” saying that Facebook was determined to make people addicted to its products while publicly using the euphemism of increasing “engagement.” Like the tobacco industry, social media companies sold us a toxic product while insisting that it was simply giving consumers what they wanted.
Scientific colleagues often ask me why I traded a career in science for a career in history. History, for some of them, is just “dwelling on the past.” But, as the bard said in The Tempest: “What's past is prologue.” If we are to confront disinformation, the rejection of scientific findings, and the negative uses of technology, we have to understand the past that has brought us to this point.”


scientificamerican--2020-11-24--Why Social Media Became the Perfect Incubator for Hoaxes and Misinformation

In the summer of 2015 Governor Greg Abbott gave the Texas State Guard an unusual order : keep an eye on the Jade Helm 15 exercise , just in case the online rumors are true .
In reality , Jade Helm 15 was a routine eight-week military exercise conducted in Texas and six other states .
In the online echo chamber , however , it was something more sinister : the beginning of a coup ordered by President Barack Obama .
One great promise of the creation of the World Wide Web was that users might be exposed to diversified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ span , however , remains limited , and news feed algorithms may favor selective exposure .
Users show the tendency to select information that adheres to their beliefs and join polarized groups formed around a shared narrative , called echo chambers .
In these closed communities , polarization is dominant .
In this environment , unreliable rumors and conspiracy theories spread widely .
Conspiracy theories are nothing new , but in an age of rampant populism and digital activism , they have acquired new power to influence real-world events—usually for the worse .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the World Economic Forum named the polarization and the viral spread of biased information as one of the most dangerous social trends of the age.With antidemocratic politicians on the rise throughout the West , we are now seeing the danger of viral misinformation become manifest .
Our biases make it difficult to discern reliable information when polarization is dominant.And social media platforms have made it easy for ideas—even false ones—to spread around the globe almost instantaneously .
Data scientists have recently made significant progress in understanding the spread and consumption of information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the ways people influence one another .
Advances in technology have made it possible to exploit the deluge of data from social media—the traces that people use as they choose , share and comment online—to study social dynamics at a high level of resolution .
By applying the methods of computational social science to the traces that people leave on Facebook , Twitter , YouTube and other such outlets , scientists can study the spread of conspiracy theories in great detail .
Thanks to these studies , we know that humans are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , rational .
Presented with unfiltered information , people will appropriate that which conforms to their own thinking .
This effect , known as confirmation bias , fuels polarization and thus decreases the value of information that is true—propping up theories about global mega conspiracies , connections between vaccines and autism , and other nonsense .
On top of this , as the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear , the nuances of how science is conducted are not well understood by the public , and concepts such as uncertainty and complexity are difficult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not very good at communicating .
At the University of Venice , my colleagues and I have spent the past year investigating the spread of information and misinformation on social networks .
We are especially interested in learning how information goes viral and how opinions are formed and reinforced in cyberspace .
One of our first studies on the subject was designed to reveal how social media users treat three different types of information : mainstream news , alternative news and online political activism .
The first category is self-explanatory : it refers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ news coverage in Italy .
The second category includes outlets that claim to report information that the mainstream media have “ hidden.
” The final category refers to content published by activist groups that use the Web as a tool for political mobilization .
Gathering information for our study , especially from alternative sources , was time-consuming and painstaking .
We collected and manually verified various indicators from Facebook users and groups active in fact-checking .
From the 50 Facebook pages that we investigated , we analyzed the online behavior of more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those pages between September 2012 and February 2013 .
We found that posts on qualitatively different topics behaved very similarly online : the same number of users tended to interact with them , to share them on social media and to debate them .
In other words , information from major daily newspapers , alternative news sources and political activist sites all reverberate in the same way .
Two different hypotheses could explain this result .
The first possibility was that all users treat all information equally , regardless of its veracity .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ interest groups treat all information equally , whether it is true or not , if it reinforces their preexisting beliefs .
The second hypothesis was , to us , more interesting .
It suggested that confirmation bias plays an important role in the spread of misinformation .
The Manager and the Message The next step was to test these two hypotheses .
We decided to compare the online behavior of people who read science news with that of people who usually follow alternative news and conspiracy theories .
We chose these two types @ @ @ @ @ @ @ difference—whether they have a sender , a manager of the message .
Science news is about studies published in scientific journals—work by authors and institutions that are known quantities .
Conspiracy theories , in contrast , have no sender : they are formulated in a way to promote the uncertainty they generate .
The subject is always a secret plan or truth that someone is deliberately concealing from the public .
The very complexity of our world—issues such as multiculturalism , the growing intricacy of the global financial system and technological progress—can lead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to choose to believe compact explanations that clearly identify an object of blame .
Martin Bauer , a social psychologist at the London School of Economics and a scholar of conspiracy dynamics , describes conspiracy thinking as a “ quasireligious mentality.
” It is a little bit like the dawn of humanity , when people attributed storms to acts of divinity .
For this study , which we called “ Science vs Conspiracy : Collective Narratives in the Age of Misinformation ” and published in PLOS ONE , we investigated 73 Facebook pages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 34 of which published science news .
Altogether , these pages had more than a million Italian users between 2010 and 2014 .
We found that both sets of pages attracted very attentive audiences—users who rarely leave their echo chambers .
People who read science news rarely read conspiracy news , and vice versa .
But the conspiracy pages attracted three times more users .
Facebook 's news feed algorithm seems to foment the formation of echo chambers , which play an important role in the spread of false rumors .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theories ( example : “ Airplane chemtrails contain Viagra ” ) , we found that consumers of “ real ” conspiracy news were much more likely to read these satirical pieces than readers of legitimate science news .
We also found that users who focus primarily on conspiracy news tend to share content more widely .
When we reconstructed the social networks of our two groups ( science news readers and fans of conspiracy theories ) , we discovered a surprising statistical regularity : as the number of likes for a specific type @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having a virtual social network composed solely of users with the same profile also increased .
In other words , the more you are exposed to a certain type of narrative , the greater the probability that all your Facebook friends will have the same news preferences .
The division of social networks into homogeneous groups is crucial to understanding the viral nature of the phenomenon .
These groups tend to exclude anything that does not fit with their worldview .
Such a tendency has been confirmed in more general settings : how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ study , published online in February 2017 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA , analyzing the behavior of 376 million users interacting with news outlet pages on social media , found that the more a user is active online the fewer number of sources the person engages with .
In 2014 we decided to start investigating efforts to correct the spread of unsubstantiated claims on social media .
Does debunking work ?
To find out , we measured the “ persistence ” —the tendency of a person to continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over time—of conspiracy news readers who had been exposed to debunking campaigns .
People who were exposed to debunking campaigns were 30 percent more likely to keep reading conspiracy news .
In other words , for a certain type of user , debunking actually reinforces belief in the conspiracy .
We observed the same dynamics in a study of 55 million Facebook users in the U.S. Users avoid cognitive discord by consuming information that supports their preexisting beliefs , and they share that information widely .
Moreover , we found that over time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ domain—say , the ( nonexistent ) connection between vaccines and autism—will seek out such theories in other domains .
Once inside the echo chamber , they tend to embrace the entire conspiracy corpus .
These dynamics suggest that the spread of online misinformation will be very hard to stop .
Any attempt at reasoned discussion usually degenerates into a fight between extremists , which ends in polarization .
In this context , it is quite difficult to accurately inform people and almost impossible to stop a baseless report .
We performed another experiment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ techniques in smoothing polarization , but those tactics proved to be relatively ineffective .
In all probability , social media will continue to teem with debates on the latest global mega conspiracy .
The important thing is to share what is being hidden from us ; whether it is true or false hardly matters .
Perhaps we should stop calling this the Information Age and start calling it the Age of Segregation .

In the summer of 2015 Governor Greg Abbott gave the Texas State Guard an unusual order: keep an eye on the Jade Helm 15 exercise, just in case the online rumors are true. In reality, Jade Helm 15 was a routine eight-week military exercise conducted in Texas and six other states. In the online echo chamber, however, it was something more sinister: the beginning of a coup ordered by President Barack Obama.
One great promise of the creation of the World Wide Web was that users might be exposed to diversified points of view. The human attention span, however, remains limited, and news feed algorithms may favor selective exposure. Users show the tendency to select information that adheres to their beliefs and join polarized groups formed around a shared narrative, called echo chambers. In these closed communities, polarization is dominant. In this environment, unreliable rumors and conspiracy theories spread widely. Conspiracy theories are nothing new, but in an age of rampant populism and digital activism, they have acquired new power to influence real-world events—usually for the worse. In a 2017 report on global risks, the World Economic Forum named the polarization and the viral spread of biased information as one of the most dangerous social trends of the age.With antidemocratic politicians on the rise throughout the West, we are now seeing the danger of viral misinformation become manifest. Our biases make it difficult to discern reliable information when polarization is dominant.And social media platforms have made it easy for ideas—even false ones—to spread around the globe almost instantaneously.
Data scientists have recently made significant progress in understanding the spread and consumption of information, its effect on opinion formation, and the ways people influence one another. Advances in technology have made it possible to exploit the deluge of data from social media—the traces that people use as they choose, share and comment online—to study social dynamics at a high level of resolution.
By applying the methods of computational social science to the traces that people leave on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other such outlets, scientists can study the spread of conspiracy theories in great detail. Thanks to these studies, we know that humans are not, as has long been assumed, rational. Presented with unfiltered information, people will appropriate that which conforms to their own thinking. This effect, known as confirmation bias, fuels polarization and thus decreases the value of information that is true—propping up theories about global mega conspiracies, connections between vaccines and autism, and other nonsense. On top of this, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear, the nuances of how science is conducted are not well understood by the public, and concepts such as uncertainty and complexity are difficult to convey. And some scientists are not very good at communicating.
The Echo Chamber
At the University of Venice, my colleagues and I have spent the past year investigating the spread of information and misinformation on social networks. We are especially interested in learning how information goes viral and how opinions are formed and reinforced in cyberspace.
One of our first studies on the subject was designed to reveal how social media users treat three different types of information: mainstream news, alternative news and online political activism. The first category is self-explanatory: it refers to the media outlets that provide nationwide news coverage in Italy. The second category includes outlets that claim to report information that the mainstream media have “hidden.” The final category refers to content published by activist groups that use the Web as a tool for political mobilization.
Gathering information for our study, especially from alternative sources, was time-consuming and painstaking. We collected and manually verified various indicators from Facebook users and groups active in fact-checking. From the 50 Facebook pages that we investigated, we analyzed the online behavior of more than two million Italian users who interacted with those pages between September 2012 and February 2013. We found that posts on qualitatively different topics behaved very similarly online: the same number of users tended to interact with them, to share them on social media and to debate them. In other words, information from major daily newspapers, alternative news sources and political activist sites all reverberate in the same way.
Two different hypotheses could explain this result. The first possibility was that all users treat all information equally, regardless of its veracity. The other was that members of certain interest groups treat all information equally, whether it is true or not, if it reinforces their preexisting beliefs. The second hypothesis was, to us, more interesting. It suggested that confirmation bias plays an important role in the spread of misinformation.
The Manager and the Message
The next step was to test these two hypotheses. We decided to compare the online behavior of people who read science news with that of people who usually follow alternative news and conspiracy theories. We chose these two types of content because of a very specific difference—whether they have a sender, a manager of the message. Science news is about studies published in scientific journals—work by authors and institutions that are known quantities. Conspiracy theories, in contrast, have no sender: they are formulated in a way to promote the uncertainty they generate. The subject is always a secret plan or truth that someone is deliberately concealing from the public.
The very complexity of our world—issues such as multiculturalism, the growing intricacy of the global financial system and technological progress—can lead people, regardless of educational level, to choose to believe compact explanations that clearly identify an object of blame. Martin Bauer, a social psychologist at the London School of Economics and a scholar of conspiracy dynamics, describes conspiracy thinking as a “quasireligious mentality.” It is a little bit like the dawn of humanity, when people attributed storms to acts of divinity.
For this study, which we called “Science vs Conspiracy: Collective Narratives in the Age of Misinformation” and published in PLOS ONE, we investigated 73 Facebook pages, 39 of which trafficked in conspiracy and 34 of which published science news. Altogether, these pages had more than a million Italian users between 2010 and 2014. We found that both sets of pages attracted very attentive audiences—users who rarely leave their echo chambers. People who read science news rarely read conspiracy news, and vice versa. But the conspiracy pages attracted three times more users.
Facebook's news feed algorithm seems to foment the formation of echo chambers, which play an important role in the spread of false rumors. When we investigated 4,709 posts that satirized conspiracy theories (example: “Airplane chemtrails contain Viagra”), we found that consumers of “real” conspiracy news were much more likely to read these satirical pieces than readers of legitimate science news. We also found that users who focus primarily on conspiracy news tend to share content more widely.
When we reconstructed the social networks of our two groups (science news readers and fans of conspiracy theories), we discovered a surprising statistical regularity: as the number of likes for a specific type of narrative increased, the probability of having a virtual social network composed solely of users with the same profile also increased. In other words, the more you are exposed to a certain type of narrative, the greater the probability that all your Facebook friends will have the same news preferences. The division of social networks into homogeneous groups is crucial to understanding the viral nature of the phenomenon. These groups tend to exclude anything that does not fit with their worldview. Such a tendency has been confirmed in more general settings: how people read newspapers on Facebook. Our study, published online in February 2017 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, analyzing the behavior of 376 million users interacting with news outlet pages on social media, found that the more a user is active online the fewer number of sources the person engages with.
A Wicked Problem
In 2014 we decided to start investigating efforts to correct the spread of unsubstantiated claims on social media. Does debunking work? To find out, we measured the “persistence”—the tendency of a person to continue engaging with a specific type of content over time—of conspiracy news readers who had been exposed to debunking campaigns. People who were exposed to debunking campaigns were 30 percent more likely to keep reading conspiracy news. In other words, for a certain type of user, debunking actually reinforces belief in the conspiracy.
We observed the same dynamics in a study of 55 million Facebook users in the U.S. Users avoid cognitive discord by consuming information that supports their preexisting beliefs, and they share that information widely. Moreover, we found that over time people who embrace conspiracy theories in one domain—say, the (nonexistent) connection between vaccines and autism—will seek out such theories in other domains. Once inside the echo chamber, they tend to embrace the entire conspiracy corpus.
These dynamics suggest that the spread of online misinformation will be very hard to stop. Any attempt at reasoned discussion usually degenerates into a fight between extremists, which ends in polarization. In this context, it is quite difficult to accurately inform people and almost impossible to stop a baseless report. We performed another experiment to measure the effect of different journalistic techniques in smoothing polarization, but those tactics proved to be relatively ineffective.
In all probability, social media will continue to teem with debates on the latest global mega conspiracy. The important thing is to share what is being hidden from us; whether it is true or false hardly matters. Perhaps we should stop calling this the Information Age and start calling it the Age of Segregation.


scientificamerican--2020-11-24--The Surprising Mental Toll of COVID

The Surprising Mental Toll of COVID

You did n't need a crystal ball to forecast that the COVID-19 pandemic would devastate mental health .
Illness or fear of illness , social isolation , economic insecurity , disruption of routine and loss of loved ones are known risk factors for depression and anxiety .
Now studies have confirmed the predictions .
But psychologists say the findings also include surprises about the wide extent of mental distress ; the way media consumption exacerbates it ; and how badly it has affected young people .
For example , a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tripling of anxiety symptoms and a quadrupling of depression among 5,470 adults surveyed compared with a 2019 sample .
Similarly , two nationally representative surveys conducted in April , one by researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health and another at Johns Hopkins University , found that the prevalence of depressive symptoms ( B.U . )
and “ serious psychological distress ” ( Hopkins ) were triple the level measured in 2018 .
“ These rates were higher than what we 've seen after other large-scale traumas like September 11th , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” says Catherine Ettman , lead author of the B.U .
study .
Some of the most affected groups in these studies were people who had preexisting mental health issues , low-income individuals , people of color , and those close to someone who suffered or died from COVID-19 .
In Ettman 's study , however , the group in the U.S. with the single biggest rise in depression—up fivefold—was of Asian ethnicity .
In an accompanying commentary , psychiatrist Ruth Shim suggested the upsurge could reflect the impact of racism and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in China .
An unanticipated finding , across all three surveys , was the outsized toll on young adults .
In the CDC survey , 62.9 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds reported an anxiety or depressive disorder , a quarter said they were using more drugs and alcohol to cope with pandemic-related stress , and a quarter said they had “ seriously considered suicide ” in the previous 30 days .
Young adults were also the most affected age group in an unusual , real-time study that tracked the rapid rise in “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points between mid-March and mid-April .
“ We expected the opposite because it was already clear that older individuals were at greater risk ” from the virus , says senior author Roxane Cohen Silver , a psychologist at the University of California , Irvine .
Silver suspects that young people “ may have had more disruption in life events : graduations , weddings , the senior year of college and of high school .
All those transitions were disrupted , as well as school and social connections , which we know are very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which involved 6,500 people , does point to one major contributor to anxiety for people of all ages : increased engagement with media coverage of the outbreak .
Especially problematic is exposure to conflicting information .
Silver , who has studied the psychological fallout of events such as 9/11 and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing , says that a fixation on media coverage is a known risk factor : “ If people are engaged with a great deal of media , they are more likely to exhibit and report distress , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the media .
It 's a cyclical pattern from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.
” Silver and others who investigate mass trauma have suggestions for keeping mental equilibrium in challenging times .
Limiting media consumption and avoiding sensationalist reports is one .
Maintaining social contacts—via Zoom , phone or other COVID-safe methods—is also vital , says psychologist James Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin .
“ Unlike any other disaster that I 've studied , people are actively less close to friends and community , ” says Pennebaker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mental health impact by analyzing posts on the social media platform Reddit .
Fewer hugs and less shared grieving may help explain why people do not seem to be adjusting to the new normal , Pennebaker says .
“ This is not 9/11 or an earthquake , where something big happens , and we all get back to normal pretty quickly.
” His other tips are to maintain healthy sleep , exercise , food and drink habits .
Keep a journal , too .
Research shows that expressive writing helps people process difficult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ If you 're worrying about COVID too much , try writing about it .
”

You didn't need a crystal ball to forecast that the COVID-19 pandemic would devastate mental health. Illness or fear of illness, social isolation, economic insecurity, disruption of routine and loss of loved ones are known risk factors for depression and anxiety. Now studies have confirmed the predictions. But psychologists say the findings also include surprises about the wide extent of mental distress; the way media consumption exacerbates it; and how badly it has affected young people.
For example, a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in August, found a tripling of anxiety symptoms and a quadrupling of depression among 5,470 adults surveyed compared with a 2019 sample. Similarly, two nationally representative surveys conducted in April, one by researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health and another at Johns Hopkins University, found that the prevalence of depressive symptoms (B.U.) and “serious psychological distress” (Hopkins) were triple the level measured in 2018. “These rates were higher than what we've seen after other large-scale traumas like September 11th, Hurricane Katrina and the Hong Kong unrest,” says Catherine Ettman, lead author of the B.U. study.
Some of the most affected groups in these studies were people who had preexisting mental health issues, low-income individuals, people of color, and those close to someone who suffered or died from COVID-19. In Ettman's study, however, the group in the U.S. with the single biggest rise in depression—up fivefold—was of Asian ethnicity. In an accompanying commentary, psychiatrist Ruth Shim suggested the upsurge could reflect the impact of racism and slurs related to the pandemic's origin in China.
An unanticipated finding, across all three surveys, was the outsized toll on young adults. In the CDC survey, 62.9 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds reported an anxiety or depressive disorder, a quarter said they were using more drugs and alcohol to cope with pandemic-related stress, and a quarter said they had “seriously considered suicide” in the previous 30 days. Young adults were also the most affected age group in an unusual, real-time study that tracked the rapid rise in “acute distress” and depression at three points between mid-March and mid-April. “We expected the opposite because it was already clear that older individuals were at greater risk” from the virus, says senior author Roxane Cohen Silver, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine.
Silver suspects that young people “may have had more disruption in life events: graduations, weddings, the senior year of college and of high school. All those transitions were disrupted, as well as school and social connections, which we know are very important for young people.”
Her study, which involved 6,500 people, does point to one major contributor to anxiety for people of all ages: increased engagement with media coverage of the outbreak. Especially problematic is exposure to conflicting information. Silver, who has studied the psychological fallout of events such as 9/11 and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, says that a fixation on media coverage is a known risk factor: “If people are engaged with a great deal of media, they are more likely to exhibit and report distress, but that distress seems to draw them further into the media. It's a cyclical pattern from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.”
Silver and others who investigate mass trauma have suggestions for keeping mental equilibrium in challenging times. Limiting media consumption and avoiding sensationalist reports is one. Maintaining social contacts—via Zoom, phone or other COVID-safe methods—is also vital, says psychologist James Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin. “Unlike any other disaster that I've studied, people are actively less close to friends and community,” says Pennebaker, who is examining the pandemic's mental health impact by analyzing posts on the social media platform Reddit.
Fewer hugs and less shared grieving may help explain why people do not seem to be adjusting to the new normal, Pennebaker says. “This is not 9/11 or an earthquake, where something big happens, and we all get back to normal pretty quickly.” His other tips are to maintain healthy sleep, exercise, food and drink habits. Keep a journal, too. Research shows that expressive writing helps people process difficult emotions and find meaning, he says: “If you're worrying about COVID too much, try writing about it.”


scientificamerican--2020-11-24--Scale Up Tutoring to Combat COVID Learning Loss for Disadvantaged Students

After heroic efforts to keep school doors open this Fall , schools are yet again shutting down and returning to distance learning as COVID-19 cases spike across the country .
With no choice but to return to remote learning , schools have struggled to support their students and provide them with the resources and education they need to succeed .
Already the disease has taken a toll .
A preprint study of data from the Netherlands conducted during the pandemic shows significant learning losses sustained from March through May , compared with learning gains observed during the same two-month period @ @ @ @ @ @ @ achievement for students from less educated homes .
In the midst of a pandemic , how do teachers prevent a generation of students , especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds , from falling further behind ?
One solution is tutoring .
I and my colleagues recently analyzed 96 randomized evaluations of different tutoring models and found that 80 percent of the studies led to markedly improved outcomes , with more than half of the studies reporting large gains as a result of these programs .
In education research , such consensus is a rarity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the results are both remarkable and encouraging .
In Chicago , for example , a two-on-one high school tutoring program empowered students to learn one to two years ahead in math , compared with what they would typically learn in a school year .
Studies show tutoring is a highly effective tool .
The question is how to implement it when any in-person interaction poses a risk of COVID-19 infection .
Fortunately , preliminary evidence suggests that virtual tutoring models may produce the same benefits as in-person tutoring .
During the pandemic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tutoring program in Italy .
In the study , which has not yet been published , middle school students who received three hours of online tutoring a week—over a computer , tablet or smartphone—from trained university students saw a 4.7 percent boost in performance in math , English and Italian .
With six hours of tutoring support , improvement doubled .
What ’ s more , the tutors seemed to play a mentoring role as well .
Parents , teachers and the students themselves reported an increase in well-being , goals and social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of their impact is still needed , we ’ ve also seen similar virtual tutoring programs reach sizable student populations in the U.S. during the pandemic .
One such program , introduced by the Tennessee Tutoring Corps , trained 430 college students to tutor more than 2,000 students across the state in math and English for seven to eight weeks .
A small-scale study described in a recent report tracked the results of a program that combined one-on-one remote tutoring with an online math game .
The investigation found that the tutoring component @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The results suggest that tutoring is a key tool—more than educational games or other learning sites—in keeping students engaged and combatting the growing COVID-19 learning loss .
Many affluent families are already employing private tutors to help their children keep up .
Some large firms are also subsidizing tutoring for professional parents , underscoring the inequities between those who can afford the help and those who can not .
Individuals without such advantages are falling through the cracks .
To close the gap , we need to direct tutoring resources to students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , especially those attending cash-strapped schools or growing up in low-income households .
To begin , we must address the biggest barrier to access—financial resources—by expanding federal funding to subsidize tutoring programs .
The British government , for example , is launching a national program designed to help disadvantaged students make up for learning losses .
The U.S. could follow its lead by expanding funding for programs , such as AmeriCorps––which is currently being considered in a proposal in Congress––that have experience running successful tutoring initiatives and could shift their in-person tutoring operations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young professionals struggling to find work , these programs could also add jobs and address record levels of unemployment .
Amid the growing demand , there is also talk of creating a centralized market for tutoring services that would enable students and parents to specialize their tutoring and target particular areas of study .
In this vein , Khan Academy founder Sal Khan ’ s new initiative , which aims to create an online marketplace for students seeking free virtual tutoring on specific topics , could be a model to democratize access .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ will have to prioritize tutoring for students who need it the most .
School and district leaders can use data to determine which of their students are most likely to fall behind and offer these individuals extra support through direct or mandated services .
Our research , for example , found that reading tutoring tends to be more effective for students in preschool through first grade , while math tutoring tends to have the greatest benefit for second through fifth graders .
Younger children gain more from one-on-one tutoring while older elementary school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alongside peers .
These insights can guide education leaders ’ decisions about how to deploy limited tutoring capacity or expand certain programs while minimizing other costs .
Cash-strapped schools may not have the resources for tutoring services , but they can invest in computer-assisted learning programs that mimic tutors .
And in-person tutoring programs struggling to survive in the pandemic can deliver their services virtually and supplement their sessions with software designed to allow students to work at their own rate—a surprisingly effective strategy with successful learning outcomes .
Teachers can incorporate computer-assisted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Khan Academy , into their lessons and utilize adaptive learning software to replicate a tutor that provides feedback on homework .
To ensure that all students can benefit from these programs , we must simultaneously remediate the lack of Internet connectivity in low-income and rural households .
Although tutoring will look different this year , we have reason to believe that any kind of support could make a difference .
While our research found that tutoring programs led by teachers or trained individuals––such as service fellows and teachers in training––were more effective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from volunteer tutoring .
And although virtual tutoring may not be quite as effective as in-person sessions , the positive results point to a potential solution to the growing educational gap .
If we act now and use our resources wisely , online tutoring may just help us safeguard the futures of the next generation .

After heroic efforts to keep school doors open this Fall, schools are yet again shutting down and returning to distance learning as COVID-19 cases spike across the country. With no choice but to return to remote learning, schools have struggled to support their students and provide them with the resources and education they need to succeed. Already the disease has taken a toll. A preprint study of data from the Netherlands conducted during the pandemic shows significant learning losses sustained from March through May, compared with learning gains observed during the same two-month period last year—with a particularly severe drop in achievement for students from less educated homes. In the midst of a pandemic, how do teachers prevent a generation of students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, from falling further behind?
One solution is tutoring. I and my colleagues recently analyzed 96 randomized evaluations of different tutoring models and found that 80 percent of the studies led to markedly improved outcomes, with more than half of the studies reporting large gains as a result of these programs. In education research, such consensus is a rarity, and the consistency and magnitude of the results are both remarkable and encouraging. In Chicago, for example, a two-on-one high school tutoring program empowered students to learn one to two years ahead in math, compared with what they would typically learn in a school year.
Studies show tutoring is a highly effective tool. The question is how to implement it when any in-person interaction poses a risk of COVID-19 infection. Fortunately, preliminary evidence suggests that virtual tutoring models may produce the same benefits as in-person tutoring. During the pandemic, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation of a tutoring program in Italy. In the study, which has not yet been published, middle school students who received three hours of online tutoring a week—over a computer, tablet or smartphone—from trained university students saw a 4.7 percent boost in performance in math, English and Italian. With six hours of tutoring support, improvement doubled. What’s more, the tutors seemed to play a mentoring role as well. Parents, teachers and the students themselves reported an increase in well-being, goals and social and emotional skills.
While rigorous evaluation of their impact is still needed, we’ve also seen similar virtual tutoring programs reach sizable student populations in the U.S. during the pandemic. One such program, introduced by the Tennessee Tutoring Corps, trained 430 college students to tutor more than 2,000 students across the state in math and English for seven to eight weeks.
A small-scale study described in a recent report tracked the results of a program that combined one-on-one remote tutoring with an online math game. The investigation found that the tutoring component was essential in helping students to improve. The results suggest that tutoring is a key tool—more than educational games or other learning sites—in keeping students engaged and combatting the growing COVID-19 learning loss.
Many affluent families are already employing private tutors to help their children keep up. Some large firms are also subsidizing tutoring for professional parents, underscoring the inequities between those who can afford the help and those who cannot. Individuals without such advantages are falling through the cracks. To close the gap, we need to direct tutoring resources to students with the highest chance of falling behind, especially those attending cash-strapped schools or growing up in low-income households.
To begin, we must address the biggest barrier to access—financial resources—by expanding federal funding to subsidize tutoring programs. The British government, for example, is launching a national program designed to help disadvantaged students make up for learning losses. The U.S. could follow its lead by expanding funding for programs, such as AmeriCorps––which is currently being considered in a proposal in Congress––that have experience running successful tutoring initiatives and could shift their in-person tutoring operations online. With recent college graduates and young professionals struggling to find work, these programs could also add jobs and address record levels of unemployment.
Amid the growing demand, there is also talk of creating a centralized market for tutoring services that would enable students and parents to specialize their tutoring and target particular areas of study. In this vein, Khan Academy founder Sal Khan’s new initiative, which aims to create an online marketplace for students seeking free virtual tutoring on specific topics, could be a model to democratize access.
At a local level, school leaders will have to prioritize tutoring for students who need it the most. School and district leaders can use data to determine which of their students are most likely to fall behind and offer these individuals extra support through direct or mandated services. Our research, for example, found that reading tutoring tends to be more effective for students in preschool through first grade, while math tutoring tends to have the greatest benefit for second through fifth graders. Younger children gain more from one-on-one tutoring while older elementary school students see better results with customized learning alongside peers. These insights can guide education leaders’ decisions about how to deploy limited tutoring capacity or expand certain programs while minimizing other costs.
Cash-strapped schools may not have the resources for tutoring services, but they can invest in computer-assisted learning programs that mimic tutors. And in-person tutoring programs struggling to survive in the pandemic can deliver their services virtually and supplement their sessions with software designed to allow students to work at their own rate—a surprisingly effective strategy with successful learning outcomes.
Teachers can incorporate computer-assisted learning, especially free programs such as the Khan Academy, into their lessons and utilize adaptive learning software to replicate a tutor that provides feedback on homework. To ensure that all students can benefit from these programs, we must simultaneously remediate the lack of Internet connectivity in low-income and rural households.
Although tutoring will look different this year, we have reason to believe that any kind of support could make a difference. While our research found that tutoring programs led by teachers or trained individuals––such as service fellows and teachers in training––were more effective than volunteer programs, students still benefited from volunteer tutoring.
And although virtual tutoring may not be quite as effective as in-person sessions, the positive results point to a potential solution to the growing educational gap. If we act now and use our resources wisely, online tutoring may just help us safeguard the futures of the next generation.