- Would you rather stab a photo
of your family five times,
or stick your hand
in a jar full of cockroaches?
According to one scientist,
your answer may predict how likely you are
to believe in conspiracy theories,
UFOs, and a whole host of magical beliefs.
And more importantly,
it reveals something about why Americans
are so divided.
- I don't think American politics are simply divided
between left and right,
between red states and blue states.
Rather I think there's another dimension.
Intuitionists.
And rationalists.
(slow mysterious music)
- [Cara] Area 51.
It's been ground zero for UFO Conspiracy theories
for decades.
- Classified experiments involving
extraterrestrial technology.
- [Cara] Today, we're headed to the top-secret
Air Force base
with a group of true believers
to learn what aliens have to do
with intuitive thinking.
- We're headed to the back gate
to the base.
For many, many years,
the government simply denied its existence.
- Anything that talks about UFOs,
it never enters mainstream media.
- It's the biggest secret there is.
They work together,
the government and the extraterrestrials.
- It's just a firm belief of mine,
I've known since I was a kid.
- [Cara] These folks are what Eric Oliver
refers to as intuitionists.
- They go with their gut,
they're attracted to symbols and metaphors.
They orient their understanding around the world
based on what they're feeling
over scientific beliefs.
- All of us are intuitionists
to one degree or another.
When you just have a feeling about something,
that's your intuition talking.
- Your hair standing up?
That is your instinct.
- [Cara] When we feel anxious or afraid,
- I got a bad feeling about this.
- [Cara] our brain conjures up stories
that help explain why we feel
the way we do,
and what we can do about it.
- The last thing we need is bad luck.
- [Cara] These stories are examples
of what psychologists call
magical thinking.
They might not hold up to scientific scrutiny,
but they give us tools
to restore our sense of control
and manage our stress.
- There are studies of people being deprived
of control, being made
to feel like they don't have control.
And under those circumstances,
people engage more with superstitious
kind of views.
Not only that,
but people are more likely
to endorse conspiracy theories.
These are all manifestations
of our desire to understand our environment
and to feel like we can exert
some control over it.
- [Cara] Professor Oliver had a hunch
that some people are measurably more intuitive
than others.
- [Man H olding Camera] Everybody say "E.T.!".
- [All] E.T.
- [Cara] And those folks would be more prone
to both magical thinking
and conspiracy thinking.
So he came up with a way
to test his theory.
First, he looked for signs for the type
of anxiety that triggers magical beliefs.
- So we asked people about apprehensive behaviors,
how often do they check the locks
on their doors and windows,
do they shred their bills
before they throw them away.
- Then, he measured how significantly
their emotions factored into
their decision-making.
- We posed a series of paired questions,
like would you rather
A) sleep in laundered pajamas
once worn by Charles Manson,
or B) pick a nickel off the ground
and put it in your mouth.
- In other words,
would you rather do something
symbolic that feels wrong
or suffer a tangible punishment?
- People who always will avoid
a symbolic cost
tend to be very high on our
intuitionism scale.
Their world-view is oriented around
a lot of symbols and metaphors,
so the last thing they wanna do
is sleep in laundered pajamas
worn by Charles Manson.
- Those people were also more likely
to believe in conspiracy theories
and magical ideas.
- [Dr. Oliver] They're more likely to believe in ESP,
or horoscopes, herbal remedies,
and alternative medicine.
- According to Dr. Oliver,
two-thirds of Americans
at the extreme ends of his scale
fall on the intuitionists side.
So what about the other third?
- We focus on scientific issues,
issues that can be resolved
through evidence and reason
and logic.
With UFOs, extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence.
Not just a video of it,
you have to actually show us
a real spacecraft.
The actual alien.
- According to rationalists,
the evidence on UFOs is not only lacking,
but points to a different explanation.
- [Cara] The first UFO sightings at Roswell
took place in 1947,
a time when Americans were primed
for conspiracy thinking.
- The cold war was young,
and there was the threat of nuclear annihilation
and so anxieties about communists
were heavy in the air.
People are afraid of not just alien influences
but strange new weapons.
- [Cara] And while it's true that the government
was very secretive about what was
going on at Roswell,
it had nothing to do with aliens.
- There was a conspiracy at Roswell
in that the U.S. government did not want
to disclose that it was monitoring
Soviet nuclear tests.
So it was very deceptive
in the way it described the incident.
- [Cara] Nonetheless, UFOs made their way
into the popular culture.
Hollywood began churning out magical stories
that helped explain away
America's collective anxieties.
And the idea of a government conspiracy
to hide aliens
has been lodged in our national psyche
ever since.
- In the 19th century,
nobody was talking about UFOs.
People only started talking about UFOs
once science fiction writers
started writing about UFOs.
- There's a feedback loop.
The X-Files in the 1990's
drew on a lot of stories people were telling
in conspiracy forums,
and then the conspiracy forum people were,
in turn, influenced by the sorts of things
they saw in the X-Files.
- [Cara] So the rationalists are logical
and the intuitionists just watch
too much T.V., right?
Not so fast.
Rational thinking can only take us so far.
- [Dr. Oliver] Science is a really difficult tool
in a lot of ways, because it doesn't
provide much emotional comfort.
Our supernatural beliefs,
our conspiracy beliefs,
these help us give meaning
and order to the world.
- There are blinking lights right up there,
you can see.
And then there's another one.
There's at least four of 'em.
- We have to make room for
empirically based verification,
but we also have to make room
for mystery of life.
When we think about all that is good,
so much has not been rational.
I can't put love under a microscope.
I can't explain all of the actions
of altruism.
That exceeds our limited capacity
of understanding.
- The world needs both intuitionists
and rationalists.
But here's the problem.
They often have a hard time
understanding each other.
- [Cara] The rationalists argue the evidence.
The intuitionists argue their feelings.
Both talk past each other
and those missed messages
are increasingly dividing us.
- People feel more--
- Feel it.
Yes, they feel it,
but the facts don't support it.
- I'll go with how people feel
and I'll let you go with theoreticians.
- Much of what seems like the difference
between liberals and conservatives
really isn't a difference of ideology
about the scope of government,
it's about a way of understanding
the world.
- Until both sides learn to understand
each other better,
it's gonna be difficult to bridge the divide.
So how do we do that?
- If we wanna bridge this gap,
I think it's incumbent upon rationalists
to begin to understand how intuitionists
understand the world and begin
to speak to them a little bit more
on their terms.
- Logic and knowledge.
They're not enough.
- For intuitionists,
the challenge is being open
to empirical evidence,
even when it doesn't align with
their gut instincts.
- It can be tempting to trust our own
wisdom better than mainstream authorities.
These illusions of understanding
can lead us to mistaken beliefs.
- [Cara] In our next episode,
we'll explore how citizen journalism
and a cognitive foible,
called the illusion of understanding,
are driving misinformation
to the top of our news feeds.