This is far from a conclusive experiment though, for many reasons. For one, it’s a very small number of subjects, but, mainly, how does one measure or determine one’s “supernatural leanings”? This isn’t something covered by the metric system. Some people like to believe they’re totally rational, but this itself may be an ironic self-delusion.
It’s even worse studying conspiracy theories. The same rules apply, but it’s harder to get willing subjects, given the subject matter. Conspiracy theorists tend to be secretive, paranoid and distrustful of recognized authorities, so if a scientist were to say to one, “Would you like to come to our secure facility and let us experiment on you? It may involve being confined in a metal tube so we can scan your brain,” the answer is unlikely to be yes. So all that’s included in this section is a reasonable set of theories and assumptions based on the data we currently have available.
But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I? This whole chapter could be part of the conspiracy to keep people in the dark . . .
Some people would rather wrestle a wildcat than sing karaoke
(Phobias, social anxieties and their numerous manifestations)
Karaoke is a globally popular pastime. Some people love getting up in front of (usually quite intoxicated) strangers and singing a song that they’re often only vaguely familiar with, regardless of their singing ability. There haven’t been experiments on this but I’d posit there is an inverse relationship between enthusiasm and ability. Consumption of alcohol is almost certainly a factor in this trend. And in these days of the televised talent contest, people can sing in front of millions of strangers rather than a small crowd of uninterested drunks.
To some of us, this is a terrifying prospect. The stuff nightmares are made of, in fact. You ask certain people if they want to get up and sing in front of a crowd and they’ll react as if you’ve just told them they’ve got to juggle live grenades in the nude while all their ex-partners are watching. The color will drain from their faces, they’ll tense up, start breathing rapidly, and exhibit many other classic indicators of the fight-or-flight response. Given the choice between singing and taking part in combat, they’ll happily engage in a fight to the death (unless there’s an audience for that, too).
What’s going on there? Whatever you think of karaoke, it’s risk free, unless the crowd is made up of steroid-abusing music lovers. Sure, it can go badly; you might mangle a tune so awfully that everyone listening ends up begging for the sweet relief of death. But so what? So a few people you’ll never meet again consider your singing abilities to be below par. Where’s the harm in that? But as far as our brains are concerned, there is harm in that. Shame, embarrassment, public humiliation; these are all intense negative sensations that nobody but the most dedicated deviant actively seeks out. The mere possibility of any (or all) of these occurring is enough to put people off most things.
There are many things people are afraid of that are far more mundane than karaoke: talking on the telephone (something I myself avoid wherever possible), paying for something with a line behind you, remembering a round of drinks, giving presentations, getting a haircut—things millions of people do every day without incident but that still fill some people with dread and panic.
These are social anxieties. Practically everyone has them to some extent, but if they get to the point where they are actually disruptive and debilitating to a person’s functioning, they can be classed as a social phobia. Social phobias are the most common of several manifestations of phobias, so to understand the underlying neuroscience let’s step back a bit and look at phobias in general.
A phobia is an irrational fear of something. If a spider lands on your hand unexpectedly and you yelp and flail a bit, people would understand; a creepy-crawly surprised you, people don’t like insects touching them, so your reaction is justifiable. If a spider lands on your hand and you scream uncontrollably while knocking tables over before scrubbing your hand in bleach, burning all your clothes then refusing to leave your house for a month, then this may be considered “irrational.” It’s just a spider, after all.
An interesting thing about phobias is that people who have them are usually completely aware of how illogical they are.11 People with arachnophobia know, on a conscious level, that a spider no bigger than a penny poses no danger to them, but they can’t help their excessive fear reaction. This is why the stock phrases used in response to someone’s phobia (“It won’t hurt you”) are well meant but utterly pointless. Knowing that something isn’t dangerous doesn’t make much difference, so the fear we associate with the trigger obviously goes deeper than the conscious level, which is why phobias can be so tricky and persistent.
Phobias can be classed as specific (or “simple”) or complex. Both of these labels refer to the source of the phobia. Simple phobias apply to phobias of a certain object (for example, knives), animal (spiders, rats), situation (being in an elevator) or thing (blood, vomiting). As long as the individual avoids these things, they’re able to go about their business. Sometimes it’s impossible to avoid the triggers completely, but they’re usually transient; you might be scared of elevators, but a typical elevator journey lasts seconds, unless you’re Willy Wonka.
There are a variety of reasons for exactly how these phobias originate. At the most fundamental level, we have associative learning, attaching a specific response (such as a fear reaction) to a specific stimulus (such as a spider). Even the most neurologically uncomplicated creatures seem capable of it, such as Aplysia, aka the California sea slug, a very simple 3-foot-long aquatic gastropod that was used in the 1970s in the earliest experiments to monitor neuronal changes occurring in learning.12 They may be simple and have a rudimentary nervous system by human standards, but they can show associative learning and, more importantly, have massive neurons, big enough to stick electrodes in to record what’s going on. Aplysia neurons can have axons (the long “trunk” part of a neuron) up to a millimeter in diameter. This might not sound like much, but it’s comparatively vast. If human neuron axons were the size of a drinking straw, Aplysia axons would be the size of the Channel Tunnel.