Syndrome of the true believer

The Syndrome of the true believer (in English: True-believer syndrome ) is an expression used within the framework of the Mouvement contemporary skeptic and which intends to in the broad sense describe the mechanisms of an irrational belief in phenomena paranormaux (like the unconditional belief in the extraterrestrial Hypothèse to explain the phenomenon UFO or in the existence of the legendary animals of the Cryptozoologie).

The true believer , according to Robert Todd Caroll (author of the Dictionary Skeptic, Skeptic' S Dictionary, a dictionary of reference for the skeptics), accepts neither arguments nor made contradicting its faith. It would be thus prone to an extreme form of Dissonance cognitive. The cognitive dissonance is a concept worked out by Leon Festinger with the beginning of the year 1950, following its study of a sect soucoupic which believed that the end of the world was close and that the extraterrestrial ones would come to seek them soon.

For example, many people persist in accepting the capacities paranormaux of Uri Geller whereas its Mystification (the fact that it uses turns of Prestidigitation to simulate the Psychokinèse) was shown many times.

Of course, that will not say that all the people having an interest for the paranormal, the phenomenon UFO or the cryptozoology belong to the syndrome of the true believer : only a certain percentage of those (still to determine) has an irrational approach, in the sense that they are impermeable with the presentation of against-arguments and alternative assumptions. For example, in ufology (field for which one speaks about UFO-believer , or of believing in the extraterrestrial Hypothèse ), one can mention what the skeptics call the lunatic fringe and which includes/understands the people having the most irrational beliefs in this field.

Bonds with other concepts

the skeptics suggest sometimes that among those which they call the true believers , there would be on average a more important percentage of personalities inclined to imagination than in the general population.
In Psychology of the religion, a feature of Personnalité often evoked is the cognitive Cloture, i.e. the need for an individual to find answers to its questions, to have a stable design of reality, and the fact that on the other hand the Ambiguïté (not to know with what to leave it in connection with a subject) makes it anxious. There still, one can make the assumption here that the true believers would have a cognitive Cloture important.

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