The California Magazine from UC Berkeley wrote another article on Bigfoot. And in the article, they state that 16 percent of Americans believe in Bigfoot.
By Krissy Eliot
Relatively few people, in or out of the field of science, believe in Bigfoot. A purported Bigfoot sighting would likely be met with the same level of credulity as a discovery of Casper, Elvis, Tupac, or Santa Claus. With only 16 percent of Americans Bigfoot believers, you might just write them off as crazy. But contrary to popular assumption, folklore experts say, Bigfoot believers may not be as irrational as you’d think.
“It’s easy to assume … that people who believe in Bigfoot are being irrational in their belief,” says Lynne McNeill, Cal grad, folklore professor, and special guest on the reality TV show Finding Bigfoot. “But that’s really not true. People aren’t jumping to supernatural conclusions very often; people are being quite rational. It doesn’t mean they’re correct; it just means they’re thinking rationally.”
OK. So what are some reasons why people might rationalize a belief in Bigfoot?
Reason 1: They think they saw Sasquatch, and they want to prove to themselves and the world that they’re not “crazy.”
If a lifelong non-believer thinks she saw a furry man-beast with glowing red eyes rooting through her undies on a camping trip, then she’s going to have to grapple with that somehow. If she finds herself unable or unwilling to deny that it happened, then she’ll probably try to reconcile that unexplained experience with her otherwise logical life. This attempt at reconciliation, says Tok Thompson, UC Berkeley grad and professor of anthropology and communication at USC, is a pretty common tendency among humans.
Relatively few people, in or out of the field of science, believe in Bigfoot. A purported Bigfoot sighting would likely be met with the same level of credulity as a discovery of Casper, Elvis, Tupac, or Santa Claus. With only 16 percent of Americans Bigfoot believers, you might just write them off as crazy. But contrary to popular assumption, folklore experts say, Bigfoot believers may not be as irrational as you’d think.
“It’s easy to assume … that people who believe in Bigfoot are being irrational in their belief,” says Lynne McNeill, Cal grad, folklore professor, and special guest on the reality TV show Finding Bigfoot. “But that’s really not true. People aren’t jumping to supernatural conclusions very often; people are being quite rational. It doesn’t mean they’re correct; it just means they’re thinking rationally.”
OK. So what are some reasons why people might rationalize a belief in Bigfoot?
Reason 1: They think they saw Sasquatch, and they want to prove to themselves and the world that they’re not “crazy.”
If a lifelong non-believer thinks she saw a furry man-beast with glowing red eyes rooting through her undies on a camping trip, then she’s going to have to grapple with that somehow. If she finds herself unable or unwilling to deny that it happened, then she’ll probably try to reconcile that unexplained experience with her otherwise logical life. This attempt at reconciliation, says Tok Thompson, UC Berkeley grad and professor of anthropology and communication at USC, is a pretty common tendency among humans.
“People want a belief system that is comprehensive and consistent, and if something in our belief system is inconsistent, we get cognitive dissonance—it bugs us,” Thompson says. “Because of this, we try to make sense of the seemingly fantastical by weaving it into our currently held perspective.”
Source: California Magazine
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