When I launched a petition on social networks to collect testimonies from fathers and mothers trapped in conspiracies and hoaxes, I received an avalanche of messages: stories that described an increasingly widespread phenomenon that is rarely talked about. Andrea, for example, described the transformation of his 72-year-old father like this: “He has always been a supporter of the PP, but for a few years he has become completely radicalized. He doesn’t vote for Vox because he feels very attached to the PP, but his speech is far right. He believes all the content he sees on social networks without any prior reflection. It seems that the hatred that has fermented within him towards the left is so strong that the emotion invades everything.” Since then the father-daughter relationship has become a minefield. “I try to contain myself, even for my mother, who asks me why ‘I don’t make her see reason’, but I struggle not to respond to the atrocities she says,” he says.
Andrea’s story is no exception, but it is repeated in many families: fathers, mothers, uncles who dedicate a significant part of their time to consuming content on Facebook,
Although the term “radicalization” applied to these behaviors may seem excessive, it is not so if we look at the technical definition of Roberto Muelas, professor of Social Psychology at the University of Burgos and author of the thesis. The path to radicalization: Psychosocial pathways to prejudice and violent extremism in religious and cultural conflicts (2019). For him it is “a social and psychological process through which a growing commitment to an extremist political or religious ideology is achieved”. This alignment must not lead to violent action: in many cases it is a “radicalization of narrative”, a way of looking at the world according to rigid and Manichaean schemes.
In this process, loneliness and, in the cases under consideration, retirement, which guarantees an enormous amount of free time, play a key role. “Research has shown that loneliness generates a need to belong. We all need to feel part of a group that values us,” explains Muelas. This need can push some people to take refuge in digital communities that offer simple answers to complex problems. “The charm of these messages lies in their simplicity: they provide explanations that are easy to understand and share. This is why they have so much resonance,” says the expert. According to a study by Harvard University, adults over 50 are responsible for spreading 80% of fake news on X and those over 65 consume it, on networks like Facebook, seven times more than younger users.
Alicia says that even her mother, always a left-wing voter, was trapped in this dynamic: “Now she lives distressed by what she reads in Obviously, believing in that news causes problems of anxiety, anguish and anger in the elderly. According to a recent study carried out by the consultancy firm Estudio de Comunicación y Servimedia, entitled Hoaxes and misinformation. How they affect older people63.3% of respondents over the age of 60 recognized that political fake news is what causes them the most anxiety and distress. Health and economic ones cause these feelings in 40.6% and 24.5% of cases respectively.
The family consequences of this radicalization are profound. “My relationship with my parents has gotten a lot worse. They are my parents, but I can’t be with people like that. Their arguments have become aggressive and harmful: they call anyone who thinks differently than them an idiot,” explains David.
Fear is one of the drivers of this radicalization. María recalls that her parents “absorbed all of Desokupa’s arguments and have already raised alarms everywhere.” “My mother even dreamed that someone entered her house. And the other day she told me that the environmentalists were to blame for the fires,” he adds.
For years Berta’s family has met another family on the beach, they are a sort of “summer neighbors”, and this year “their favorite topic is conspiracy theories”: “That the elites control us, that Covid has never existed nor climate change, and that everything is, in reality, a smoke screen to distract us from an alleged ‘big focus’. According to them, the reality is very similar to a mix between The Sims AND The Truman Show. The complex thing is that they often start from a premise that might make sense: yes, we live in a capitalist system; Yes, there are economic interests, but they take the topic to a delusional extreme.”
What to do when faced with a radicalized father?
One of the most frustrating aspects of these types of changes in thinking in parents and family members is how difficult it is to interact with them and how impossible it is to convince them that what they are saying is not real. “Typically, the strategy for talking to family members who have adopted these ideas is to try to refute them or even mock their beliefs,” Muelas says. “But it has been shown that this usually produces a psychological reactance, a tendency to reject norms or indications coming from others and which are perceived as a limitation of personal freedom. The effect that will be produced is, perhaps, a strengthening of their ideas.”
The problem is that, according to Muelas, from a scientific point of view there is no magic recipe that guarantees success. “Psychological vaccination has proven to be effective as a preventive method, but it is not very useful with people who already show a certain level of radicalization. In these cases, the most appropriate thing would be to use ideological debate and dialogue strategies. That is, start conversations with people who in some way are references for the person in question and so that little by little the beliefs are dismantled and ideological alternatives are provided.” According to the expert, an interesting technique is paradoxical thinking, which consists in bringing a person’s beliefs to the point of absurdity so that he himself questions them.
On an academic level, a study was conducted which consisted of a six-week intervention in a (mostly religious and right-wing) Israeli city, during the so-called Knife Intifada of 2015. A multi-channel campaign was implemented – with YouTube videos, posters, brochures and T-shirts – which conveyed messages designed with the technique of paradoxical thinking: instead of directly contradicting the beliefs of the people who supported the conflict, they were exaggerated to reach absurd conclusions. The goal was that people, seeing their beliefs taken to the extreme, would begin to perceive them as irrational. For example, given the widespread idea among the city’s population that “conflict unites us as a people,” it was publicized that: “If we want to remain united, we must never end conflict.” The results showed that, especially among participants who were more right-wing and inclined towards hard positions, their adherence to attitudes that supported conflict decreased over time and support for conciliatory policies increased.
What emerges from all these testimonies is the existence of a wound that goes beyond politics. These are damaged family relationships, broken or strained bonds almost to the limit. As Ana, daughter of a woman who went from sympathizing with the PSOE and Podemos to defending the theses of Iker Jiménez, summarizes: “She takes it as something personal, it’s as if it were a hooligan. “You can’t criticize or comment on the negative aspects.”
In many cases children choose the simplest path: to stay quiet, not to argue anymore. In others, perhaps even worse, they distance themselves. Muelas insists that you shouldn’t give up: “To lose hope is to assume that you can’t go back to the previous situation. I would tell people who find themselves in this situation to try to be a point person, to be there when they need you and to offer them all the support you can. Avoiding certain topics can be helpful, but it can also motivate them to consider other positions without refuting them. It’s a slow process, but it’s possible.”
