ABSTRACT
As with deviant behavior, holding unacceptable beliefs elicits negative reactions from audiences, including stigma, social rejection and isolation, criticism, even punishment. Different audiences “deviantize” different beliefs. And different audiences, characterized by different beliefs, deviantize one another: Liberals deviantize conservatives and vice versa; evolutionists deviantize creationists and vice versa; atheists deviantize theists and vice versa. But some audiences have more power to define what’s cognitively acceptable and what’s deviant; some beliefs are more hegemonic than others. Deviant beliefs should be distinguished from mental disorder. While nearly all mental disorder has a cognitive manifestation—just about all mental disorder entails deviant beliefs—most holders of deviant beliefs are psychologically normal. Beliefs are deviant not because they are “wrong” in some empirical sense but because they are regarded as wrong by specific audiences. Religion is a major source of differing definitions of true and false. Atheism is a major form of cognitive deviance. Religious heterodoxy may also vary within religions, as well as from one religion to another. Paranormal beliefs, those that scientists argue contradict the laws of nature, are extremely widespread. Some paranormal beliefs originate from a religious community; examples include creationism and the belief that angels and the devil exist as material beings that influence worldly events and behavior. Still other paranormal beliefs are sustained in a client–practitioner relationship; here, astrology is a prime example. And some paranormal beliefs are sustained through the activities of researchers whose work, in the estimation of scientists, is deviant because it lacks the form but not the content of science. Here, parapsychologists offer the prime example. Finally, many paranormal beliefs have a “grassroots” or popular origin; they are an aspect of the traditional culture. Examples include belief that UFOs, ghosts, and witches are “real.”
