Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:33 pm by globalturbo
The unbelievable psychology of conspiracy theories
February 19, 2016 CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE NEWS SERVICE
“There are people who believe the world or their country is run by by a secret society, John F. Kennedy’s assassination was a bigger conspiracy, the moon landings were faked, Princess Diana was murdered, 9/11 was not an Al Qaeda plot, UFOs exist and global warming is a myth.
Conspiracy theories can be found anywhere. And we may not have to go far.
Many of us may suspect them in our own life and work, when we have an unsuccessful relationship or opportunities or promotions at work bypass us. We do enjoy them as a form of leisure – remember Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”?
But what actually is a conspiracy theory, why do people believe in them, and does the internet era of instant communication and boundless information play any role?
These, and many other related questions are what academic psychologist and writer Rob Brotherton, who “likes to walk on the weird side of psychology”, seeks to deal with in this book.
First taking on the perception that conspiracy theorists are “just a few (male) kooks lurking on the paranoid fringes of society with bizarre ideas about shape-shifting reptilian aliens running society in secret”, the former lecturer of psychology at London’s Goldsmiths College stresses that they are no fringe affairs, women can be as conspiracy-minded as men, and age, education and intellect level don’t make a difference.
“There are more conspiracy theorists out there than you might expect. Chances are you know some. Chances are you are one,” he notes.
But the difference between conspiracies and conspiracy theory must be appreciated, with the latter being greater the sum of its parts, in not simply being a theory about conspiracy but a bigger psychological phenomenon with many similar motifs even when they are uniquely different theories, he says.
And they are not an modern phenomenon, fuelled by mass media and the internet, with with one of the oldest and most famous stretching back to the first century AD when Nero fiddled as Rome burnt.
*(Conspiracy, a word derived from the Latin “to breathe together,” has been a salient part of the darker side of recorded history ever since some 60 conspirators in the Roman senate, including Brutus and Cassius, plotted together to assassinate Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Nowadays the “C” word does not always sit well with journalists, who commonly employ it in conjunction with “theory” to describe paranoid distortions of reality.
Even so, a criminal conspiracy is not a rare phenomenon. Not only was a foreign conspiracy responsible for the monstrous 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center (as well as the previous attempt to blow it up in 1993) but, according to the Center on Law and Security at Fordham University, over 90% of routine federal indictments for terrorist attacks since 9/11 contain at least one conspiracy charge. The government’s pursuit of conspiracies is by no means limited to terrorism. Conspiracy charges are the rule rather than the exception in cases brought against businessmen accused of fixing prices, evading environmental regulations, using insider information or laundering money.
But there are also pseudo-conspiracies that exist only in a delusionary or misinformed mind.…..such as well-orchestrated global conspiracies, simply because no major secrets can be kept forever from the public)*
But Brotherton, who mentions several of the most notorious conspiracy theories, says his intention is not to provide a list of them and prove or disprove them, as his book is more about “conspiracy thinking” or “what psychology can reveal about how we decide what is reasonable and what is ridiculous, and why some people believe things that, to other people, seem completely unbelievable”.
And in the course of an wittily entertaining but most illuminating romp through history and psychology, he seeks to throw light on why “many of us are drawn to implausible, unproven and unproveable theories”, believe in them more when others try to prove them false – and what this tells us about ourselves.
Brotherton however does admit “there is a hidden side to reality, a secret realm buzzing with clandestine activity and covert operations“, an “invisible network” which screens and manipulates information, “steers what we think and believe“, “even shapes the decision we make” and molds our perception to its own agenda.
Is it the Illuminati? The Priory of Sion? The New World Order? A powerful bureaucracy, business corporation or media? All of them? No, it something more powerful – and inescapable.
It is our own brain – and its strange processes and cognitive biases, our “deepest desires, fears, and assumptions about the world”, and with an built-in inclination for order and recognisable patterns which can allow some to use incomplete, contradictory, and coincidental information to see connections and conspiracies even where they are none.
Will you believe this, or think this is a conspiracy too?”
ABOVE, FROM IANS: http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/books/The-Unbelievable-Psychology-of-Conspiracy-Theories/2016/02/19/article3285724.ece
Suspicious Minds – – Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories, author Rob Brotherton, publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma
*https://noriohayakawa.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/conspiracy-theories-theyre-not-really-out-to-get-you/
Norio Hayakawa’s CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE NEWS SERVICE
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
Thanks to: https://noriohayakawa.wordpress.com
February 19, 2016 CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE NEWS SERVICE
“There are people who believe the world or their country is run by by a secret society, John F. Kennedy’s assassination was a bigger conspiracy, the moon landings were faked, Princess Diana was murdered, 9/11 was not an Al Qaeda plot, UFOs exist and global warming is a myth.
Conspiracy theories can be found anywhere. And we may not have to go far.
Many of us may suspect them in our own life and work, when we have an unsuccessful relationship or opportunities or promotions at work bypass us. We do enjoy them as a form of leisure – remember Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”?
But what actually is a conspiracy theory, why do people believe in them, and does the internet era of instant communication and boundless information play any role?
These, and many other related questions are what academic psychologist and writer Rob Brotherton, who “likes to walk on the weird side of psychology”, seeks to deal with in this book.
First taking on the perception that conspiracy theorists are “just a few (male) kooks lurking on the paranoid fringes of society with bizarre ideas about shape-shifting reptilian aliens running society in secret”, the former lecturer of psychology at London’s Goldsmiths College stresses that they are no fringe affairs, women can be as conspiracy-minded as men, and age, education and intellect level don’t make a difference.
“There are more conspiracy theorists out there than you might expect. Chances are you know some. Chances are you are one,” he notes.
But the difference between conspiracies and conspiracy theory must be appreciated, with the latter being greater the sum of its parts, in not simply being a theory about conspiracy but a bigger psychological phenomenon with many similar motifs even when they are uniquely different theories, he says.
And they are not an modern phenomenon, fuelled by mass media and the internet, with with one of the oldest and most famous stretching back to the first century AD when Nero fiddled as Rome burnt.
*(Conspiracy, a word derived from the Latin “to breathe together,” has been a salient part of the darker side of recorded history ever since some 60 conspirators in the Roman senate, including Brutus and Cassius, plotted together to assassinate Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Nowadays the “C” word does not always sit well with journalists, who commonly employ it in conjunction with “theory” to describe paranoid distortions of reality.
Even so, a criminal conspiracy is not a rare phenomenon. Not only was a foreign conspiracy responsible for the monstrous 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center (as well as the previous attempt to blow it up in 1993) but, according to the Center on Law and Security at Fordham University, over 90% of routine federal indictments for terrorist attacks since 9/11 contain at least one conspiracy charge. The government’s pursuit of conspiracies is by no means limited to terrorism. Conspiracy charges are the rule rather than the exception in cases brought against businessmen accused of fixing prices, evading environmental regulations, using insider information or laundering money.
But there are also pseudo-conspiracies that exist only in a delusionary or misinformed mind.…..such as well-orchestrated global conspiracies, simply because no major secrets can be kept forever from the public)*
But Brotherton, who mentions several of the most notorious conspiracy theories, says his intention is not to provide a list of them and prove or disprove them, as his book is more about “conspiracy thinking” or “what psychology can reveal about how we decide what is reasonable and what is ridiculous, and why some people believe things that, to other people, seem completely unbelievable”.
And in the course of an wittily entertaining but most illuminating romp through history and psychology, he seeks to throw light on why “many of us are drawn to implausible, unproven and unproveable theories”, believe in them more when others try to prove them false – and what this tells us about ourselves.
Brotherton however does admit “there is a hidden side to reality, a secret realm buzzing with clandestine activity and covert operations“, an “invisible network” which screens and manipulates information, “steers what we think and believe“, “even shapes the decision we make” and molds our perception to its own agenda.
Is it the Illuminati? The Priory of Sion? The New World Order? A powerful bureaucracy, business corporation or media? All of them? No, it something more powerful – and inescapable.
It is our own brain – and its strange processes and cognitive biases, our “deepest desires, fears, and assumptions about the world”, and with an built-in inclination for order and recognisable patterns which can allow some to use incomplete, contradictory, and coincidental information to see connections and conspiracies even where they are none.
Will you believe this, or think this is a conspiracy too?”
ABOVE, FROM IANS: http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/books/The-Unbelievable-Psychology-of-Conspiracy-Theories/2016/02/19/article3285724.ece
Suspicious Minds – – Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories, author Rob Brotherton, publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma
*https://noriohayakawa.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/conspiracy-theories-theyre-not-really-out-to-get-you/
Norio Hayakawa’s CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE NEWS SERVICE
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
Thanks to: https://noriohayakawa.wordpress.com
