In “Suspicious Minds”, psychologist and science journalist Rob Brotherton delves into the history and consequences of conspiracism, arguing that our brains concoct stories to make sense of strange events. He explains why people are drawn to implausible, unproven, and implausible theories.
Berthon’s book explores the psychology, history, and consequences of conspiracism, and delves into research that offers insights into why so many people are drawn to such theories. He argues that our brains concoct stories to make sense of strange events, and we can make the puzzle fit even when it does not. For example, proportionality bias is when we think that the larger event fits better than the smaller one.
The book also presents the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs (GCB) scale, a novel measure of individual differences in generic conspiracist ideation. To understand the psychological origins of conspiracy theories, it is essential to be clear about what “conspiracy theory” means. Conspiracy theorists do not wear tin-foil hats, and they are not just a few kooks lurking on the paranoid fringes of society with bizarre ideas. People who believe in the paranormal have been found to be particularly susceptible to the conjunction fallacy.
Conspiracy theories are abundant in social and political discourse, with serious consequences for individuals, groups, and societies. In his book, “Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories”, Rob Brotherton helps explain why someone with seemingly outlandish views can gain credibility.
📹 Rob Brotherton – Psychology of Conspiracy Theories
The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories 21st February 2013 The Head of Steam, Liverpool Why do some people believe …
📹 Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories | Rob Brotherton
Why do people believe conspiracy theories? What’s the harm if they do? And just what is a conspiracy theory, anyway?
I’m amazed at the comments! First, I think the lecture is very informative and interesting. Second, I’m not conspiracy oriented. For example; How many ultra wealthy people or people who are moderately wealthy for that matter come to a point where they recognize they don’t need or want anything more than they have? VERY, VERY few. The simple reason is that the human tendency, I believe is to become acclimated to whatever you environment is (your wealth being a primary definer of that environment). Once you become acclimated the desire for more kicks in. People tend to, always want more, no matter how wealthy they get. Easy to see in the ultra-wealthy and in our neighbors and ourselves if we look. BUT, there does not have to be a conspiracy for the overall system to seem to conspire against the workers getting lower wages, less worker safety, more pollution. Because the wealthy tend to get -whether or not they ask for it – tons of fixers, bag men and pitchers, and hacks willing to work intelligently, intensely for the interests of the wealthy to get more because they know THAT’s where the money is. No conspiring necessary. Corporations and the ultra wealthy can make huge donations to support representative’s election campaigns. So, they do in order to benefit their customers – the ultra rich and corporations. No conspiracy to see here folks, just move along. Second: Have the physicists done any looking into the rise of the science of propaganda that started with the beginning of WW I ?
There is at least one problem with this analysis: most people when asked “would you intentionally dump barrels of toxic waste into wetlands that lead to people’s drinking water supply?” or “would you ignore a safety report that a failure in the ‘O’ ring could result in a catastrophic failure of the space shuttle mission?” would answer “NO,” but these things did happen and people did those things, so maybe most people are not horrible monsters, but monsters do exist nonetheless. People have conspired to do far worse.
Maybe you get into this towards the end, but regarding Intentionality Bias, the intent of the central character within the formal narrative, oftentimes forms the basis for the “conspiracy theory”. For example: the first plane hitting the first tower on the morning of 9/11, easily could’ve been accepted as a basic commercial airplane accident. Ranging from the pilot losing control or a mechanical fault and then ranging in a spectrum of intentional or unintentional choices as the cause for the unfortunate “accident”. The point being, that people are fairly able to collectively accept that the cause of the plane flying into the tower, was tragically random and overall benign. But then… as people collectively watched in terror as helpless victims jumped from windows to their demise, the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower. Immediately, the idea of benign tragedy is no longer even a possibility. When the news reports begin to relay the official narrative from “high level” officials in government, that 9/11 was a calculated act of transnational terrorism, our Intentionality Bias is seeded. The later connection to sub-government induced conspiracy theories is the idea that if the terrorists were able to concoct such an elaborate conspiracy and evade our various intelligence community agencies, then why should we assume that those same agencies arent just as capable of conspiring against us by exploiting our collective biases?
Had to weigh in on this finally. Much respect and empathy to all those whom perished and to those whom showed what it means to be a first responder what it means to be American. Get back up, dust yourself off and go at it until you have the results you needed to accomplish your goals. Its insane just how gullible your average joe is, to think or rather believe the government and everything they have said during the independent and government investigations into 9/11. plane takes off bound for LA, but after it takes off the pilot turned off their communication with the ground, completely deviates from flight plan and ignores all frantic calls questioning their altitude, direction and speed. Now on any other day a plane that has deviated from its flight plan and it’s In one of the busiest sky’s in the world and the plane is now flying towards NYC and I assure you it wouldn’t be allowed to get anywhere close to the city before it would have been shot down. The real kicker of all this is that the American people could grasp one plane hitting the towers but two? Seriously, a second 737 goes dark and they are faced with yet another plane that has ditched their flight plan, flying irratically and very low, again on course to NYC. So does it make any sense to you that two planes half hour apart make it all the way to their target unmolested? Not fricken likely. After the first plane made it through what must be the tightest security in North America. So, Inask you, how would they not have had four F18’s on each wing tip for the second attempt surely, ( and stop calling me Shirley.
I’ve personally noted another psychological aspect of conspiracy theories that wasn’t addressed here. From my own interactions with people like Kennedy assassination theorists and 9/11 “truthers,” it seems that, for certain people, there’s a great attraction to “knowing” something the average person doesn’t know — having special knowledge or awareness that the rest of us “rubes” don’t have. It makes them ‘special’ or ‘superior.’
A great job has been done, connecting the Phrase ” Conspiracy Theory ” with citizens of any nation’s questioning official government explanation of events or their actions. My own government called us Irish citizens “conspiracy theorists ” when we said the IMF had taken control of our economy. 6 months later almost the entire cabinet retired and left politics for ever the following week the finance minister held a press conference along side 3 members of the IMF. The catholic church called people who said the vatican was covering up child abuse. ” Conspiracy theorists “. If we are to swallow everything this little kid is serving up. Then no government, large corporation, or global religious organisation have ever lied to people ever about anything. The citizen that questions authority is a citizen doing his duty, the rest who question nothing have been responsible for the rise of every dictator that ever existed. Ignore this boy in the article and continue to question everything for the sake of future democracy and future generations.
Right, now something I have noticed is the notion that everything is black or white. Sure, what this guy is saying is true, for example when people have a lack of control over their lives they tend to ‘see patterns’ that may or may not be there. Doesn’t mean that there are no conspiracies. How can there not be conspiracies, people conspire all of the time and at all levels.
The levels of denial in the comment section are astounding. The conspiracy theorists are having a really tough time coping with the possibility that there is a much simpler psychological origin for their extremely improbable irrational beliefs. It took us about a year and a half of constant debunking to finally get a friend of ours to snap out of it.
Projection bias: imagining what you would do in another person’s circumstances, but errantly overlaying your own values onto them. If you’re the sort of person that would commit dastardly deeds, you might think others would as well, even though the vast majority shun the thought. Now that makes a bit of sense regarding conspiracy theorists, if you’re someone who might be tempted to participate in a conspiracy, maybe there’s cabals of evildoers willing to do the same out there somewhere, in secret, where no one among them would betray their confidences and blow the whistle on the whole damned thing, not recognizing the much more plausible scenario that the more people involved in a conspiracy, the less likely it is to remain secret for very long.
YouTube needs to use its algorithms to recommend this article to approximately half the population right now + -, also some “how to engage in critical thinking” educational articles may be helpful as well. I see people I know and love falling victim to conspiracy theories during this pandemic and it’s frankly breaking my heart. I feel like I’m in ” Invasion of the Body Snatchers” wondering, where is ______and what have you done with them?
Someone is sending me these terribly done, strange computer simulations of one of the planes hitting the tower. This was done to give more validity to the idea of how both Towers, for the first time in history, both pancaked right into their own footprint, amazing for one, just as it was amazing how a second 767 also out of Logan, made it through the most secure airspace in the I WOULD LIKE TO SAY, I DONT GET ANY PLEASURE FROM THIS KIND OF INVESTIGATION, FROM Gen Patton’s mysterious death, Nov 1945, He was going home.. His driver was told to say he drove into a truck in front of him yet the photos and witnesses said there wasn’t any kind of line up of vehicles waiting to cross the river, all trucks and armoury were parked on the side of the road making a free pass for Patton to cross the bridge. It’s odd how a driver, a young corporal without much to come home too ended up being formally listed as missing in action.. Geeze really, war was over, the kid was 19, the first six months of his experience was when the war had ended. As of 1968, you couldn’t fly a hand glider into the city without having a fighter on each wing and one-up the … (referred to as, the missile man.) if you were interested. The ridiculous idea someone would go through such an effort to try and make a case for how (scientifically) the towers did what they did. First, the brilliant artist who came up with the rudimentary 3-minute spot on what the plane and its fuel did to bring the towers down. The big and insane mistake these people made was the fact they made claims the main support was in the center of the towers, elevators and the fire escape when in “Reality” the design, (Japanese architect, ) came up with a building technique never attempted before, they couldn’t fabricate all that steel on-site, they were reclaiming land as they went with that project.
Not every conspiracy theory is a theory. People do conspire, plot and manipulate for their own reasons. To say that this doesn’t occur is a delusion. To say that everything is a conspiracy is also a delusion. Facts don’t lie and these facts often point to the liars. I found his dissertation condescending and ignorant of reality