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If you consider yourself awakened and seeking the truth – especially in government matters, people are quick to label you a crazy conspiracy theorist just so they can validate themselves.
In this study, a large group of commenters were examined on a news website, surrounding the topic of 9/11. Out of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist. Right away its evident more people are thinking critically about ‘conspiracies’ rather than just disputing them.
In other words, the anti-conspiracy commenters we’re pushing on their own interpretations of the situation rather than focusing on what really happened.
Michael Wood2014 Nov 30 07:45 a.m. (yesterday)edited 2 of 2 people found this helpful
As the first author of this study, I'd like to address a misleading headline that's been making the rounds lately: the idea that this study says that people who believe 9/11 conspiracy theories are better-adjusted than those who do not. This grossly misinterprets our results: this study says nothing about mental health, and its results do not justify any conclusions about one group of people being more or less "sane" than another.
The main basis for this misinterpretation appears to be the observed difference in hostility between conspiracist (pro-conspiracy-theory) and conventionalist (anti-conspiracy-theory) comments. On average, conventionalist comments tended to be somewhat more hostile. In the paper, we interpret this difference as the product of a fairly specific social situation in which the two rival opinion-based groups use different strategies of social influence according to their relative popularity, rather than as an inherent psychological difference. In fact, previous research by Marina Abalakina-Paap and colleagues has shown that dispositional hostility is positively, not negatively, correlated with beliefs in conspiracy theories. However, that finding doesn't necessarily justify the conclusion that conventionalists are better-adjusted than conspiracists. Either of these conclusions relies on the unstated premise that hostility is never good or justified, and that less hostility is always better. This is at least an arguable assumption, and there's certainly no evidence for it here.
In general, I would urge anyone who found this paper via the "sanity" article to please think critically about headlines in the future. It is tempting to believe without question self-serving headlines that validate your prejudices and beliefs, but that's precisely when critical thinking is most important.
Michael Wood2014 Nov 30 07:45 a.m. (yesterday)edited 2 of 2 people found this helpful As the first author of this study, I'd like to address a misleading headline that's been making the rounds lately: the idea that this study says that people who believe 9/11 conspiracy theories are better-adjusted than those who do not. This grossly misinterprets our results: this study says nothing about mental health, and its results do not justify any conclusions about one group of people being more or less "sane" than another. The main basis for this misinterpretation appears to be the observed difference in hostility between conspiracist (pro-conspiracy-theory) and conventionalist (anti-conspiracy-theory) comments. On average, conventionalist comments tended to be somewhat more hostile. In the paper, we interpret this difference as the product of a fairly specific social situation in which the two rival opinion-based groups use different strategies of social influence according to their relative popularity, rather than as an inherent psychological difference. In fact, previous research by Marina Abalakina-Paap and colleagues has shown that dispositional hostility is positively, not negatively, correlated with beliefs in conspiracy theories. However, that finding doesn't necessarily justify the conclusion that conventionalists are better-adjusted than conspiracists. Either of these conclusions relies on the unstated premise that hostility is never good or justified, and that less hostility is always better. This is at least an arguable assumption, and there's certainly no evidence for it here. In general, I would urge anyone who found this paper via the "sanity" article to please think critically about headlines in the future. It is tempting to believe without question self-serving headlines that validate your prejudices and beliefs, but that's precisely when critical thinking is most important.
originally posted by: Danny85
I've always hated the term Conspiracy Theorist. It drives me nuts when I hear someone say 'Oh God, he's one of those Conspiracy nuts' it makes my blood boil. I've always ALWAYS said that its the conspiracy theoriest who keep governments honest, not news channels or tabloid news papers. IT. IS. US. No two ways about it, the sheeple who bow to the idea that governments aren't that bad, that they are always trying to do the best for the people will one day wake up and understand that this isn't true. And eventually, they will open their eyes and see that this world they so love is just a curtain hiding the real rulers, the real people who hold all the power and the only thing they can do is hold out their arms and say that us 'Conspiracy Nuts' were right.