Fascinating, balanced study about the behavior of those who accept or reject conspiracy theories. Based on the types of trolling Ive seen here, these are my own behavioral predictions for your reactions to the study in the comments section: 1) Some will cherry-pick through this and try to convince themselves that it supports whatever side of the ideological fence they find themselves on. Nope: Its not actually about the material truth of the matter, but about the psychology of groups. Its very meta. 2) Some will get defensive, thinking it is attacking their views. Nope. Thats the product of ego. If you dont have a psychological need for the world to conform to your beliefs (rather than the other way around), and you dont feel that truth is something you own, but rather, something objective, out there waiting to be disclosed and pried open, you dont tend to get pissy when anyone asks you simple questions or provides facts that dont line up with your views. Again, its not about what happened, its about reactions to it. 3) Some people will read the headline, rather than the whole study, and just dive right in and have an emotional, knee-jerk reaction to it, and insult my mother for daring to give birth to anyone so depraved as to post a study on Facebook. Or they will criticize the conclusions based on who funded it, failing to recognize that such a critique is impotent, and that the scientific method, over time is our best shot at eliminating bias. 4) Most people will decide the study (or this prelude, even, lol) its too damn long to read and scroll right past. This is a perfectly sensible response :-) So much for serious discourse.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 08:57:52 +0000
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