http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Psychological_origins

Psychological origins

According to some psychologists, a person who believes in one conspiracy theory tends to believe in others; a person who does not believe in one conspiracy theory tends not to believe another.[31]

Psychologists believe that the search for meaning is common in conspiracism and the development of conspiracy theories, and may be powerful enough alone to lead to the first formulating of the idea. Once cognized, confirmation bias and avoidance of cognitive dissonance may reinforce the belief. In a context where a conspiracy theory has become popular within a social group, communal reinforcement may equally play a part. Some research carried out at the University of Kent, UK suggests people may be influenced by conspiracy theories without being aware that their attitudes have changed. After reading popular conspiracy theories about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, participants in this study correctly estimated how much their peers' attitudes had changed, but significantly underestimated how much their own attitudes had changed to become more in favor of the conspiracy theories. The authors conclude that conspiracy theories may therefore have a 'hidden power' to influence people's beliefs.[32]

I am born in the USA white male served military 2o year union man raised two kids own a home a riding lawnmower a new car a old truck and have two wonderful kids who are independent I have a feeling my 19 year old son who also is a union man probably makes more money and has better common sense than most of those who defend the official version of 911.

Want witnesses? Watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6alf9_xswA

Not really, because of your amateurish logical fallacy of arguing from authority, I was providing evidence for your source being another crazy CTer.

Your repetition is what is pathetic. It must be time for you to drag out your old Mineta lie.

You use the same old sources over and over again. Have you read Farmer's book yet?

Please provide proof for your far off opinion what do you base this off the cuff comment on?

WhaT would some guy from Austalia know any how

In this Psychology Today article, Conspiracy Theories are explained
as the brains natural response to excessive and faulty repeated
stimulation due to an overabundance of irrelevant or extraneous
data which is viewed as threatening. In other words a mental disorder.

Interesting reading.



http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200501/conspiracy-theories-explained

actually he's nuttier than a Fruitcake!
Read his Garbage!

Awww....is that all you've got? You poor little baby.

Conspiracy Science

Maybe it was at a party, a family event, or even at work, but you have probably encountered before a person whom we would call a conspiracy theorist. Were you cornered as they became more and more animated, discussing how the shadow world government is slowly preparing for world domination using chemtrails and vaccines? Perhaps you became progressively sheepish as every logical question was met with an even more absurd bit of circular reasoning, accompanied by accusations of being naive, until physical escape was your only option.

This, of course, is an extreme example while conspiracy thinking occurs on a spectrum – we all have a little conspiracy theorist inside of us to some degree. Understanding conspiracy thinking in its subtle and extreme forms seems like an important topic of psychological investigation, and yet there is a paucity of good scientific research. Perhaps this is due to the stigma of conspiracies – academics don’t want to get the stench of conspiracy theories on them.

But there is some interesting research, and recently psychologists Viren Swami and Rebecca Coles reviewed this research in their article The Truth is Out There. This is a keeper – one for the skeptical files, if for nothing else than that they provide a handy list of references on conspiracy research.

They discuss that early papers on conspiracy theories focused on characterizing the theories themselves, rather than the people who hold them. They reference Hofstadter’s 1966 “seminal” paper on conspiracy theories in which he provided the following definition:


(Belief in a) “vast, insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish character.”

That sums it up nicely. But the more interesting work came later when researchers began to explore the psychology of the people who hold conspiracy theories. It seems that in this area ideas followed a typical historical pattern – in that at first conspiracy thinking was seen as a form of psychopathology involving paranoid delusional ideation. More recently conspiracy thinking is seen as fulfilling certain universal psychological needs perhaps triggered by situational factors.

In my view both approaches are correct – there appears to be a spectrum of inherent predisposition to conspiracy thinking. At the same time there is a universal appeal to conspiracy theories and situations in which they are more likely to occur, even among the more rational. For example, the authors write:


To the extent that conspiracy theories fill a need for certainty, it is thought they may gain more widespread acceptance in instances when establishment or mainstream explanations contain erroneous information, discrepancies, or ambiguities (Miller, 2002). A conspiracy theory, in this sense, helps explain those ambiguities and ‘provides a convenient alternative to living with uncertainty’ (Zarefsky, 1984, p.72). Or as Young and colleagues (1990, p.104) have put it, ‘[T]he human desire for explanations of all natural phenomena – a drive that spurs inquiry on many levels – aids the conspiracist in the quest for public acceptance.’

Conspiracy thinking is rooted in a desire for control and understanding, triggered by a lack of control and information, or ambiguous and unsatisfying information about big events. The authors emphasize that the public often has a lack of access to adequate information to explain historical events (a situational factor). This can be coupled with what has been called a “crippled epistemology” – a tendency to utilize circular reasoning, confirmation bias, and poor logic coupled with this lack of information. The result is a popular conspiracy theory that makes sense (even if a perverse sense) of events.

One tidbit I found interesting was the offer of the fundamental attribution error as a partial explanation for conspiracy thinking. This is the notion that people tend to assume or overemphasize internal factors (inherent character) as an explanation for the behavior of others, rather than situational or external factors. If we see someone trip while walking down the sidewalk we think they are clumsy, rather than that there was a crack in the sidewalk. We, of course, exempt ourselves from this assumption are are happy to attribute our missteps to unavoidable external factors.

Conspiracy theorists take this attribution error to the extreme, and will often attribute the behavior of others to internal goals (the conspiracy) rather than benign situational factors.

One factor that was not mentioned in the article was the related notion of agency detection – the human tendency to see agency in objects and events. We tend to see a hidden agent where there is none. With respect to conspiracy theories this results from seeing an invisible hand behind otherwise disconnected events. This also relates to the desire for control, understanding, and privileged knowledge.

Ran out of Argument again?

He never had one. He just cuts and pastes the same three or four sources repeatedly.

How can anyone argue with two people one from Sweden and from Australia who always drag things off topic, photo bucket dump and generally trash any serious discussion of the events of 911?

Who refuse to use logic and common sense?
Refuse to look at any evidence that contradicts their fixed world view? seriously if this forum had an ignore option I would have ignored you long ago and kept the discussions on track to a logical conclusion.

What a pathetic attempt. I supply far more evidence than the same old three or four posts repeated over and over again. Your lies are truly asinine and you really need to grow up. Why should we go over the same old ground, yet again, just because you post the same crap a week later?



Flog that Horse, boy, it ain't dead yet!

"A GrandConspiracy theory is any theory that says the state of the world (or the nation, etc.) is due to the actions of a small cabal of powerful and malevolent conspirators. The alleged conspirators are seldom identified specifically. Instead, it is usually claimed that the conspirators are the members (or a subset) of a religious group (Jews and Catholics have long been favorite targets), a government (the US is a popular bogeyman, as is the USSR - despite no longer existing as such), a socioeconomic group, a corporation (Monsanto, Microsoft, OneWorldAlliance), the United Nations, various think-tanks and public policy organizations (the Tri-Lateral Commission?), ancient societies (BavarianIlluminati, masons), an ethnic group or nationality, the Clintons, the Bushes, the Kennedys, or any other convenient target which the speaker wishes to demonize."


"According to GrandConspiracy theorists, the world is divided into three parts:
The conspirators themselves
A small group of "freethinkers" who are aware of the conspiracy, and are actively opposing it. (The speaker is almost always in this group, according to the speaker). That the freethinkers have little success (or may even be regarded as kooks) is evidence of how effective and wide-reaching the conspiracy is. (See StonesLaw)
The majority of the people, who are unaware of the "conspiracy". The speaker's opponent is almost always in this group. Often times, the speaker asserts that the unaware majority are "sheep", too dim-witted and passive to know or care about what is "really going on in the world". Similar pejorative remarks are often employed."

"Many GrandConspiracy believers think of it as a hierarchy of conspiracies - a "trickle-down" conspiracy. The masters don't really care about gays or liberals - but they see the value in pitting groups against each other. Most GrandConspiracy theorists accept that they are implicitly part of the conspiracy (if they are part of society) - but they are helpless to escape it.
The chart is generally like this: Each level fights or assists others of the same level
GrandConspirators? - These are the ones whose motivation is unknown to us (usually Bilderbergs, Illuminati, Masons, etc - high level secretive "societies")
"The Liberals"
France
"The Intellectuals"
"The Liberal Media"
"Hollwood"
"The Druggies"
"TedTurner?"
"The Homosexual Agenda"
"The Feminists"
"The Gays"
"Tinky-winky, the purple Teletubby and "Bert and Ernie" and "Spongebob Squarepants" and "James the Red Engine"
"The Clintons"
"The Kennedys"
"The RightWingConspiracy?"
"The OneWorldOrder?"
"The Bushes"
"The Neocons"
"The Mega-Corporations"
The Koch Bros**
"Rupert Mudoch/Fox News"
The UnitedNations
NAFTA
WTO
"The Anti-Intellectuals"
"The Christians"
"The Catholics"
"The Protestants"
"The Fundamentalists" (for me that means "Evangelists" and Bible-thumpers, [BAM])
"The bad guys"
"The Communists"
"The Russkies"
"North Korea"
Cuba
Red China, INC.
"The AxisOfEvil?"
Iran
Iraq (up until 2007, at any rate)
North Korea
"The Dictators"
SaddamHussein - Yes. . . Bush has placed SaddamHussein at two levels - it doubles the people's hatred
"The Terrorists"
AlQaeda
Spain's ETA
RedArmyFaction?
SaddamHussein
"The Jews"
Manipulate the press
Manipulate Hollywood
Manipulate Banks
Manipulate Middle-East wars
"The Paranoid"
"The Militias"
"The racists"
"The fed-haters"
"The conspiracy theorists"
"The One World Orderists"
"The anti-WTO/anti-corporatists"
"The GrandConspiracy theorists"
Extraterrestrial Interventionists
UFO believers -- not to be confused with ufologists, which strive for scientific rigor in examining the evidence, and actually discard themselves 98% or more of all reported cases.
The financial markets
Swiss bankers
Wall Street
The IMF
Organized crime
El coso nostro (the Italian mafia)
Latin American druglords
Russian mafia
Chinese "triads"
Business monopolies and cartels -- Some believe this is just part of the RightWingConspiracy?
MicroSoft
De Beers
OPEC
BigOil? (oil refinery corporations)
Monsanto
WalMart"


They are all in on it!

seems Geography ain't your strong point!

still need to address the Deathstar and The Empire along with Darth Vader!

Seriously its like arguing with people who are watching HunnyBooboo and at the commercials decide to try their skills at logic and deductive reasoning. I cant stop laughing sometimes.

You've yet to demonstrate you possess any of these skills, so I suggest you keep your personal attacks to yourself.

The thing that always amazes me about conspiracy theories is how elaborate they are, how flimsy alleged links are, and the enormous lengths people will go to trying to prove that a conspiracy actually happened.
And woe betide anyone who points out any huge gaping holes in the theory, they must be part of the conspiracy or have been brainwashed.

Don's waste you time.
People who are just rude and hateful don't deserve it.

I didn't think it would be long before you weighed in with a personal attack.

Typical.

I'm not talking to you. You are NEVER rude and hateful.

You are one of the most charming and intelligent people on this entire club.