Conspiracy Beliefs (4) - Belief and Personality

Belief and Personality

There are some basic assumptions made by followers of conspiracy ideologies, namely:

·       Nothing occurs accidentally

·       Nothing is what it looks like

·       Everything is connected

·       Conspirators are hierarchically organized (but their organization is concealed from the public)

 

Personality of Conspiracy Believers

Their confidence in governments, politicians, doctors, and ‘mainstream’ scientist is very low if not zero. On the other hand, the expressed opinions and facts of their in-peer group or other ‘trustworthy’ sources are considered to be honest and correct. They are believed at face value. If in the social media the expressed opinions are ‘liked’, it makes them if more trustworthy (so many likers cannot be wrong).

I understand that people who think they under attack (by evil people, organizations and governments) feel threatened which turns them angry, ready for retaliation. Problem is that over time, their feelings and convictions get solidified in their personality and will (sadly) stay there unchanged (forever). They claim to see the truth and - of course – will stay with it. They consider themselves as being red-pilled.

People who are attracted by a specific conspiracy myth are prone to believe in others as well. And it makes them feel good since they regard themselves as being bearer of the truth and not misled like all the others. Their convictions help them to reduce loss of control and enrich their lives (side effect: no boredom anymore).

Extravagant explanations are regarded more reliable as trivial ones. This is especially the case when e.g. prominent people die; then it is more likely for such people to believe that they were murdered, or otherwise put to death, instead of having died due to a ‘natural’ event or accident (this is called proportionality bias).

 

Analytical reasoning

It is said that believers of conspiracy myths tend not to analyze facts (scientifically) but encompass them more in a holistic way within their established frame of view ad in line with what other peer groups think. I don’t know if this is the case, but I’m familiar with the saying: what feels good must be true.

Anyway, many believers do not see any need to evaluate different opinions or explanations since their own assessment has already proved to be true. In-peer confirmation is more important than (false alternative) facts provided by others. Critique from other people are even regarded as confirmation of their own belief (backfire effect) - as the others most certainly have swallowed the blue pill.

It is quite normal that people who invested a lot of time and money in a certain project or organization or belief system do not want to hear that all their actions and reasonings are disputable because the whole thing was completely made up and had no firm foundation. Admitting the truth would mean that the past actions were wrong or at least questionable. But such an insight would be too disturbing and humiliating and therefore even more attempts are being made to support the current activity / belief system. It is too important to fail (and if it fails, we go down in glory).

Conspiracy theories assume that ’conspirators’ are able to do long-term planning, even over a time span of years, decades or centuries.

Example: The European Schengen Agreement (no borders within  the European Economic Community) was signed 1985. The follower of the ‘Umvolkung’ belief are inclined to see this as perfidious plan as being long-term plan that came  ‘to fruition’ in 2015 when the first big refugee wave hit Europe.

Conspirators are believed to plan well ahead in order to accomplish their  to far-reaching (world-changing) plans and they do possess the power, money and network to accomplish this in the foreseeable future. Such a conviction does not account for the huge complexity behind such scenarios and that the outcome of real-life political and social planning is never straight forward. They think that everything is (more or less easily) controllable by the conspirators. For examples: in order to pollute the world with chemtrails, many technicians, cargo transporters, pilots, crew personnel etc. must have been secretly involved and willing to hide everything. This is not possible, at least not in the long-run.

Repetition is Truth

Alterative explanations (I should better say: Fake Facts) are very powerfully disseminated by speech and videos. It does not matter how outrageous the claims are, it is only important that they are said or shown many times with great conviction.

Politicians may use a similar method: use opinions and correlate them with other statements or intentions. This is called: what fires together, wires together. Example: Hillary Clinton committed voter fraud  .. and … ‘lock her up’.

Repetition is Truth - Vagueness is King. Don’t be too specific, just hint in a certain direction and people will follow (since they naturally ‘understand what you mean). Nudge them a little bit …