“What about building 7?” A social psych study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories

[The Straight Story]

Michael J. Wood* and Karen M. Douglas*

School of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

Recent research into the psychology of conspiracy belief has highlighted the importance of belief systems in the acceptance or rejection of conspiracy theories. We examined a large sample of conspiracist (pro-conspiracy-theory) and conventionalist (anti-conspiracy-theory) comments on news websites in order to investigate the relative importance of promoting alternative explanations vs. rejecting conventional explanations for events. In accordance with our hypotheses, we found that conspiracist commenters were more likely to argue against the opposing interpretation and less likely to argue in favor of their own interpretation, while the opposite was true of conventionalist commenters. However, conspiracist comments were more likely to explicitly put forward an account than conventionalist comments were. In addition, conspiracists were more likely to express mistrust and made more positive and fewer negative references to other conspiracy theories. The data also indicate that conspiracists were largely unwilling to apply the “conspiracy theory” label to their own beliefs and objected when others did so, lending support to the long-held suggestion that conspiracy belief carries a social stigma. Finally, conventionalist arguments tended to have a more hostile tone. These tendencies in persuasive communication can be understood as a reflection of an underlying conspiracist worldview in which the details of individual conspiracy theories are less important than a generalized rejection of official explanations.

http://www.frontiersin.org/personality_science_and_individual_differences/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00409/abstract

[William Seger]

1. "New studies: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ sane; government dupes crazy, hostile"

Or so says Kevin Barrett:

The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.” In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

Perhaps because their supposedly mainstream views no longer represent the majority, the anti-conspiracy commenters often displayed anger and hostility: "The research… showed that people who favoured the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals."

Barrett didn't include a link to the study, for reasons that should be obvious if you compare the actual study to his gross distortions of it: The authors of the study certainly didn't make those absurdly illogical claims. But Barrett lives in a fantasy world where Muslims weren't responsible for 9/11 -- the Jews did it. And of course, Barrett forces himself to overlook the simple and obvious reason why such delusional and disingenuous terrorist apologists who call themselves "truthers" draw such hostility.

[Ace Acme]

2. Conspiracist v. Conventionalist is a false dichotomy n/t