Jul 8, 2021 05:24 PM
https://www.popsci.com/military/ufo-cons...dangerous/
EXCERPT: . . . If you’re not in the in-group, you might wonder why you should care if some people are a little fanatic about UFOs. Let them have it, right? It’s just flying saucers, or, in this case, Tic Tacs.
But real-world experience suggests that entrenchment in conspiracy theories is associated, in some cases, with violent or illegal behavior. Some research points the same direction. A 2020 study in Social Psychological and Personality Science, which suggested that embracing a conspiratorial worldview decreases reported intent to engage in “normative” political behaviors like signing petitions or organizing rallies, but increases reported intent to engage in “non-normative” political behaviors like attacking people or property.
The violence is obviously the eyecatcher there, but conspiratorial thinking has, IRL, also led people to avoid vaccines, stalk the parents of school-shooting victims, troll climate scientists, and spend hard-earned money buying equipment to prove Flat Earth theory right.
Scholars often study the individual factors that lead people down those rabbit holes. But West, whose book Escaping the Rabbit Hole discusses how to compassionately and effectively talk to the conspiracists in your life, thinks a red-pill moment—like seeing an odd blip in the sky, or watching a sensational YouTube video—outweighs any psychological predisposition.
And Shruti Phadke, a researcher at the University of Washington, recently took a look at another understudied side of the issue, comparing the importance of the social factors that lead someone down the rabbit hole to the more-studied individual factors. How does someone start with “NASA could be corrupt” and end up at “the Moon landing was fake”? “So many things have to happen for a person to go from here to there,” Phadke says.
Her team analyzed data from reddit, in conspiratorial communities ranging from those dedicated to chemtrails to climate skepticism to alien presence on Earth. “The most important factor is availability of conspiracists in their social circle,” says Phadke. The second most important factor was that the future conspiracists, prior to hopping down the rabbit hole, got moderated or downvoted in the non-conspiratorial subreddits. “When you are ostracized from somewhere you try to find a place where you’re accepted more,” she says. You find /r/conspiracy, or /r/reptiliandude.
Then, you are surrounded by others who accept and perhaps share your beliefs. “They’re consistently being exposed to one side of the coin. They’re consistently consuming only very propagandized information,” she says. “On top of that they’re being told that any other information they see is not valid.” (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . If you’re not in the in-group, you might wonder why you should care if some people are a little fanatic about UFOs. Let them have it, right? It’s just flying saucers, or, in this case, Tic Tacs.
But real-world experience suggests that entrenchment in conspiracy theories is associated, in some cases, with violent or illegal behavior. Some research points the same direction. A 2020 study in Social Psychological and Personality Science, which suggested that embracing a conspiratorial worldview decreases reported intent to engage in “normative” political behaviors like signing petitions or organizing rallies, but increases reported intent to engage in “non-normative” political behaviors like attacking people or property.
The violence is obviously the eyecatcher there, but conspiratorial thinking has, IRL, also led people to avoid vaccines, stalk the parents of school-shooting victims, troll climate scientists, and spend hard-earned money buying equipment to prove Flat Earth theory right.
Scholars often study the individual factors that lead people down those rabbit holes. But West, whose book Escaping the Rabbit Hole discusses how to compassionately and effectively talk to the conspiracists in your life, thinks a red-pill moment—like seeing an odd blip in the sky, or watching a sensational YouTube video—outweighs any psychological predisposition.
And Shruti Phadke, a researcher at the University of Washington, recently took a look at another understudied side of the issue, comparing the importance of the social factors that lead someone down the rabbit hole to the more-studied individual factors. How does someone start with “NASA could be corrupt” and end up at “the Moon landing was fake”? “So many things have to happen for a person to go from here to there,” Phadke says.
Her team analyzed data from reddit, in conspiratorial communities ranging from those dedicated to chemtrails to climate skepticism to alien presence on Earth. “The most important factor is availability of conspiracists in their social circle,” says Phadke. The second most important factor was that the future conspiracists, prior to hopping down the rabbit hole, got moderated or downvoted in the non-conspiratorial subreddits. “When you are ostracized from somewhere you try to find a place where you’re accepted more,” she says. You find /r/conspiracy, or /r/reptiliandude.
Then, you are surrounded by others who accept and perhaps share your beliefs. “They’re consistently being exposed to one side of the coin. They’re consistently consuming only very propagandized information,” she says. “On top of that they’re being told that any other information they see is not valid.” (MORE - details)
