LIVE BY CHOICE NOT BY CHANCE!!!!

Conspiracy theories depict an incident which results from a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators. Conspiratorial thinking is created by a strong human desire to make sense of social forces that are self-relevant, important, and threatening. So these theories deal with the psychology of an individual. The fast development in the field of science and technology not only in India but all over the world has conjointly supported these theories in one or the opposite ways.

Types of Conspiracy Theories

According to Russell and Nancy conspiracy has entailed a “theory”, but as time evolved, “conspiracy” and “theory have become decoupled.

Jesse Walker (2013) has identified five kinds of conspiracy theories:

• The “Enemy Outside”-Is a theory based on figures alleged to be scheming against a community.
• The “Enemy Within” finds the conspirators lurking inside the nation, indistinguishable from ordinary citizens.
• The “Enemy Above” involves people who are manipulating events for their gain.
• The “Enemy Below” features the lower classes working to overturn the social order.
• The “Benevolent Conspiracies” are angelic forces that work behind the scenes to improve the world and help people.

Michael Barkun has identified three classifications of conspiracy theory:

• Event conspiracy theories- Refers to limited and well-defined events.
• Systemic conspiracy theories – Includes broad goals, usually conceived as securing control of a country, a region, or the world.
• Superconspiracy theories. This type of theory links multiple alleged conspiracies together hierarchically.

Reasons for conspiracy theories

Probably the reason Conspiracy theories may increase in prevalence in periods of widespread anxiety, uncertainty, competitive attitude toward others, unawareness, hardship, illiteracy, economic depression or misinformation on any matter.

Psychology and conspiracy theories

 Human brains try to make things simpler, but cognitive biases don’t necessarily match up with reality. A study published in the European Journal of Psychology concluded that illusory pattern perception is an important cognitive factor involved in conspiracy theories.

Some Craziest conspiracy theories 

No matter how absurd some conspiracy theories are but there are some craziest and most unbelievable of them around the world who still people believe them. There are some examples from history which clearly explain it –

• The Moon Does Not Exist
• Phantom Time Hypothesis
• Lizard People Run the World Governments – 4% (12,556,562 Believers)
• The Sinister Reasons behind Fluoride in Our Tap Water – 9% (28,252,264 Believers)
• The Government Uses Television to Control Your Mind – 15% (47,087,106 Believers)
• The Medical and Pharmaceutical Industries Invent New Diseases to Grow Profits – 15% (47,087,106 Believers).

CONCLUSION

We live in the 21st century where India is under the of urbanization, modernization, industrialization and so-called globalization, but the thinking is somewhere still lagging. Thus, the individual mentality or the psychological perspective needs to be changed to avoid misinformation on whether such crazy conspiracy theories exist or not.

@MANISHANANDAN