Coronavirus: Can You Identify Conspiracy/Rumor Opinions In Coronavirus Pandemic?

2020-06-06

As book “The Crowd” by Gustave Le Bon says, that when an individual is an isolated individual, he has his own distinctive personality characteristics, and when this person is integrated into a group, all his personalities will be overwhelmed by this group, and his thoughts will immediately be overwhelmed by the group. Replaced by. When a group exists, he has the characteristics of emotion, no objection and low IQ. Groups often show the characteristics of “blindness”, “impulsiveness”, “fanaticism”, and “belief”, and the rulers and governors always use these characteristics of the group to establish and consolidate their own rule and regime.

In the reality, every one is living in a big group of society, city and country. People’s mood and thoughts are always easy to be impacted in this group, especially during a disaster, and something else, such as COVID-19 pandemic. And most of people can not identify those information got is true or false. They have no enough capacity to identify. That is why many people bought disinfectant to drink and inject preventing Coronavirus after heard the president Trump said so. They are not able to check even the governor and country leader gave wrong information to them.

We are going through a crisis. The new coronavirus epidemic not only threatens our health and economy, but also triggers a mental health crisis. The new coronavirus and the diseases caused by it and the measures taken by various countries to control the epidemic have disrupted the lives of countless people. Even if these consequences have very different effects on everyone, we have one thing in common: uncertainty.

No one likes uncertainty. Everyone wants to know what will happen next, the reasons behind it and whether changes need to be made. So whenever a crisis comes, conspiracy theories will prevail. Because they guarantee a simple explanation of messy situations. At the present time when true and false are difficult to discern, many people seem to be more willing to believe those who pointed out the responsible party.

What is Conspiracy Theory/Rumor

In real life, simple questions often cannot be answered easily. The scientific community has not yet reached a consensus on the definition of conspiracy theory and rumor, says Roland Imhoff, a professor at the Department of Social and Legal Psychology at the University of Mainz, Germany, who studies conspiracy theory. For example, he said: “Some people think that conspiracy theory is a wrong view that does not conform to the facts.

Imhoff believes that this view is of no benefit to relevant research and public opinion. He called for the conspiracy theory to be defined without considering its authenticity. He pointed out: “In my opinion, conspiracy theory refers to the following view: a few people who make a profit at the expense of the public secretly plan an event that has a greater impact.”

Check the Truth and Source

Imhof said frankly: “If all Youtube videos and daily newspapers with fixed editors are equally trustworthy, then we are no longer a society that has reached a consensus of communication on the basis of reality.”

And frankly, in real life, every public media has its own political standpoint which says people have to learn how to identify and analysis the information behind any news, conspiracy and rumor from any kinds of media. People in group always want to trust what he would like to trust.

No coincidence

To identify the conspiracy theory and rumor, it is also important to understand its role, Imhoff said: “The role of conspiracy theory is better than coincidence.” We like this because “people hate coincidence.” Coincidence deprived us of our ability to predict and control things.

Imhoff went on to point out: “There is no coincidence in conspiracy theories, only interlocking.” Conspiracy theorists often talk about each other when elaborating their views. He gave an example: “(German Health Minister) Jens Spahn once participated in a leadership project funded by a bank that has an employee and his grandson’s niece once played for Bill Gates.”

No necessarily logical

Although this is far from a cause-and-effect relationship, it does not matter. Imhoff discovered from his research that people in group usually do not mind logical contradictions.

The psychologist explained: “People who believe that Princess Diana was murdered by British intelligence also believe that she lives on an isolated island in order to stay away from the hustle and bustle.” He continued that the content of the conspiracy theory itself is not important (Princess Diana’s Experience is not important), the important thing is to believe that those in power lie to the people.

Who will benefit?

During the pandemic, the Trump government team kept blaming China as the source of Coronavirus spreading repeatedly despite of the fact of serious outbreak in United States. Keeping blaming the others could stop and contain the pandemic in USA?

Imhof gave an example of a simple wording technique for conspiracy theory: when I pointed out the beneficiary of the incident, I also provided evidence that the beneficiary was responsible for the matter. “This is certainly a bad argument from an epistemological point of view. Just because farmers benefit from rain does not mean that farmers can rain.” Generally speaking, conspiracy theories always provide more explanations than the official. Conspiracy theories provide more explanations and point out more coincidences—but because there are so many coincidences that it has been determined that they cannot be coincidences—they are considered more truths.

What does the conspiracy/rumor do with me?

There is an example, American American Alex Jones (Alex Jones), through his company Infowars, not only spreads conspiracy theories and rumors, but also sells health products, security equipment, and survival equipment in its stores-thereby turning advocacy of doomsday theory into profitable Buy and sell.

Stay away from conspiracy/rumor and keep independent thinking

But when media protests against forced vaccinations, cancellation of basic rights, and lying media suddenly came to us from Facebook pages, even from family members, what should we do? When logic cannot be justified, causality and related relations are confused, and the media is not trusted, how do you communicate?

So, keep independent personal thinking is critical when facing any kind of information from whatever the public authorized media, or personal video from Youtube, or a post from personal Facebook account. And with above points in this article to learn to identify the true or false of this information, and make sure you are not well impacted by it.