Additional Terms

Here are the additional terms, as well as a bit about psychology.

## Psychology:

Unlike other animals, humans possess an incredible power to be able to tell truth from deceit, this is based on a variety of factors, from if they have lied frequently in the past, to how famous and influential,the brain detects patterns, it is so good at it, it finds patterns that are not even there.It is a common human trait in all of us, so when we are suspicious of the  truth, the wacky conspiracy sounds more appealing than the truth. Because the brain does not think logically, it thinks based on past experiences, and for most of the world, conspiracies make more sense than the truth. In 2007, 90 percent of the british people who took a poll believed Princess Diana was murdered,whereas, according to studies, the truth is the driver was 3 times over the french alcohol limit, they say he was speeding away from over-eager photographers and lost control.

## Additional Terms:

* Conspiracism - A plot a by a dark and nefarious character/s to do something sinister or evil.

* Confirmation bias -  the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.

* This links to the process of filtering info to suit a narrative we have already created using our already existing knowledge

* Pseudohistory: The quality of seeming or being felt to be true even if not necessarily true. Any work that claims to be history, but does not use established historiographical methods: especially
* one that uses disputed evidence and speculation rather than relying on the analysis of primary sources.
* Falsifiability: Falsifiability or refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is the inherent possibility that it can be proven false. A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive of an observation or an argument which negates the statement in question.
* Truthiness: A quality, characterising a truth that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know from the gut or because it feels right without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or facts.
* Post-truth: misinformation and disinformation in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
* Mainstreaming: The process of becoming accepted as normal by most people
* Attitude Perseverance: an attitude that entails not giving up.
* Illusory Correlation: it is the phenomenon that when you perceive relationships between variables(people, objects) that isn’t really there
* Selective Exposure-  refers to one’s tendency to favour information that reinforces their pre-existing views and also avoiding any that may contradict their argument.

* Avoiding any information that goes against them, only focusing on the positives of their point of view

* Schema Theory- Linguists, cognitive psychologists, and psycholinguists have used the concept of schema (plural: schemata) to understand the interaction of key factors affecting the comprehension process. To sum it up, schema theory states that all knowledge is organized into units.
* Apophenia: Similar to pareidolia in the sense that it is about patterns and the human tendency to find meaningful data in seemingly random information. This can also be affected by bias which makes people see absurd patterns and jump to conclusions
* Pareidolia: A psychological phenomena in which the mind perceives a pattern in a sight or a sound when nothing is really there. This is also relating to what Charlie said about the psychology of conspiracy theories: “However, our brains are so good at finding patterns, that it searches for patterns that aren’t really there.” It is pronounced Parr-i-doh-lia
* Gaslighting: To manipulate someone into making them doubt their own sanity and question everything the know. This would make someone easily believe a conspiracy theory or be made more mentally pliable.