Belief and the brain.

[ananda]

This is a very interesting and illuminating article, even going a ways towards explaining the belief manipulation in this society after 911 and the roots of terrorism. The idea of context is most enlightening, how brainwashing works through a created context, and how contexts can be exploited by politicians for the purposes of belief manipulation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1517186,00.html

Here are some incisive and insightful snippets:

1) Lieberman's recent work echoed parts of earlier research by Joel Winston of the University of London's Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience. Winston found that when he presented people with pictures of faces and asked them to rate the trustworthiness of each, the amygdalas showed a greater response to pictures of people who were specifically chosen to represent untrustworthiness. And it did not matter what each person actually said about the pictured faces.

"Even people who believe to their core that they do not have prejudices may still have negative associations that are not conscious," says Lieberman.

Beliefs also provide stability. When a new piece of sensory information comes in, it is assessed against these knowledge units before the brain works out whether or not it should be incorporated. People do it when they test the credibility of a politician or hear about a paranormal event.

2) Another route to understanding how beliefs form is to look at how they can be manipulated. In her book on the history of brainwashing, Taylor describes how everyone from the Chinese thought reform camps of the last century to religious cults have used systematic methods to persuade people to change their ideas, sometimes radically.

The first step is to isolate a person and control what information they receive. Their former beliefs need to be challenged by creating uncertainty. New messages need to be repeated endlessly. And the whole thing needs to be done in a pressured, emotional environment.

3) This manipulation of belief happens every day. Politics is a fertile arena, especially in times of anxiety.

"Stress affects the brain such that it makes people more likely to fall back on things they know well - stereotypes and simple ways of thinking," says Taylor.

"It is very easy to want to do that when everything you hold dear is being challenged. In a sense, it was after 9/11."

The stress of the terror attacks on the US in 2001 changed the way many Americans viewed the world, and Taylor argues that it left the population open to tricks of belief manipulation. A recent survey, for example, found that more than half of Americans thought Iraqis were involved in the attacks, despite the fact that nobody had come out and said it.

This method of association uses the brain against itself. If an event stimulates two sets of neurons, then the links between them get stronger. If one of them activates, it is more likely that the second set will also fire. In the real world, those two memories may have little to do with each other, but in the brain, they get associated.

--------

Exactly. No wonder so many people have shown such susceptibility to Bush's and his admin's manipulations around Iraq and 911.. and they are still doing it!

Sue

[BrklynLiberal]

1. MIHOP!!!!

Just reinforces my previous belief in that premise..so they could more easily manipulate the populace to their own ends.

Exactly. No wonder so many people have shown such susceptibility to Bush's and his admin's manipulations around Iraq and 911.. and they are still doing it!

[bloom]

2. I watched an interesting psychology show

a pbsyou.org thing - that was describing some interesting tests.

Like asking people if the Mississippi is longer than 500 miles and how long they think it is and asking them if it is longer than 3000 miles and how long they think it is.

In the first case they would guess it is 1000-1200 miles long and in the second 2000-2500 miles long (it's 2400 something). So you can see by suggestion of the question - how it affects people.

They had another thing that showed how people believed what they knew/heard most about - like believing that in the Middle East terrorists would be more of a threat than traffic accidents - when that is not true.

There was also a segment on lying. If people are paid enough to lie - they don't believe the lie. If people were paid a little to lie - they would convince themselves the lie was true.

Applying that to 9/11 - you could see that the ones at the top who benefit from lying would not have "cognitive dissonance" - they don't have to try to believe the lie because are presumably rewarded for it. Others who have believed the lie and repeated it - with no (or little) reward - would have to get themselves convinced that it's true.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. kick! This deserves more attention.