'Motivated Reasoning' said to underly widespread belief in Bush Admin's 911-Iraq Connection Big Lie

"How We Support Our False Beliefs"

ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2009) — In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions focus on one of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election: the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
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One unexpected pattern that emerged from the different justifications that subjects offered for continuing to believe in the validity of the link was that it helped citizens make sense of the Bush Administration's decision to go to war against Iraq.
"We refer to this as 'inferred justification,'" says Hoffman "because for these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.
"People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war," he says.
"One of the things that is really interesting about this, from both the perspective of voting patterns but also for democratic theory more generally, Hoffman says, "is that we did not find that people were being duped by a campaign of innuendo so much as they were actively constructing links and justifications that did not exist.
"They wanted to believe in the link," he says, "because it helped them make sense of a current reality.

Now why would anyone think

Now why would anyone think that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11? Perhaps because James Woolsey went on every show on 9/12 and the days after claiming that Iraq WAS behind it...

Contact: editor@sciencedaily.com

Motivated Revisionism

This is nonsense. Not only did the Bush Bastards lose the 2000 presidential election, but the stolen 2004 election was shoved in our faces; they didn't even try to cover up the blatantly obvious, massive election fraud that was going on.

The American people knew that the Bush Administration had lied about Iraq, that is why Bush would have lost the 2004 election if not for election fraud.

Dean Jackson/Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC

Regardless of election fraud, the poll evidence is clear

From the article:

Hoffman says that over the course of the 2004 presidential campaign, several polls showed that majorities of respondents believed that Saddam Hussein was either partly or largely responsible for the 9/11 attacks, a percentage that declined very slowly, dipping below 50 percent only in late 2003.

I don't think this research probed the effect of "seeding" the false reasoning in people's minds. That seeding came compliments of numerous, emphatic lies and innuendo from the Bushies.

What I take away from this article is that, once a bad idea gets into people's heads, one of the psychological effects that makes it stay there is "motivated reasoning". Which is probably just a fancy phrase for "rationalized self-deception".

Sadly, if this phenomenon were not common, we might have had a President Kerry. But considering what a bust President Obama has been, I'm not sure that we'd be in great shape, anyway. :-(

http://www.DemocracyABC.org
http://www.therealnews.com
http://www.pdamerica.org

With this kind of mass deception

Who needs mind control anyway?

Contradiction.

Isn't mass deception a form of mind control?
I don't mean to criticize you but your statement seems like a contradiction.
Actually it's good to see sociologists taking a tiny step in the right direction.
If they're willing to objectively examine people's "motivated reasoning" with regard to Saddam and 9/11, maybe they can be convinced to objectively examine people's cognitive dissonance or "motivated reasoning with regard to 9/11 being an Inside job.

Paradoxical

That's what I meant :-) Call it a paradoxical joke...

Although, there should be a slight difference: if somebody has total control over your mind, there is no need for deception. The deception is needed to motivate the masses to direct their efforts a certain way. ("A helpful wave of indignation") Mind control, on the other hand, is full blown zombie slavery. (imo)

Somewhere in between could be Sirhan Sirhan.

I know you want me to be correct. In fact, you feel compelled to agree with me. ;-)

Plamegate

If the percentage of respondents who believed Saddam was in any way responsible for the 9/11 attacks had dipped below 50% by late 2003, then by election day of November 2, 2004 that percentage would have declined dramatically further below that late 2003 figure (which, as the article says, was already below 50%). Remember, "Plamegate" was a hot topic in the media beginning in the latter part of 2003 and continuing through to the 2004 election. By election day 2004, all but brain-washed Republican zombies (say a prayer for them!) understood what the White House had done to Valerie Plame and why they did it.

Dean Jackson/Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC

'Motivated Reasoning' or Propaganda

I think the fact that Bush aides continue to try and link Iraq to 9/11 is the main cause, it plays into "Motivated Reasoning," but it all starts with the propaganda.