The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories

by Darel Cookson, Daniel Jolley, Rachel Povey and Robert Dempsey, written for the Conversation.

Older people may be more vulnerable to COVID, but in the UK it’s the young that are now driving the pandemic. Last month, school-age children in Britain were 15 times more likely than people over 80 to have the coronavirus.

Leaving young people unvaccinated partly explains why cases have been so high in this group. This is why many countries are now offering COVID jabs to children. In the UK, all 12 to 15-year-olds are being offered a first vaccine dose. Some countries – such as the US and Israel – are offering COVID vaccines to children aged five and over.

Of course, with younger children, it’s their parents that decide whether they get the jab – and vaccine hesitancy can be a problem. In a recent US poll, three in ten parents said they would definitely not vaccinate their child against COVID. Concerns about side-effects or the perceived lower risk of COVID to kids may explain this. However, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories may also be playing a role.

We know that anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs can be a barrier to vaccine uptake. A 2014 study showed that British parents exposed to anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, when asked to imagine that they had a fictional eight-month-old, were less likely to get that child vaccinated. Also, a more recent study across 24 countries demonstrated that anti-vaccine attitudes were highest among those who were also high in conspiratorial thinking.

Once COVID vaccines started being developed, it didn’t take long for specific conspiracy theories about them to appear – for instance that they contain microchips or make people infertile. Research has shown that believing in such theories is associated with reduced intentions to receive a COVID vaccine. It’s therefore highly plausible that believing in COVID conspiracies could prevent parents from wanting to vaccinate their children against the coronavirus.

Correcting conspiracies

Our research has looked at how to dissuade parents from believing in conspiracy theories that might prevent them from vaccinating their children – which is particularly relevant now that COVID vaccines are being offered to under-16s in many countries.

Past research has shown that people are influenced by the perceived beliefs and behaviours of other people – what are known as “social norms”. But these perceptions are often inaccurate, which can lead to people shaping their behaviour to fit a misperceived norm.

However, we didn’t know whether this was true specifically when it came to conspiracy theories. So as a first step, we explored whether there’s a link between perceived social norms and conspiracy beliefs among British parents.

Our finding backed up earlier research. Parents in the UK overestimated how much other British parents endorsed anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. And, as before, the more people believed that others believed these conspiracy theories, the more strongly they tended to believe themselves.

Knowing this, we then attempted to lower parents’ belief in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories by correcting their overestimation of what other parents think. We did this using the Social Norms Approach, a simple technique that works by correcting misperceptions – for example, by giving people feedback on how they misjudged the actual beliefs and behaviours of others. The aim of this is to recalibrate people’s perceptions, and so change their behaviour so that it aligns with what others actually think and do.

We tested this approach on a sample of British parents of young children. Parents first completed measures of their personal belief in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and their intentions to vaccinate a fictional child. Next, they estimated to what extent “other UK parents” endorsed the same conspiracy theories and what their intentions to vaccinate would be.

Parents were then allocated to either receive feedback on their beliefs, which would correct any misperceptions of other parents’ conspiracy beliefs, or no feedback. Immediately afterwards, participants were again asked about their anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs and intentions.

We found that correcting misconceptions reduced parents’ beliefs in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. It also increased perceptions that other parents would vaccinate their children, which as a knock-on effect increased parents’ own intentions to have a child vaccinated.

A simple step to improve uptake

Our findings are the first to suggest that correcting inaccurate perceptions of what others think could be used to tackle anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs and so improve vaccine uptake – both among adults themselves and children that they make decisions for.

When talking with people who might be persuaded by anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, a practical step could be to highlight that conspiracy beliefs are not as commonplace as people might think. Showing that it’s far more usual to vaccinate rather than not vaccinate could also be persuasive.

With vaccination levels in children still being quite low in the UK while COVID cases remain high, this simple psychological technique could be an important tool for addressing vaccine hesitancy, and one that many people could easily have a go at trying.

Read the full piece on The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/how-to-dissuade-parents-from-believing-in-anti-vaxxer-conspiracy-theories-171781

Telecommunications companies, police officials, and media outlets worldwide have suggested that 5G coronavirus conspiracies have sparked a flurry of attacks on telecoms workers and infrastructure since the start of the pandemic.

Arson attacks and cases of criminal damage to masts, cabling and other telecoms equipment have been reported in over a dozen countries across the globe, from various places in Europe, to Canada, America, and New Zealand. In April, the BBC’s Newsbeat reported on accounts of harassment and violence, even murder threats, towards telecoms engineers in the UK, due to false theories suggesting that the emergence of the virus is connected to 5G.

Previous research has shown that conspiracy theories may be linked with violent intentions. To date, however, there have been no studies about why and when conspiracy beliefs may justify – and ignite – violence. Now, our research has addressed these gaps. The paper has been published in the British Journal of Social Psychology online today by myself and Dr Jenny Paterson.

Investigating the psychological links

In our research, we explored the association between beliefs in 5G COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the justification and willingness to use violence in response to the alleged link between 5G and COVID-19.

Specifically, we assessed 601 UK participants’ levels of 5G COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, ‘state anger’ – which is temporary, short-lasting outbursts of anger, and levels of paranoia. Here, paranoia refers to participants’ belief that there is hostile intent towards them personally – as opposed to the conspiratorial belief that powerful organisations are harming society at large.

Additionally, participants were asked questions about whether they thought violence was a justified response to the alleged link between 5G mobile technology and COVID-19. Participants similarly stated how likely they would be to engage in such behaviours.

The findings revealed that belief in 5G COVID-19 conspiracy theories was positively correlated with state anger. In turn, this state anger was associated with a greater justification of violence in response to a supposed connection between 5G mobile technology and COVID-19.

Alongside this, the results highlighted a greater intent to engage in similar behaviours in the future in those who subscribed to conspiratorial beliefs. The associations between anger and violence were strongest for those who reported higher levels of paranoia.

Our research also indicates that these patterns are not specific to 5G conspiratorial beliefs: general conspiracy theorising was linked to justification and willingness to engage in violent behaviour more generally because such theorising was associated with increased state anger. Furthermore, the link between this conspiratorial induced anger was most strongly associated with the justification of violence for participants who were most paranoid.

In sum, our novel findings extend our understanding and provide the first empirical link between 5G COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and violent reactions, alongside uncovering why (anger) and when (paranoia) conspiracy beliefs may justify the use of violence.

You can read our paper here (freely accessible) and read more about the research here.

by Daniel Jolley and Pia Lamberty, written for the Conversation.

The novel coronavirus continues to spread around the world, with new cases being reported all the time. Spreading just as fast, it seems, are conspiracy theories that claim powerful actors are plotting something sinister to do with the virus. Our research into medical conspiracy theories shows that this has the potential to be just as dangerous for societies as the outbreak itself.

One conspiracy theory proposes that the coronavirus is actually a bio-weapon engineered by the CIA as a way to wage war on China. Others are convinced that the UK and US governments introduced the coronavirus as a way to make money from a potential vaccine. Some people even suggest that Bill Gates is sponsoring the coronavirus.

Although many of these conspiracy theories seem far-fetched, the belief that evil powers are pursuing a secret plan is widespread in every society. Often these relate to health. A large 2019 YouGov poll found 16% of respondents in Spain believe that HIV was created and spread around the world on purpose by a secret group or organisation. And 27% of French and 12% of British respondents were convinced that “the truth about the harmful effects of vaccines is being deliberately hidden from the public”.

The spread of fake news and conspiracy theories around the coronavirus is such a significant problem that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has created a “myth busters” webpage to try and tackle them.

Read the full piece on The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-a-breeding-ground-for-conspiracy-theories-heres-why-thats-serious-problem-132489  

By Daniel Jolley and Karen Douglas

Some 60% of British people believe in at least one conspiracy theory, a recent poll reveals. From the idea that 9/11 was an inside job to the notion that climate change is a hoax, conspiracy theories divert attention away from the facts in favour of plots and schemes involving powerful and secret groups. With the aid of modern technology, conspiracy theories have found a natural home online.

Conspiracy theories often unfairly and erroneously accuse minority groups of doing bad things. For example, one conspiracy theory accuses Jewish people of plotting to run the world, including the outlandish idea that Jewish billionaire George Soros is a mastermind of a vast global conspiracy to “reduce humanity to slavery”. Another conspiracy theory proposes that global warming was created by the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive. Yet another conspiracy theory accuses immigrants of plotting to attack Britain from within.

In our research, we wanted to look at the impact of these types of conspiracy theories. How do they actually make people feel about minority groups? In our new paper, published in the British Journal of Psychology, we try to answer this question based on the results of three experiments.

Read the full piece on The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theories-fuel-prejudice-towards-minority-groups-113508

In a new paper published in the British Journal of Social Psychology, we have found that people who believe in conspiracy theories – such as the theory that Princess Diana was murdered by the British establishment – are more likely to accept or engage in everyday criminal activity.

In our first study, the findings indicated that people who believed in conspiracy theories were more accepting of everyday crime, such as trying to claim for replacement items, refunds or compensation from a shop when they were not entitled to do so.

In a second study, we found that exposure to conspiracy theories made people more likely to intend to engage in everyday crime in the future. We found that this tendency was directly linked to an individual’s feeling of a lack of social cohesion or shared values, known as ‘anomie’.

In summary, our research has shown for the first time the role that conspiracy theories can play in determining an individual’s attitude to everyday crime. Specifically, we found that that belief in conspiracy theories, previously associated with prejudice, political disengagement and environmental inaction, also makes people more inclined to actively engage in antisocial behaviour. It demonstrates that people subscribing to the view that others have conspired might be more inclined toward unethical actions.

You can find out more about the psychology of conspiracy theories on YouTube: