Author Archives: Daniel Jolley

Conspiracy theories and the campaign to Leave the EU

Posted on June 21, 2016 by Daniel Jolley

With colleagues at the University of Kent (Prof Karen Douglas and Dr Aleksandra Cichocka), we have written a piece in The Psychologist discussing conspiracy theories and the campaign to Leave the EU.  In short, we have found that belief in … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology, What's the harm, World events | 8 Comments

Stress and belief in conspiracy theories

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Daniel Jolley

A recent a piece of research published by Viren Swami and colleagues has uncovered a link between feeling stressed and belief in conspiracy theories. Swami and colleagues gathered responses from over 400 people, where the responders completed various measures, such … Continue reading →

Posted in Personality, Social psychology, What's the harm, World events | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Buffering conspiracy theories with feelings of control

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Daniel Jolley

The psychology of conspiracy theories is an ever-growing field. I have Google Scholar Alerts set up to let me know of new research and the alerts have been particularly active recently. It is great to see the field flourishing with activity. … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, What's the harm | Tagged , | 7 Comments

The 2015 general election and conspiracy theories

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Daniel Jolley

Millions of people in the United Kingdom will head to the polling stations on Thursday (7th May) to vote in the 2015 general election. There will however be a large portion of people, whilst eligible, will not cast their vote. … Continue reading →

Posted in What's the harm | 14 Comments

Ebola virus conspiracy theories

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Daniel Jolley

“How do you think the Ebola virus come about?” Created in a lab (on purpose) – 47% Created in a lab (by accident) – 10% Spread from bats/monkeys – 38% Cannibalistic ritual cover-up – 5% This is a poll question … Continue reading →

Posted in What's the harm | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and their potential impact on children’s health

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Daniel Jolley

The Los Angeles Times recently published a piece titled: “Measles is spreading, and the anti-vaccine movement is the cause”, and as you can imagine, this caught my attention. Recently, I have had an empirical paper published in the open-access journal … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology, What's the harm | 40 Comments

Should conspiracy theory research inform public policy?

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Daniel Jolley

Princess Diana was murdered by the Royal Family.  The U.S. government orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Pharmaceutical companies cover up evidence of harmful side effects of vaccines.  Each statement is a ‘conspiracy theory’; defined as a proposed plot by powerful … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology | Tagged | 231 Comments

PsyPAG Quarterly special issue: The psychology of conspiracy theories

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Daniel Jolley

The PsyPAG Quarterly is a publication which is distributed free of charge to all psychology postgraduates in the UK. As an editor of this publication, for the September ’13 edition, I put together a special issue on the psychology of … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology | 29 Comments

Childhood vaccinations: What is the role of conspiracy theorising?

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Daniel Jolley

On Wednesday 26th June 2013, I attended a thought-provoking symposium where international experts in psychology, anthropology and communication sciences came together to describe current trends in public attitudes towards childhood vaccination. The symposium accurately titled ‘Public engagement and risk communication … Continue reading →

Posted in Events, Social psychology | 5 Comments

“The Great Green Con”: Pro-conspiracy information within the media

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Daniel Jolley

This morning I came across a news article that read so similar to my pro-conspiracy manipulation used within a recent paper, it was quite unnerving. I have spoken about this paper before on this blog, where it was shown that exposure … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology, What's the harm | Tagged , , | Leave a comment