Category Archives: Social psychology

Exposure to conspiracy theories: Enduring over a two-week period

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Daniel Jolley

We know that conspiracy theories may have some important negative societal consequences.  Conspiracy theories can discourage people from engaging with the political system, taking action against climate change and having a fictional child vaccinated. In each of these empirical investigations, … Continue reading →

Posted in Round-Ups, Social psychology, What's the harm | 5 Comments

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

The great Columbia conspiracy: Why Trump and others seem to contradict themselves on Obama’s past

Posted on June 6, 2016 by Mike Wood

So, I suppose we should talk about Donald Trump at some point. Trump might just be the most famous conspiracy-monger in the world at the moment. He’s flirted with, if not outright endorsed, a wide variety of conspiracy theories, ranging … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology, World events | Tagged , , , , | 5 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

How to stop Donald Trump peddling vaccine conspiracy theories

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Christopher Thresher-Andrews

To nobody’s surprise, Donald Trump, the billionaire front-runner for the US Republican party’s nomination for presidential candidate, has continued to spread his views on the dangers of vaccination. Trump is no stranger to controversy, least of all when it comes to … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology, What's the harm | Tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

The conspiracy theory label: Not as powerful as you might think

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Mike Wood

Calling something a conspiracy theory is basically an intellectual scarlet letter. It’s a way of dismissing something you don’t like, of placing something outside the bounds of reasonable discourse. “That’s just a conspiracy theory” is a depressingly effective way of … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology | Tagged , , | 18 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

5 reasons why “predictive programming” is psychologically implausible

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Mike Wood

If you think that popular culture – movies, TV, and music – have been kind of samey lately, you’re not alone. Peter Suderman at Slate has proposed that most summer blockbusters follow the same basic formula laid out in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Social psychology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 156 Comments