Category Archives: Social psychology

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 | 229 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 , , , , , , , | 155 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

21% of US voters believe Obama is the Anti-Christ : The problem with conspiracy polling

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Christopher Thresher-Andrews

A recent poll by ‘Public Polling Policy’, (despite the name, a private US polling company) conducted an automated telephone poll of 1247 registered US voters and asked respondents a variety of questions about their belief in various popular conspiracy theories. The … Continue reading →

Posted in 9/11, Round-Ups, Social psychology, What's the harm, World events | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 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

Authoritarianism and conspiracy theories – what’s the connection? Is there one?

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Mike Wood

Although I don’t do it as much as I used to, I still enjoy arguing about conspiracy theories with people on the Internet. As I’m generally pretty skeptical of conspiracy explanations, I usually find myself defending whatever the conventional explanation … Continue reading →

Posted in Personality, Social psychology | Tagged , , , , , | 22 Comments

Conspiracy beliefs and TV licences: ‘Turning off’ engagement

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Daniel Jolley

As blogged about previously, conspiracy theories are influential and exposure to such theories can influence both beliefs and behavioural intentions in a variety of domains. However, a recent news story caught my attention, as it clearly demonstrated a sense of detachment with … Continue reading →

Posted in 9/11, Social psychology, What's the harm | Tagged , , | 6 Comments