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A blog by four academic psychologists examining the psychology of conspiracy theories ...more info
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Recent Posts
- How poor sleep could fuel belief in conspiracy theories
- Bullying, power and control: why people believe in conspiracy theories and how to respond
- How conspiracy theories can affect the communities they attack
- How to talk to someone about conspiracy theories in five simple steps
- Why might people believe in human-made hurricanes? Two conspiracy theory psychologists explain
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Tags
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Category Archives: What’s the harm
Fake news, conspiracy theories and the UK general election
Popular conspiracy theories propose that members of UK government murdered Diana, Princess of Wales; climate change is a hoax orchestrated by the world’s scientists to secure research funding and pharmaceutical companies and governments cover up evidence of harmful side effects … Continue reading
Posted in Social psychology, What's the harm
5 Comments
Conspiracy theories in the workplace
Conspiracy theories have been shown to have potentially detrimental consequences on political, environmental, and health-related behaviour intentions. We have discussed these consequences on the blog previously. Recently, psychologists have extended this and explored how conspiracy theories may also impact our day-to-day working … Continue reading
Posted in Round-Ups, Social psychology, What's the harm
5 Comments
Exposure to conspiracy theories: Enduring over a two-week period
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
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
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 conspiracy theories, psychology, social psychology
7 Comments
How to stop Donald Trump peddling vaccine conspiracy theories
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 american, conspiracy, donald, measles, republican, trump, USA, vaccine
12 Comments
Buffering conspiracy theories with feelings of control
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
The 2015 general election and conspiracy theories
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
“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
Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and their potential impact on children’s health
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
The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories 