Karen M Douglas
Biographic Data
| ID | 136254 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karen M Douglas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karen M |
| FAMILY NAME | Douglas |
| SIGNATURE | DOUGLAS K M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kent |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0381-6924 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 91 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1420 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 91 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 17 |
Conspiracy Beliefs and the Perception of Intergroup Inequalities
Conspiracy beliefs are prevalent among members of disadvantaged groups. Adopting a social identity perspective, we hypothesized that these beliefs would reduce the endorsement of internal attributions for inequalities that could negatively affect the image of disadvantaged ingroups. In Study 1 ( n = 1,104), conspiracy mentality was negatively associated with meritocracy beliefs, which attribute success and failure to internal factors. In Studies …
Does Lower Psychological Need Satisfaction Foster Conspiracy Belief? Longitudinal Effects Over 3 Years in New Zealand
Although conspiracy belief may arise from a frustration of psychological needs, research has yet to investigate these relationships over time. Using four annual waves of longitudinal panel data in New Zealand (2019–2022; N = 55,269), we examined the relationship between four psychological needs (namely belonging, control, meaning in life, and self-esteem) and conspiracy belief. Results from four random-intercept cross-lagged panel models reveal s…
Conspiracy Theories and Online Dating: It’s a (Mis)match
Conspiracy beliefs can harm interpersonal relationships, but their impact on future relationships remains underexplored. Across four preregistered experiments ( N = 1,603), we examined how sharing conspiracy theories in online dating profiles affects interpersonal impressions and intentions to start relationships, and whether these outcomes depend on perceivers’ political orientation. Experiments 1a and 1b revealed that profiles including right-w…
How Economic Inequality Fuels Collective Nostalgia: The Mediating Role of Conspiracy Beliefs
This research investigates the relationship between perceived economic inequality and collective nostalgia in China, proposing that inequality perceptions foster longing for an idealized past, with conspiracy beliefs mediating this process. A pilot study ( N = 319) revealed a significant association between perceived economic inequality and collective nostalgia. Study 1 ( N = 320) confirmed the mediating role of conspiracy beliefs, while Study 2 …
Conspiracy thinking in American politics
Conspiratorial thinking is an indelible part of American politics; indeed, conspiracy theories proliferated in North America even before the founding of the United States. A current headwind of trends appears to facilitate a surge in conspiratorial thinking, including the increased spread and accessibility of misinformation, steady declines in public trust in authority figures, and an increasingly polarized electorate marked by mutual partisan an…
Political communication and conspiracy theory sharing on twitter
From conspiracies to insurgence: Understanding the path from conspiracy beliefs to political engagement through the 3N model of radicalization
Gender inequality and cultural values in explaining gender differences in positive and negative emotions: A comparison of 24 countries during the Covid-19 pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic posed a major challenge to mental health. Existing evidence shows that COVID-19 is related to poor emotional well-being, particularly among women. However, most work on the subject uses single-country samples, limiting the ability to generalize the disparity or explain it as a function of societal variables. The present study investigates the expression of positive and negative emotions during the pandemic as a function o…
Stronger Conspiracy Beliefs Are Associated With a Stronger Tendency to Act Dishonestly and an Overestimation of Others’ Dishonesty
Conspiracy theories assert that others have engaged in dishonest actions. However, existing research indicates that individuals who believe in conspiracy theories may themselves be more inclined to engage in dishonest behavior. We conducted two preregistered studies—one in Turkey ( N = 706) and the other in Canada ( N = 835) and South Africa, ( N = 867)—testing the hypotheses that conspiracy beliefs would be positively correlated with (a) dishone…
Denialist vs. warmist climate change conspiracy beliefs: Ideological roots, psychological correlates and environmental implications
In the current research, we use network analysis to examine the structure, ideological foundations and correlates of climate change conspiracy theories, distinguishing between denialist and warmist beliefs. Denialist beliefs, typically endorsed on the political right, claim that climate change is exaggerated, whereas warmist beliefs, more prevalent on the left, allege the suppression of climate science and the downplaying of climate change. Acros…
Reasons to believe: A systematic review and meta-analytic synthesis of the motives associated with conspiracy beliefs
Public Communication about Science in 68 Countries: Global Evidence on How People Encounter and Engage with Information about Science
This 68-country survey ( n = 71,922) examines science information diets and communication behavior, identifies cross-country differences, and tests how such differences are associated with sociopolitical and economic conditions. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most countries, except those with democratic-corporatist media systems where news media tend to be used more widely. People in collectivist soc…
Fighting fire with fire: Prebunking with the use of a plausible meta‐conspiracy framing
Prebunking can be used to pre‐emptively refute conspiracy narratives. We developed a new approach to prebunking – fighting fire with fire – which introduces a plausible ‘meta‐conspiracy’ suggesting that conspiracy theories are deliberately spread as part of a wider conspiracy. In two preregistered intervention studies, prebunking specific COVID‐19 vaccine (Study 1, N = 720) and climate change (Study 2, N = 1077) conspiracy theories (e.g. that cli…
Victims of Conspiracies? An Examination of the Relationship Between Conspiracy Beliefs and Dispositional Individual Victimhood
Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim, i.e., victim justice sensitivity (VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373) indicated a positive association between VJS and conspiracy mentality beyond conceptually related c…
Conspiracy Theories About Local Political Issues
Conspiracy theories typically accuse national governments and other powerful groups of secret and malevolent actions. However, conspiracy theories also exist at the level of local politics. In two studies focusing on local community issues in the United Kingdom—the building of a pedestrian plaza in a small seaside town and the establishment of a low emission traffic zone in London—we examined the variables associated with conspiracy beliefs about…
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
A threat-complexity hypothesis of conspiracy thinking during the Covid-19 pandemic: Cross-national and longitudinal evidence of a three-way interaction effect of financial strain, disempowerment and p…
One way to cope with crises is by attributing their ultimate causes to malevolent conspiracies. As crises are rarely simple, and may involve an interplay between multiple, co-occurring threats, we suggest that conspiracy thinking mainly occurs among individuals who experience conditions of threat complexity - such as socioeconomic vulnerability paired with a sense of helplessness in society, and who are also sufficiently paranoid to infer a consp…
The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and policy making
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to both exacerbate and ameliorate existing socioeconomic inequalities. In this article, we provide a state-of-the-art interdisciplinary overview of the potential impacts of generative AI on (mis)information and three information-intensive domains: work, education, and healthcare. Our goal is to highlight how generative AI could worsen existing inequalities while illuminating how AI may hel…
Engaging with Conspiracy Believers
Conspiracy theories abound in social and political discourse, believed by millions of people around the world. In this article, we highlight when it is important to engage with people who believe in conspiracy theories and review recent literature highlighting how best to do so. We first summarise research on the potentially damaging consequences of conspiracy beliefs for individuals, including consequences related to psychopathology. We also foc…
The Precarity of Progress: Implications of a Shifting Gendered Division of Labor for Relationships and Well-Being as a Function of Country-Level Gender Equality
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a shift toward a more traditional division of labor–one where women took greater responsibility for household tasks and childcare than men. We tested whether this regressive shift was more acutely perceived and experienced by women in countries with greater gender equality. Cross-cultural longitudinal survey data for women and men ( N = 10,238) was collected weekly during the first few months of the pandemic…
What Are Conspiracy Theories? A Definitional Approach to Their Correlates, Consequences, and Communication
Conspiracy theories are abundant in social and political discourse, with serious consequences for individuals, groups, and societies. However, psychological scientists have started paying close attention to them only in the past 20 years. We review the spectacular progress that has since been made and some of the limitations of research so far, and we consider the prospects for further progress. To this end, we take a step back to analyze the def…
Intentions to be Vaccinated Against Covid-19: The Role of Prosociality and Conspiracy Beliefs across 20 Countries
Understanding the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake is important to inform policy decisions and plan vaccination campaigns. The aims of this research were to: (1) explore the individual- and country-level determinants of intentions to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, and (2) examine worldwide variation in vaccination intentions. This cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, involving 6697 responden…
Changing minds about minds: Evidence that people are too sceptical about animal sentience
Our relationships with other animals are governed by how we view their capacity for sentience and suffering. However, there is currently little agreement as to whether people's beliefs about animal minds are largely accurate or inaccurate. We used an innovative task to examine how people update their beliefs in response to noisy but informative clues about animal minds. This allowed us to compare participants' posterior beliefs to what a normativ…
The Social Science of QAnon: A New Social and Political Phenomenon
QAnon has emerged as the defining conspiracy group of our times, and its far-right conspiracies are extraordinary for their breadth and extremity. Bringing together scholars from psychology, sociology, communications, and political science, this cutting-edge volume uses social science theory to investigate aspects of QAnon. Following an introduction to the 'who, what, and why' of QAnon, Part I focuses on the psychological characteristics of QAnon…
Pandemic boredom: Little evidence that lockdown-related boredom affects risky public health behaviors across 116 countries
Some public officials have expressed concern that policies mandating collective public health behaviors (e.g., national/regional "lockdown") may result in behavioral fatigue that ultimately renders such policies ineffective. Boredom, specifically, has been singled out as one potential risk factor for noncompliance. We examined whether there was empirical evidence to support this concern during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large cross-national sampl…
Understanding Conspiracy Theories
Scholarly efforts to understand conspiracy theories have grown significantly in recent years, and there is now a broad and interdisciplinary literature. In reviewing this body of work, we ask three specific questions. First, what factors are associated with conspiracy beliefs? Our review of the literature shows that conspiracy beliefs result from a range of psychological, political, and social factors. Next, how are conspiracy theories communicat…
Using social and behavioural science to support Covid-19 pandemic response
Conspiracy theories as part of history: The role of societal crisis situations
In the present contribution, we examine the link between societal crisis situations and belief in conspiracy theories. Contrary to common assumptions, belief in conspiracy theories has been prevalent throughout human history. We first illustrate historical incidents suggesting that societal crisis situations-defined as impactful and rapid societal change that calls established power structures, norms of conduct, or even the existence of specific …
The social consequences of conspiracism: Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and to reduce one's carbon footprint
The current studies explored the social consequences of exposure to conspiracy theories. In Study 1, participants were exposed to a range of conspiracy theories concerning government involvement in significant events such as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Results revealed that exposure to information supporting conspiracy theories reduced participants' intentions to engage in politics, relative to participants who were given information r…
Abortion Attitudes: An Overview of Demographic and Ideological Differences
Despite being a defining issue in the culture war, the political psychology of abortion attitudes remains poorly understood. We address this oversight by reviewing existing literature and integrating new analyses of several large‐scale, cross‐sectional, and longitudinal datasets to identify the demographic and ideological correlates of abortion attitudes. Our review and new analyses indicate that abortion support is increasing modestly over time …
Covid-19 conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories started to appear on social media immediately after the first news about COVID-19. Is the virus a hoax? Is it a bioweapon designed in a Chinese laboratory? These conspiracy theories typically have an intergroup flavour, blaming one group for having some involvement in either manufacturing the virus or controlling public opinion about it. In this article, I will discuss why people are attracted to conspiracy theories in general…
Belief in conspiracy theories: Basic principles of an emerging research domain
In this introduction to the EJSP Special Issue on conspiracy theories as a social psychological phenomenon, we describe how this emerging research domain has developed over the past decade and distill four basic principles that characterize belief in conspiracy theories. Specifically, conspiracy theories are consequential as they have a real impact on people's health, relationships, and safety; they are universal in that belief in them is widespr…
Conspiracy mentality and political orientation across 26 countries
I Know Things They Don't Know: The Role of Need for Uniqueness in Belief in Conspiracy Theories
In the current research, we investigated whether belief in conspiracy theories satisfies people's need for uniqueness. We found that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories was associated with the feeling of possessing scarce information about the situations explained by the conspiracy theories (Study 1) and higher need for uniqueness (Study 2). Further two studies using two different manipulations of need for uniqueness (Studies 3 and 4) …
Exposure to intergroup conspiracy theories promotes prejudice which spreads across groups
This research experimentally examined the effects of exposure to intergroup conspiracy theories on prejudice and discrimination. Study 1 (N = 166) demonstrated that exposure to conspiracy theories concerning immigrants to Britain from the European Union (vs. anti-conspiracy material or a control) exacerbated prejudice towards this group. Study 2 (N = 173) found the same effect in a different intergroup context - exposure to conspiracy theories ab…
Blaming a Few Bad Apples to Save a Threatened Barrel: The System‐Justifying Function of Conspiracy Theories
This research demonstrates that conspiracy theories—often represented as subversive alternatives to establishment narratives—may bolster, rather than undermine, support for the social status quo when its legitimacy is under threat. A pilot study (N = 98) found a positive relationship between conspiracy belief and satisfaction with the status quo. In Study 1 (N = 120), threatening (vs. affirming) the status quo in British society caused participan…
Connecting the dots: Illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural
A common assumption is that belief in conspiracy theories and supernatural phenomena are grounded in illusory pattern perception. In the present research we systematically tested this assumption. Study 1 revealed that such irrational beliefs are related to perceiving patterns in randomly generated coin toss outcomes. In Study 2, pattern search instructions exerted an indirect effect on irrational beliefs through pattern perception. Study 3 reveal…
Effects of communication goals and expectancies on language abstraction
Language abstraction is an important aspect of the description of behavioral events (G.R. Semin & K. Fiedler, 1988) that is typically viewed as a medium by which describers transmit beliefs without conscious awareness or control. Complementary to this view, the authors propose that language abstraction may also be influenced by explicit communication goals such as aggrandizement or derogation, allowing describers to express beliefs that they do n…
Investigating the Links Between Cultural Values and Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Key Roles of Collectivism and Masculinity
Research suggests that belief in conspiracy theories (CT) stems from basic psychological mechanisms and is linked to other belief systems (e.g., religious beliefs). While previous research has extensively examined individual and contextual variables associated with CT beliefs, it has not yet investigated the role of culture. In the current research, we tested, based on a situated cultural cognition perspective, the extent to which culture predict…
When what you say about others says something about you: Language abstraction and inferences about describers’ attitudes and goals
Keeping it to Ourselves: Effects of Audience Size and Composition on Reactions to Criticisms of the Ingroup
Criticism is an important aspect of communication within and between groups, but reactions to criticism of groups have been little studied. Past research has shown that criticism elicits greater sensitivity when made by an outgroup member, compared to an ingroup member. Two experiments were conducted to examine how this intergroup sensitivity effect (ISE) is affected by the context of the criticism. Experiment 1 showed that the ISE occurs in a pr…
Suspicion in the workplace: Organizational conspiracy theories and work-related outcomes
Belief in conspiracy theories about societal events is widespread and has important consequences for political, health, and environmental behaviour. Little is known, however, about how conspiracy theorizing affects people's everyday working lives. In the present research, we predicted that belief in conspiracy theories about the workplace would be associated with increased turnover intentions. We further hypothesized that belief in these organiza…
Understanding Cyberhate: Social Competition and Social Creativity in Online White Supremacist Groups
This study investigated the self-enhancement strategies used by online White supremacist groups. In accordance with social identity theory, we proposed that White supremacist groups, in perceiving themselves as members of a high-status, impermeable group under threat from out-groups, should advocate more social conflict than social creativity strategies. We also expected levels of advocated violence to be lower than levels of social conflict and …
A power‐challenging theory of society, or a conservative mindset? Upward and downward conspiracy theories as ideologically distinct beliefs
Even though conspiracy theories are diverse, they are typically construed as a homogeneous phenomenon. Using classic theorizations of conspiracy theories by Popper and Moscovici, we propose to distinguish between belief in upward conspiracy theories (i.e., targeting relatively powerful groups) and downward conspiracy theories (i.e., targeting relatively powerless groups). The former are theorized as power‐challenging beliefs and the latter are th…
Sharpening Our Focus in Measuring Classroom Instruction
This commentary highlights convergent themes from four articles in the March 2009 issue of Educational Researcher on measuring classroom instruction. Classroom instruction is a complex enterprise that occurs at the intersection of teachers, students, and texts within the surrounding classroom, school, and community environments. Progress in studying the complexity of classroom instruction on a large scale relies on our ability to pose research qu…
Benevolent Sexism, Perceived Health Risks, and the Inclination to Restrict Pregnant Women’s Freedoms
Unpalatable truths: Commitment to eating meat is associated with strategic ignorance of food-animal minds
By their words ye shall know them: Language abstraction and the likeability of describers
According to the linguistic category model (LCM), behaviour can be described at concrete (e.g. ‘Kath hit Kim’) and abstract (e.g. ‘Kath is aggressive ’) levels. Variations in these levels convey information about the person being described and the relationship between that person and the describer. In the current research, we examined the power of language abstraction to create impressions of describers themselves. Results show that describers ar…
When is it wrong to eat animals? The relevance of different animal traits and behaviours
Research suggests that animals’ capacity for agency, experience, and benevolence predict beliefs about their moral treatment. Four studies built on this work by examining how fine‐grained information about animals’ traits and behaviours (e.g., can store food for later vs. can use tools) shifted moral beliefs about eating and harming animals. The information that most strongly affected moral beliefs was related to secondary emotions (e.g., can fee…
Flattering to deceive: Why people misunderstand benevolent sexism
Perceptions of warmth play a central role in social cognition. Seven studies use observational, correlational, and experimental methods to examine its role in concealing the functions of benevolent sexism (BS). Together, Studies 1 (n = 297), 2 (n = 252), and 3 (n = 219) indicated that although women recall experiencing benevolent (vs. hostile) sexism more often, they protest it less often, because they see it as warm. In Studies 4 (n = 296) and 5…
Effects of communication goals and expectancies on language abstraction
Language abstraction is an important aspect of the description of behavioral events (G.R. Semin & K. Fiedler, 1988) that is typically viewed as a medium by which describers transmit beliefs without conscious awareness or control. Complementary to this view, the authors propose that language abstraction may also be influenced by explicit communication goals such as aggrandizement or derogation, allowing describers to express beliefs that they do n…
Justice for all, or just for me? More evidence of the importance of the self-other distinction in just-world beliefs
Keeping it to Ourselves: Effects of Audience Size and Composition on Reactions to Criticisms of the Ingroup
Criticism is an important aspect of communication within and between groups, but reactions to criticism of groups have been little studied. Past research has shown that criticism elicits greater sensitivity when made by an outgroup member, compared to an ingroup member. Two experiments were conducted to examine how this intergroup sensitivity effect (ISE) is affected by the context of the criticism. Experiment 1 showed that the ISE occurs in a pr…
Understanding Cyberhate: Social Competition and Social Creativity in Online White Supremacist Groups
This study investigated the self-enhancement strategies used by online White supremacist groups. In accordance with social identity theory, we proposed that White supremacist groups, in perceiving themselves as members of a high-status, impermeable group under threat from out-groups, should advocate more social conflict than social creativity strategies. We also expected levels of advocated violence to be lower than levels of social conflict and …
When what you say about others says something about you: Language abstraction and inferences about describers’ attitudes and goals
Perceptions of social influence when messages favour ‘us’ versus ‘them’: A closer look at the social distance effect
The third‐person effect (TPE) is the tendency for individuals to assume that persuasive communications have a stronger effect on other people than on themselves. In turn the social distance effect (SDE) is the tendency for this TPE to increase with the psychological distance between self and comparator. Two experiments showed that the SDE is moderated by whether the message favours the ingroup or the outgroup, holding all other content constant. …
The Hidden Impact of Conspiracy Theories: Perceived and Actual Influence of Theories Surrounding the Death of Princess Diana
The authors examined the perceived and actual impact of exposure to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. One group of undergraduate students rated their agreement and their classmates' perceived agreement with several statements about Diana's death. A second group of students from the same undergraduate population read material containing popular conspiracy theories about Diana's death before rating thei…
Justice for Whom, Exactly? Beliefs in Justice for the Self and Various Others
The present studies examine why people think the world is more just to themselves than to others generally. Beliefs in justice for the self were uniquely associated with psychological adjustment, consistent with the theoretical motive to believe in justice for the self (Studies 1 and 2). However, this “justice motive” did not appear to affect the relative strength of justice beliefs. Instead, self–other differences in justice beliefs appeared to …
Could You Mind Your Language: An Investigation of Communicators' Ability to Inhibit Linguistic Bias
Three experiments that examine communicators' ability to inhibit linguistic bias are reported. Research has shown that communicators use more abstract language (e.g., "Jamie is affectionate" vs. "Jamie kisses Rose") to describe more expected behavior. Recent research has shown that this bias may be overwhelmed by goals to put a "spin" on actions or to manipulate audiences' impressions of actors. Similarly, the present experiments show that people…
Celebrating Two Decades of Linguistic Bias Research: An Introduction
The authors introduce a special issue of the Journal of Language and Social Psychology on linguistic bias, celebrating two decades of research since G. R. Semin and K. Fiedler (1988) first published the linguistic category model (LCM). The LCM has been highly cited and generative and provides a parsimonious framework for investigations of the role of language in social-psychological phenomena. Indeed, the articles in this issue are notable for ad…
Sharpening Our Focus in Measuring Classroom Instruction
This commentary highlights convergent themes from four articles in the March 2009 issue of Educational Researcher on measuring classroom instruction. Classroom instruction is a complex enterprise that occurs at the intersection of teachers, students, and texts within the surrounding classroom, school, and community environments. Progress in studying the complexity of classroom instruction on a large scale relies on our ability to pose research qu…
Benevolent Sexism, Perceived Health Risks, and the Inclination to Restrict Pregnant Women’s Freedoms
By their words ye shall know them: Language abstraction and the likeability of describers
According to the linguistic category model (LCM), behaviour can be described at concrete (e.g. ‘Kath hit Kim’) and abstract (e.g. ‘Kath is aggressive ’) levels. Variations in these levels convey information about the person being described and the relationship between that person and the describer. In the current research, we examined the power of language abstraction to create impressions of describers themselves. Results show that describers ar…
Does it take one to know one? Endorsement of conspiracy theories is influenced by personal willingness to conspire
We advance a new account of why people endorse conspiracy theories, arguing that individuals use the social–cognitive tool of projection when making social judgements about others. In two studies, we found that individuals were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories if they thought they would be willing, personally, to participate in the alleged conspiracies. Study 1 established an association between conspiracy beliefs and personal willingne…
Constructive or cruel? Positive or patronizing? Reactions to expressions of positive and negative stereotypes of the mentally ill
Previous research has shown that people respond with greater sensitivity to negative stereotypical comments about a group that are made from someone outside the group in question than from someone who belongs to the group. In this paper, we investigated if the same effect occurs in response to comments made about stigmatized groups. Specifically, we examined how people react to comments made about the mentally ill. The conditions under which peop…
Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories can form a monological belief system: A self-sustaining worldview comprised of a network of mutually supportive beliefs. The present research shows that even mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively correlated in endorsement. In Study 1 ( n = 137), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered. In Study 2 ( n = 102), the more participants be…
Is no praise good praise? Effects of positive feedback on children's and university students’ responses to subsequent failures
Background. According to Dweck and colleagues, praise can be delivered using person (‘you are clever') or process terms (‘you worked hard'). Research suggests that giving people process praise after success can help them deal better with subsequent failures because it attributes outcomes to effort rather than fixed ability. However, research has thus far inadequately addressed how these types of praise compare to receiving no evaluative feedback.…
The "Big Two" in Political Communication: The Effects of Attacking and Defending Politicians’ Leadership or Morality
In two experimental studies (conducted in Britain and Italy), participants read about a politician answering to leadership- versus morality-related allegations using either downward counterfactuals ("things could have been worse, if ...") or upward counterfactuals ("things could have been better, if ..."). Downward messages increased the perception of the politician's leadership, while both downward and upward messages increased morality percepti…
The social consequences of conspiracism: Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and to reduce one's carbon footprint
The current studies explored the social consequences of exposure to conspiracy theories. In Study 1, participants were exposed to a range of conspiracy theories concerning government involvement in significant events such as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Results revealed that exposure to information supporting conspiracy theories reduced participants' intentions to engage in politics, relative to participants who were given information r…
"A Giant Leap for Mankind" But What About Women? The Role of System-Justifying Ideologies in Predicting Attitudes Toward Sexist Language
Sexist language excludes, trivializes, or diminishes either gender. Despite efforts by many professional bodies to encourage the use of nonsexist alternatives, sexist language use persists across many languages. Furthermore, research has shown that men are less supportive of nonsexist language alternatives than women, and that this effect is mediated by attitudes toward women. We propose that broader ideologies related to the perceived legitimacy…
Climate change: Why the conspiracy theories are dangerous
Uncertainty surrounds the public understanding of climate change and provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Typically, such conspiracy theories assert that climate scientists and politicians are distorting or hijacking the science to suit their own purposes. Climate change conspiracy theories resemble other conspiracy theories in some respects, but in others they appear to be quite different. For example, climate change conspiracy theor…
The Psychology of Conspiracy
Once they have reached public awareness, unfounded conspiracy allegations may be a powerful source of influence, swaying people's attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, with potentially damaging consequences not only for individuals, but also for the broader society. In the case of vaccination, it only takes a small number of refusals to compromise herd immunity and see the return of diseases long thought to have been eliminated. In this chapter, …
Someone is pulling the strings: Hypersensitive agency detection and belief in conspiracy theories
We hypothesised that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesised that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 (N = 202) participants were more likely to agr…
The influence of teacher feedback on children's perceptions of student-teacher relationships
BackgroundTeachers can deliver feedback using person ('you are clever') or process terms ('you worked hard'). Person feedback can lead to negative academic outcomes, but there is little experimental research examining the impact of feedback on children's perceptions of the student-teacher relationship.AimWe examined the effects of person, process, and no feedback on children's perceptions of their relationship with a (fictional) teacher following…
Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: Validation of a French and English Single-Item Scale
We designed, in French and in English, a single-item scale to measure people’s general tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. The validity and reliability of this scale was assessed in 3 studies (total N = 555). In Study 1 (N = 152), positive correlations between the single-item scale and 3 other conspiracy belief scales on a French student sample suggested good concurrent validity. In Study 2 (N = 292), we replicated these results on a larg…
Psychology (81 works) · Social Psychology (73 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (51 works) · Political science (37 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (33 works) · Politics (27 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Epistemology (24 works) · Law (24 works) · Social Psychology (21 works)