Jocelyn J Bélanger

Biographic Data

ID207347
NAMEJocelyn J Bélanger
GIVEN NAMESJocelyn J
FAMILY NAMEBélanger
SIGNATUREBÉLANGER J J
AFFILIATIONSNew York University Abu Dhabi
ORCID0000-0003-3881-0335
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS53
TOTAL CITATIONS310
AUTHOR COUNT53
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2012
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX8

  • Calculating Crisis

    Open AccessDaniel W Snook, Jocelyn J Bélanger et al.ARTICLEJournal of Loss and Trauma2026

    Many people experience periods of severe stress or trauma in which they question and rethink their core beliefs about life. This recently conceptualized phenomenon, labeled Crisis of Belief, has been clearly theoretically specified, but has yet to be operationalized. In a series of six studies (total N = 2,739), we developed and validated a psychometric designed to measure this construct, called the Crisis of Belief Scale (COBS). Studies 1 and 2 …

  • Pacifist or Peace Psychology? Overcoming Naïve Pacifism to Foster a True Science of Peace‐Making

    Open AccessJais Adam‐troian, Thomas Arciszewski et al.ARTICLEConflict Resolution Quarterly2026

    Recent geopolitical events have exposed critical gaps in the ability of peace and conflict psychology (PCP) to engage with conflicts beyond intractable or postwar contexts. This paper introduces the concept of “naïve pacifism” to describe underlying assumptions in PCP that may limit its ability to address complex modern conflicts effectively. Three pillars of naïve pacifism are identified: (1) the homeostatic view of peace as the natural state an…

  • Gender inequality and cultural values in explaining gender differences in positive and negative emotions

    Open AccessRobin Wollast, Adrian Lüders et al.ARTICLECurrent Psychology2025

    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…

  • Just World Beliefs in a Time of Crisis

    Open AccessPeter Strelan, Melinda Manning et al.ARTICLESocial Justice Research2025

    Belief in a just world (BJW) is well established as a coping resource, particularly for those times when the world is experienced as uncertain, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic was such a time, and therefore provided an opportunity to test the boundary conditions of BJW theorizing. Here, we make a new methodological contribution, testing (a) cross-lagged panel effects of BJW on mental health and well-bein…

  • Lived Experience and Messenger Credibility

    Darryl Koehler, Marshall H Becker et al.ARTICLEStudies in Conflict and Terrorism2025

    This study examines messenger credibility in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE), comparing lived experience (i.e. former extremist and victims of terrorism) messengers to professional experts using experimental data from a representative German sample (N = 2004). Findings suggest institutional messengers may be more credible due to professional expertise, challenging assumptions about lived experience credibility. Replicating a U…

  • Group Relative Deprivation and Violent Radicalism

    Open AccessSerge Guimond, Jais Adam‐troian et al.ARTICLEJournal of Theoretical Social…2025References: 45

    Many terrorist attacks, carried out in the name of Islam, have posed significant threats to human lives across the globe. Research aiming to understand the roots of radicalism has identified Group Relative Deprivation (GRD) as a central explanatory concept. The present research (Study 1, N = 209; Study 2, N = 611; Study 3, N = 638) conducted in France, home to Western Europe’s largest Muslim community, failed to confirm the role of GRD in explain…

  • By Any Means Necessary

    Open AccessDaniel W Snook, Abdelhamid Bouhelal et al.ARTICLEJournal of Community & Applied…2025References: 5

    This research delves into the nexus between moral reasoning and ideological passion, examining their combined effect on ideological violence. Building upon the dualistic model of passion, we posited that obsessive passion for an ideology would predict increased ideological violence intentions. We further postulated that utilitarian moral reasoning would amplify the obsessive passion–ideological violence relationship. We used correlational methods…

  • A threat-complexity hypothesis of conspiracy thinking during the Covid-19 pandemic

    Open AccessGennaro Pica, N Pontus Leander et al.ARTICLEJournal of Social and Personal…2025Cited by: 1References: 56

    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…

  • Addressing climate change with behavioral science

    Open AccessMadalina Vlasceanu, Kimberly C Doell et al.ARTICLEScience Advances2024

    Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interve…

  • The Precarity of Progress

    Open AccessAlexandra N Fisher, Michelle K Ryan et al.ARTICLESex Roles2024Cited by: 3References: 12

    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…

  • Passion for guns and beliefs in a dangerous world

    Open AccessJocelyn J Bélanger, N Pontus Leander et al.ARTICLEAggressive Behavior2024Cited by: 1References: 44

    This research examines the notion of defensive gun ownership using the Dualistic Model of Passion. We hypothesized that an obsessive (vs. harmonious) passion for guns would be associated with a belief in a dangerous world (BDW). We expected this relationship to intensify in threatening contexts, leading to a more expansive view on defensive gun ownership. We tested this hypothesis across three threat contexts: a gun‐control message (Study 1, N = …

  • Beyond Eyeball Tests

    Open AccessJais Adam‐troian, Jocelyn J BélangerARTICLEAggressive Behavior2024References: 29

    In our original study, “Consumed by Creed” (Adam‐Troian & Bélanger, 2024), we established significant and consistent associations between obsessive‐compulsive disorder symptom severity and radical intentions across four distinct U.S. population samples—Environmentalists, Republicans, Democrats, and Muslims—partially or fully mediated by obsessive passion. Fillon et al. (2024) challenged our findings, alleging methodological errors and an excessiv…

  • Consumed by creed”

    Open AccessJais Adam‐troian, Jocelyn J BélangerARTICLEAggressive Behavior2024Cited by: 2References: 81

    Radicalization is a process by which individuals are introduced to an ideological belief system that encourages political, religious, or social change through the use of violence. Here we formulate an obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) model of radicalization that links obsessive passion (OP; one of the best predictors of radical intentions) to a larger body of clinical research. The model's central tenet is that individual differences in OCD sy…

  • Covid-19 may have increased global support for universal health coverage

    Open AccessClaudia F Nisa, Xiaoxi Yan et al.ARTICLEFrontiers in Public Health2023

    Introduction The multiple risks generated by the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the debate about healthcare access and coverage. Whether the burden of disease caused by the coronavirus outbreak changed public opinion about healthcare provision remains unclear. In this study, it was specifically examined if the pandemic changed support for governmental intervention in healthcare as a proxy to support for universal health coverage (UHC). It also exa…

  • When diversity leads to closed-mindedness

    Open AccessBirga M Schumpe, Jocelyn J Bélanger et al.ARTICLECurrent Psychology2023

    This paper makes a case for explaining diversity effects through cognitive factors as compared to demographic or other differences in backgrounds. We argue that studying perceived diversity in conjunction with diversity beliefs can explain positive and negative effects through a motivated opening or closing of the mind (Need for Cognitive Closure, NFCC). NFCC is the motivation to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity. In Study 1, we experimentally demo…

  • Intentions to be Vaccinated Against Covid-19

    Violeta Enea, Nikolett Eisenbeck et al.ARTICLEHealth Communication2023

    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…

  • The role of values in coping with health and economic threats of Covid-19

    Edward P Lemay, Arie W Kruglanski et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Social Psychology2023

    61,490) suggest that health and economic threats of COVID-19 evoke different values, with implications for controlling and coping with the pandemic. Specifically, health threats predicted prioritization of communal values related to caring for others and belonging, whereas economic threats predicted prioritization of agentic values focused on competition and achievement. Concurrently and over time, prioritizing communal values over agentic values…

  • Impact of National Pandemic Lockdowns on Perceived Threat of Immigrants

    Open AccessQing Han, Bang Zheng et al.ARTICLESocial Psychological and…2023

    Xenophobia and anti-immigrant attacks rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet this may not be solely due to the disease threat. According to theories of frustration and scapegoating, situational obstructions and deprivation can motivate prejudice against outgroups. Using a global natural quasi-experimental design, this study tests whether the restrictiveness of national lockdowns can explain higher individual-level perceptions of immigrant threat.…

  • Pandemic boredom

    Erin C Westgate, Nicholas Buttrick et al.ARTICLEEmotion2023

    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…

  • Identifying important individual‐ and country‐level predictors of conspiracy theorizing

    Open AccessKaren M Douglas, Robbie M Sutton et al.ARTICLEEuropean Journal of Social…2023Cited by: 3References: 50

    Psychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing—explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make it difficult to examine the relative importance of predictors, and risk overlooking some potentially rel…

  • Don’t Kill the Messenger

    Darryl Koehler, Gordon Clubb et al.ARTICLEStudies in Conflict and Terrorism2023Cited by: 5References: 7

    Former extremists and terrorists ('formers') are seen as key messengers and mentors in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE). Their assumed effectiveness rests on their unique, intrinsic source credibility due to their biography. Having 'walked the walk' and 'talked the talk', it is widely assumed that such individuals are ideal to present counter messages. Formers are typically viewed as more credible and effective messengers in co…

  • Lockdown Lives

    Open AccessJolien van Breen, Maja Kutlaca et al.ARTICLEPersonality and Social Psychology…2022

    We examine how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. From the PsyCorona database, we obtained longitudinal data from 23 countries, collected between March and May 2020. The results demonstrated that although online contacts help to reduce feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to use that strategy. Solidarity played only a small role in s…

  • Cult conversion from the perspective of families

    Álvaro Castaño, Jocelyn J Bélanger et al.ARTICLEPsychology of Religion and…2022

  • Urban environments favorable to radical narratives

    Open AccessManuel Moyano, Jocelyn J Bélanger et al.ARTICLEPragmatics and Society2022

    This paper aims to study the process of violent radicalization in El Puche, a marginal neighborhood of Spain with a high percentage of disenfranchised Muslims. Particularly, we explore whether this neighborhood exhibits the factors proposed by the 3N model of radicalization: needs, networks, and narratives. We present two studies in which we analyze these factors. In the first study, we compare needs and networks between Muslims ( N = 47) and Chr…

  • Assessing the effectiveness of food waste messaging

    Open AccessClaudia F Nisa, Jocelyn J Bélanger et al.ARTICLEEnvironmental Science & Policy2022References: 6