The social consequences of conspiracism: Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and to reduce one's carbon footprint

Jolley, Daniel; Douglas, Karen M.

doi:10.1111/bjop.12018

Cited by 472 publications

(522 citation statements)

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“…Another important finding of this paper concerns the effect of the explanations of the crisis on political participation. Indeed, contrary to findings that indicate that beliefs in conspiracy theories (e.g., Lantian, Muller, Nurra & Douglas, 2016) reduce civic engagement (Jolley & Douglas, 2014), the current research shows that the beliefs that the crisis is due to a global governance plan promote social change efforts through political participation.…”

Section: Presenting the Special Issuecontrasting

confidence: 99%

Socio-cognitive Elaborations and Reactions to Economic Crisis: Insights from Social Psychology

Παπαστάμου

Valentim

Mari

et al. 2018

International Review of Social Psychology

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This special issue dedicated to the social psychological study of the economic crisis in four European Union countries along the Mediterranean includes six empirical papers discussing different aspects of the phenomenon. Four papers are part of a larger project that started in 2011, aiming to compare the social representations of the economic crisis in France, Greece, Italy, and Portugal. Starting from the study of the social representations of the causes of the crisis and the measures to overcome it, various social psychological parameters that interfere are examined. Thus, the political, ideological, and social positioning, and the axiological universe of the participants are considered as important predictors and mediators in the different papers. Additionally, possible political participatory activities in reaction to the crisis are considered. The presentation of the outcome of this research project is completed by a paper analyzing the way the crisis was depicted in the Italian press and a paper looking at the impact of the financial threat to political participation in France. The research presented here reveals the ways social subjects give meaning to a situation of crisis and thus provides social and political insights into social thinking and behavior with important policy implications for individual nations as well as Europe at large. In this paper, we present the general framework of the studies carried out and we introduce the collection of empirical papers of the special issue.

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Section: Presenting the Special Issuecontrasting

confidence: 99%

Socio-cognitive Elaborations and Reactions to Economic Crisis: Insights from Social Psychology

Παπαστάμου

Valentim

Mari

et al. 2018

International Review of Social Psychology

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“…Indeed, it should be emphasized that so far, the predictive validity of conspiracy belief at the behavioral level has not been well investigated. With the exception of a small number of studies that have measured behavioral intentions (e.g., Jolley & Douglas, 2014a, 2014b, little is known about how conspiracy belief may influence people's decision-making and then their actual behaviors. Thus the present findings also represent a contribution regarding the extent to which conspiracy belief may translate at least into low level action (i.e., asking for more information about conspiracies).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some scholars have argued that conspiracy belief may be empowering, allowing people to confront social hierarchies and offer alternative understandings of social reality (Gray, 2010;Sapountzis & Condor, 2013). However, conspiracy belief is also known to negatively affect political and pro-environmental intentions (Jolley & Douglas, 2014a), intentions to vaccinate (Jolley & Douglas, 2014b), and is positively related to the rejection of scientific findings, such as the established link between smoking and lung cancer (Lewandowsky, Gignac, & Oberauer, 2013). Emerging evidence of the potential consequences of conspiracy belief therefore means that it is important for researchers to have reliable and valid measures of the extent to which people are inclined toward conspiracist thoughts.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: Validation of a French and English Single-Item Scale

Lantian¹,

Michelet²,

Nurra³

et al. 2016

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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 larger and more heterogeneous Internet American sample. Moreover, the scale showed good predictive validity-responses predicted participants' willingness to receive a bi-monthly newsletter about alleged conspiracy theories. Finally, in Study 3 (N = 111), we observed good test-retest reliability and demonstrated both convergent and discriminant validity of the single-item scale. Overall these results suggest that the single-item conspiracy belief scale has good validity and reliability and may be used to measure conspiracy belief in favor of lengthier existing scales. In addition, the validation of the singleitem scale led us to develop and start validating French versions of the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs scale, the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire, and a 10-item version (instead of the 15-item original version) of the Belief in Conspiracy Theories Inventory.

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“…In most cases, such conspiracies are considered as a plot of either powerful groups (such as politicians, CEOs, bankers) or minorities (such as Muslims or Jews). Prominent examples of contemporary conspiracy beliefs pertain to issues such as climate change (Jolley & Douglas, 2014), the financial crisis and the common belief about the corrupt and nocuous nature of decision-makers, among others. Although there is a wide range of possible conspiracy theories, individuals who believe in one conspiracy theory are more likely to believe in other conspiracy theories (Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Gignac, 2013;Swami et al, 2011Swami et al, , 2013.…”

Section: Conspiracy Beliefs and Extreme Political Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Does extreme political ideology predict conspiracy beliefs, economic evaluations and political trust? Evidence from Sweden

Krouwel¹,

Kutiyski²,

Prooijen

et al. 2017

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

101

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A large volume of academic research has demonstrated that individuals who profess radical political ideology, both left-and right-wing, tend to share similar underlying psychological patterns. By utilizing data collected through a voting advice application in Sweden, this study aims to assess whether extreme leftists and rightists share similarities in the psychological and political understanding of how society functions. We propose three hypotheses to test this pattern: Extreme left and right individuals are more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories than moderates; they are more likely to have negative economic evaluations; and they are less politically and interpersonally trustful. By means of hierarchical regression analyses, we reveal a quadratic relationship between extreme political ideology and conspiracy beliefs. Moreover, we find a similar linkage between ideology and economic evaluations. However, the empirical analyses fail to provide evidence that extreme ideology is related to lower political and interpersonal trust.Keywords: political ideology, economic evaluations, trust, conspiracy belief, extremism Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2017, Vol. 5(2), 435-462, doi:10.5964/jspp.v5i2.745 Received: 2016-12-08. Accepted: 2017-09-10. Published (VoR): 2017-10-28.Handling Editor: Małgorzata Kossowska, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland *Corresponding author at: Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 334 2 1012 RW Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: andre.krouwel@vu.nl This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Throughout the 20 th century, radical political ideologies served as the propeller of tragic events that have left a deep mark in human history (Baumeister, 1997;Midlarsky, 2011). Movements of the radical right, such as Fascism and Nazism, were ideologically driven to commit unimaginable crimes against humanity which resulted in the death of millions. On the left, communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states, as well as in numerous Asian countries were responsible for comparable atrocities. Even though there are substantial differences between these ideologies, political psychologists have noted that extreme left-and right-wing ideologies may share a similar underlying psychological pattern (Greenberg & Jonas, 2003). In order to assess whether rigid devotion to extreme political ideology on both the left and the right corresponds to a similar psychological under- jspp.psychopen.eu | 2195-3325 standing of the world, it is necessary to compare radical individuals and test if their comprehension of the functioning of society is identical. Journal of Social and Political PsychologyAlthough extremist regimes of the past are in many ways hard to compare to political actors that are considered relatively extreme in the current politi...

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The social consequences of conspiracism: Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and to reduce one's carbon footprint

Cited by 472 publications

References 60 publications

Socio-cognitive Elaborations and Reactions to Economic Crisis: Insights from Social Psychology

Socio-cognitive Elaborations and Reactions to Economic Crisis: Insights from Social Psychology

Measuring Belief in Conspiracy Theories: Validation of a French and English Single-Item Scale

Does extreme political ideology predict conspiracy beliefs, economic evaluations and political trust? Evidence from Sweden

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