Now in front of the paywall- me spiraling about how we have lots of useful interventions against misinformation but most of them don't work when tech isn't willing to implement them and the misinformation is coming from the people currently in charge of public health
thebulletin.org/premium/2026...
🧵 3 papers by me & my team Ullrich Ecker Fabio Carrella Emily Spearing Almog Simchon ask an urgent question: if you tell people they're being manipulated by AI — deepfakes, AI-written articles, microtargeted ads — is the manipulation defanged?
Thread 👇
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What do laypeople think causes conspiracy beliefs? New research suggests that people tend to attribute these beliefs most strongly to influence from social media and misinformation.
Read more in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin: https://ow.ly/HSrZ50YioS5
🔔 Registration closing soon!
Sign up for “Engaging with Conspiracy Theories, Fostering Democracy” before Monday 23rd March.
Details below 👇
How can counterfactual thinking help tackle conspiracy theories?
The short (~3 minute) answer is in our @spspnews.bsky.social blog post (with @kwinter.bsky.social, @kaiepstude.bsky.social, and Bob Fennis):
spsp.org/news/charact...
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certainty and belonging noted as key needs for individuals swindled into cults
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...
Brady Wagoner
Today’s post is by Brady Wagoner, (University of Copenhagen and Aalborg University). With Maja Sødinge Jørgensen and Kirstine Pahuus he published a article in Current Opinion in Psychology: “Conspiracy theories through the lens of collective memory”.
#philsky #philsky
imperfectcognitions....
This is what happens when the Secretary of HHS rejects science and adopts conspiracy theories.
And, unless we stop it, epidemics could become much worse.
www.uchealth.org/today/is-mea...
What do laypeople think causes conspiracy beliefs?
We (@kaiepstude.bsky.social, Bob Fennis, and I) look at this and other questions in a new PSPB paper combining six correlational studies and a qualitative one.
Read the open-access paper here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
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Kent Psychology is hiring 🎓We have two posts: 1) open area and 2) cog neuro. More details can be found here: jobs.kent.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... Feel free to reach out with questions!
“Law and Order, Magical Spirits, and False Flag Operations: On the Co-Occurrence of Authoritarianism, Spirituality, and Conspiracy Beliefs and Their Association with Support of Violent Protests” in Political Psychology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Figure 1. Treatment and control images Image on the left shows mobile phone on facebook page with a section indicating false information checked by independent fact-checkers blurring out a photo. Image on the right is control image, of a facebook login screen.
Figure 2. Simple slopes, Facebook fact-check treatment, conspiracy mentality, and ideology. This analysis indicated that our fact-check treatment increases perceptions of Facebook-related conspiracy beliefs, but only among participants who score highest on conspiracy mentality and who also identify as very conservative. The simple slope for this group is positive and significant (b = 0.079, s.e. = 0.040, p = 0.049). When either (or both) conspiracy mentality or ideology are at different values, the effect of the Facebook fact-check treatment is not significant (see Figure 2).
Figure 3. Simple slopes, Facebook fact-check treatment, conspiracy mentality, and party identification This analysis indicated that our fact-check treatment increased perceptions of Facebook-related conspiracy beliefs, but primarily among Independents who either scored high or scored low on conspiracy mentality (see Figure 3). The fact-check treatment pushes these two groups in opposite directions: while Independents in the control condition closely resembled Republicans, they diverged substantially when exposed to the Facebook fact-check treatment. Specifically, those scoring highest on conspiracy mentality were more likely to agree with the statement that Facebook is manipulating the public through fact-checks (b = 0.181, s.e. = 0.077, p = 0.019), while those who scored lowest were less likely to agree with such a belief (b = −0.315, s.e. = 0.110, p = 0.004).
nice to be part of this multidisciplinary and international team led by Justin Phillips (nz), @timgravelle.bsky.social (ca), @acarson.bsky.social & me investigating whether facebook's 3rd party fact-checking increases #conspiracybelief
TLDR; it doesn't really.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
nice piece on narcissism and conspiracy belief by @tylorcos.bsky.social
theconversation.com/why-do-educa...
Great response to our CfP! Engaging with Conspiracy Theories, Fostering Democracy conference at @charlesuni.cuni.cz.
The scientific committee has met and selected abstracts:
tact-forsed.eu/2025/12/16/e...
Looking forward to it😀
#AcademicConference #ConspiracyTheories #DemocraticResilience
Magdalena Adamus, Jakub Šrol, Eva Ballová Mikušková, Jais Adam-Troian, Maria Chayinska Abstract The paper reports longitudinal analyses examining the extent to which institutional trust mediates the relationship between individuals' sense of precarity and their adherence to conspiracy beliefs. Across three waves, 925 participants (50.2% female) between the ages of 18 and 85 (M = 49.53; SD = 15.81) reported subjective appraisals of their financial situation (precarity), trust in institutions and adherence to conspiracy beliefs. The current study extends the previous analyses by including three-wave longitudinal data. The preregistered autoregressive cross-lagged panel model supports the notion that a sense of precarity follows adherence to conspiracy beliefs rather than preceding them, while institutional (dis)trust and conspiracy beliefs show a bidirectional pattern. However, the random-intercept cross-lagged panel model does not corroborate this, suggesting that the effects may be driven by stable between-person differences rather than actual within-person changes. Additionally, the latter model reveals two separate temporal patterns linking conspiracy beliefs with either the sense of precarity or institutional trust, opening the possibility that our results were driven by two distinct underlying mechanisms. The paper discusses the importance of longitudinal studies for a more accurate understanding of social-psychological realities in which conspiracy beliefs and suspicions of institutions may flourish.
Longitudinal analysis shows possible distinct patterns of associations between conspiracy beliefs and either institutional distrust or the sense of precarity
findings here suggest b/w person associations over time, rather than w/i changes
bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Does Being Confronted With Internal Attributions for an Ingroup’s Sufferings Foster the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories? New in social psychology, from @kenzonera.bsky.social, Karen Douglas, @paulbertin.bsky.social, and @olivierklein.bsky.social doi.org/10.1525/coll...
We are really proud of our #NottsPsychPod team – incredible numbers in the Spotify 2025 wrapped:
-18 countries reached
-Our podcast growth outpaces 90% of other shows
-Fans listened for longer than 77% of other shows
-More shares than 83% of other shows
www.nottingham.ac.uk/psychology/o...
#Research in Political Psychology (@wiley.com) investigated the link between believing in conspiracy theories and economic anxiety.
A group of academics led by Magdalena Adamus (Masaryk University 🇨🇿) assessed our Round 10 (2020-22) #data to explore whether these is an association.
Are people who believe in #conspiracy theories mentally ill?
#conspiracytheories #psychology #pathology #mentalillness
Screenshot of the abstract for the article "If only I had not fallen down the rabbit hole: Counterfactual thinking reduces engagement with conspiracy theories" in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
New paper out in @jexpsocpsych.bsky.social !
We (@kwinter.bsky.social, @kaiepstude.bsky.social , Bob Fennis and I) found that encouraging counterfactual thinking reduces engagement with conspiracy theories (i.e., clicks on, and reading times for, conspiracy articles).
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📢 Final call for papers! Engaging with Conspiracy Theories, Fostering Democracy — Prague, 9–10 Apr 2026.
Submit by THIS FRIDAY 5 Dec 2025!
Topics: #ConspiracyTheories, #Disinformation, #Democracy and more!
👉👉 tact-forsed.eu/2025/10/07/c.... #AcademicConference
🚨 New paper out in the European Journal of Social Psychology!
Across one study using aggregated nation-level data and four preregistered experiments, we examined how freedom of speech within a society influences belief in conspiracy theories.
Missed Series 2 of Notts Psych Pod? 🎧
Catch up now, wherever you get your podcasts:
👉 creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...
Each series explores how psychology connects with real-world issues — from neurodiversity to community engagement — putting people at the centre of research.
Why are some people more prone to believe in conspiracy theories? Part of the answer may lie in metacognition, i.e., the ability to correctly estimate one's own knowledge about topics.
-> New paper with @kwinter.bsky.social, @kaisassenberg.bsky.social & Helen Fischer
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2044...
Our registered report on the impact of using norms as a lever against vaccination misinformation @collabrapsychology.bsky.social online.ucpress.edu/collabra/art...
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We highlight our research that aims to make a difference in people’s lives and in society.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts: creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/... / www.nottingham.ac.uk/psychology/o... #NottsPsychPod
fantastic pod with @drdanieljolley.bsky.social about the psychology behind conspiracy theories. impressive coverage of a lot of topics including what, who, and the why of conspiracy theories as well as some tips on how to engage with ppl who believe them.
Landing page for our article "Fighting fire with fire: Prebunking with the use of a plausible meta-conspiracy framing" published in the British Journal of Psychology
🚨New open access paper out in BJP special issue "Psychological Understanding of Misinformation and Disinformation in the Face of Environmental Crises"!
“Fighting fire with fire: Prebunking with the use of a plausible meta-conspiracy framing” 🧵👇 1/12
📖 doi.org/10.1111/bjop...
