We live in an era where information is more accessible than ever before. Paradoxically, this hasn’t made us wiser—it’s made us more vulnerable to misinformation. Pseudoscience, once confined to the fringes, now floods our social media feeds, seeps into our…[Continue Reading...]
Fostering critical thinking can be an effective method to reduce people’s tendency to believe in conspiracy theories, an experimental study by University College Cork (UCC) psychologists has found. The study is the first to directly compare methods used to reduce…[Continue Reading...]
This post is part two of a two-part series. The previous post in this series examined the Adaptive Conspiracism Hypothesis (Van Prooijen and Van Vugt, 2018). According to this perspective, the tendency to engage in conspiracy thinking is innate in…[Continue Reading...]
Professional cult deprogrammer Rick Alan Ross joins WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about cults. What makes a cult a cult exactly? What are some signs you’re in one? How do cults differ from religions? Can a family be…[Continue Reading...]
Do you believe in ghosts or paranormal activity? Professor Chris French is keen to know why. His research focus is on “anomalistic psychology” – to understand why people believe in events which are not supported by scientific evidence. Anomalistic psychology…[Continue Reading...]
Ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) who decide to leave the community and disaffiliate are at a stressful crossroads in their life. Many leave close-knit communities for an initially lonely path in a world they may not be very familiar with. One of…[Continue Reading...]
Multilevel marketing (MLM) programs are a legitimate way of selling products – think Amway, Tupperware and Mary Kay. They become illegal pyramid schemes when the emphasis is on recruiting new distributors rather than actually selling products. Most participants in pyramid…[Continue Reading...]
Conspiracy theories and extreme misogyny are in danger of becoming mainstream in the UK, a report from the Government's former counter-extremism tsar warns. Extremist narratives are becoming normalised among all age groups thanks to a 'growing appetite for conspiracy theories',…[Continue Reading...]
Dr. Jesse Veenstra ('08), a finance professor, grew up in the orbit of multi-level marketing (MLM) companies like Tupperware and Herbalife. “I remember family friends asking my parents to participate in different multi-level marketing organizations,” he says. “I’ve been recruited…[Continue Reading...]
Believing conspiracy narratives is frequently assumed to be a major cause of vaccine hesitancy, i.e., the tendency to forgo vaccination despite its availability. In this scoping review, we synthesise and critically evaluate studies that assess i) the occurrence of vaccine-related…[Continue Reading...]
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