{"title":"What Are Conspiracy Theories? A Definitional Approach to Their Correlates, Consequences, and Communication.","authors":"Karen M Douglas, Robbie M Sutton","doi":"10.1146/annurev-psych-032420-031329","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>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 defining features that make conspiracy theories different in kind from other beliefs and different in degree from each other. We consider how these features determine the adoption, consequences, and transmission of belief in conspiracy theories, even though their role as causal or moderating variables has seldom been examined. We therefore advocate for a research agenda in the study of conspiracy theories that starts-as is routine in fields such as virology and toxicology-with a robust descriptive analysis of the ontology of the entity at its center.</p>","PeriodicalId":8010,"journal":{"name":"Annual review of psychology","volume":"74 ","pages":"271-298"},"PeriodicalIF":23.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"25","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annual review of psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-032420-031329","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 25
Abstract
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 defining features that make conspiracy theories different in kind from other beliefs and different in degree from each other. We consider how these features determine the adoption, consequences, and transmission of belief in conspiracy theories, even though their role as causal or moderating variables has seldom been examined. We therefore advocate for a research agenda in the study of conspiracy theories that starts-as is routine in fields such as virology and toxicology-with a robust descriptive analysis of the ontology of the entity at its center.
期刊介绍：
The Annual Review of Psychology, a publication that has been available since 1950, provides comprehensive coverage of the latest advancements in psychological research. It encompasses a wide range of topics, including the biological underpinnings of human behavior, the intricacies of our senses and perception, the functioning of the mind, animal behavior and learning, human development, psychopathology, clinical and counseling psychology, social psychology, personality, environmental psychology, community psychology, and much more. In a recent development, the current volume of this esteemed journal has transitioned from a subscription-based model to an open access format as part of the Annual Reviews' Subscribe to Open initiative. As a result, all articles published in this volume are now freely accessible to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
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