{"id":1241,"date":"2020-03-13T17:48:08","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T17:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-stop\/?p=1241"},"modified":"2020-08-21T14:24:07","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:24:07","slug":"exposure-to-intergroup-conspiracy-theories-promotes-prejudice-which-spreads-across-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/exposure-to-intergroup-conspiracy-theories-promotes-prejudice-which-spreads-across-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"Exposure to intergroup conspiracy theories promotes prejudice which spreads across groups\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

More about Professor Karen Douglas<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Full text of paper<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Related coverage: British Psychological Society,<\/a>\u00a0The Conversation<\/a> and Yahoo News<\/a><\/p>\n

About<\/h3>\n

Psychological research has looked at the reasons that people believe in conspiracy theories. This line of research indicates a variety of potential predictors including individual characteristics, needs for security and control, need for order and structure and others.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, little research (relatively) has explored the consequences of conspiracy belief. Some findings show that conspiracy theories may have serious socio-political outcomes including prejudice against other groups and health-related outcomes. For instance, <\/span>Golec<\/span> de Zavala & Cichocka (2012) showed that conspiracy beliefs about Jewish domination was associated with anti-Semitic attitudes. Also, other research has shown that beliefs that Jewish people have ill intentions (conspiracy stereotypes) resulted in prejudice and discrimination against Jewish people.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These findings are important because they highlight that conspiracy beliefs may result in prejudice and discrimination towards others and so, prevent societies from becoming cohesive.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this research project, Douglas and colleagues examined <\/span>how belief in conspiracies affects inter-group (between different social groups) prejudice. In fact, the researchers go one step further to also investigate if conspiracy beliefs result in generalised prejudice-that is, whether conspiracy belief about one group may also affect the way people respond towards other groups (uninvolved in the conspiracy).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Method\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Study 1:<\/strong>\u00a0 Conspiracy beliefs about Muslim immigration and the \u2018Islamisation\u2019 of Europe<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 180 UK residents completed an online questionnaire <\/span>
\n\u2022 <\/span>First participants<\/span> either<\/span><\/b> read a passage that<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a01) supported ideas about immigrants\u2019 involvement in terrorist organisations (e.g., ISIS) and their plots to attack Britain from within (pro-conspiracy)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 OR 2) information that refuted the above (anti-<\/span>conspiracy)<\/span><\/p>\n

Participants then indicated their:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a01) belief in conspiracy theories
\n\u2022 2) prejudice towards immigrants (questionnaires)<\/span><\/p>\n

Study 2<\/strong>: Conspiracy beliefs about Jewish people<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 189 UK residents completed an online questionnaire
\n\u2022\u00a0<\/span>As in Study 1, participants <\/span>either <\/span><\/b>read a passage that supported conspiracy beliefs about Jewish people or that refuted it<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Then participants indicated: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 1) <\/span>Belief in conspiracy theories about Jewish people<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 2) Prejudice towards Jewish people (several measures: for more info see<\/span>\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Study 3:<\/strong> Generalisation of prejudice because of conspiracy belief<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 114 UK residents completed online questionnaires<\/span>
\n \u2022\u00a0<\/span>First participants <\/span>either <\/span><\/b>read a passage:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • 1) that supported conspiracy theory about Jewish people\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • OR 2) were given no information about conspiracies \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0Participants then indicated:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0belief in Jewish conspiracy
    \n\u2022 \u00a0Prejudice towards Jewish people
    \n\u2022 \u00a0Prejudice towards other groups (Americans, Irish, feminists, poor people etc)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Key findings<\/h3>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0Participants who read passages that were pro-conspiracy, showed increased prejudice<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0That was true for the Muslim conspiracy theory (study 1), and the Jewish conspiracy theory (study 2)<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0Participants who read passages that were pro-conspiracy showed biased behaviour towards the target group
    \n<\/span>
    \n \u2022 \u00a0<\/span>Participants who read passages that were pro-conspiracy showed generalised prejudice<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    That is, participants who read Jewish conspiracy theories, showed prejudice not only towards Jewish people but also towards other groups<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Impact\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0The findings offer new and important insigh<\/strong>t in understanding the role of conspiracy belief in prejudice<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0The findings have important implications for policy-makers and media<\/strong> (which can strengthen exposure to conspiracy belief)<\/span>
    \n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0The findings have important implications for <\/strong><\/span>policy-makers and educators<\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0The findings showed practical consequences of conspiracy belief \u2013 people are likely to show biased behaviour towards groups other than their own<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u2022 \u00a0Interventions could be established to ensure that the negative consequences of conspiracy beliefs are not perpetuated<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    More about Professor Karen Douglas Full text of paper Related coverage: British Psychological Society,\u00a0The Conversation and Yahoo News About Psychological research has looked at the reasons that people believe in conspiracy theories. This line of research indicates a variety of potential predictors including individual characteristics, needs for security and control, need for order and structure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":1267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prejudice-conspiracy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2241,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions\/2241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/stop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}