The DOI matches its Crossref record; 5 of the 5 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Theorizing
Abstract
The dismissive attitude of intellectuals toward conspiracy theorists is considered and given some justification. It is argued that intellectuals are entitled to an attitude of prima facie skepticism toward the theories propounded by conspiracy theorists, because conspiracy theorists have an irrational tendency to continue to believe in conspiracy theories, even when these take on the appearance of forming the core of degenerating research program. It is further argued that the pervasive effect of the “fundamental attribution error” can explain the behavior of such conspiracy theorists. A rival approach due to Brian Keeley, which involves the criticism of a subclass of conspiracy theories on epistemic grounds, is considered and found to be inadequate.
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Cites
Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
(1982) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511809477 · Cited by 8,240
Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes
Lakatos, I. (1970) · Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139171434.009 · Cited by 4,649 · cited 1×
“Conspiracy theories often have the appearance of forming the core of what Lakatos referred to as “degenerating research programmes” (Lakatos 1970).”
BackgroundJones, E. E., & Harris, V. A. (1967) · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/0022-1031(67)90034-0 · Cited by 1,783 · cited 1×
“A very strong situational factor was consistently ignored by research subjects who exhibited a high degree of confidence in their own ability to explain the behavior of the authors and speakers in dispositional terms (Jones and Harris 1967).”
Background"From Jerusalem to Jericho": A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior.
Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0034449 · Cited by 1,665
Keeley, B. L. (1999) · The Journal of Philosophy · doi:10.2307/2564659 · Cited by 581
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Cited by
Understanding Conspiracy Theories
Douglas, K. M., Uscinski, J. E., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C. S., & Deravi, F. (2019) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12568 · Cited by 1,511
Analytic thinking reduces belief in conspiracy theories
Swami, V., Voracek, M., Stieger, S., Tran, U. S., & Furnham, A. (2014) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2014.08.006 · Cited by 726
Jolley, D., & Douglas, K. M. (2014) · British Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1111/bjop.12018 · Cited by 685
Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories
Wood, M. J., Douglas, K. M., & Sutton, R. M. (2012) · Social Psychological and Personality Science · doi:10.1177/1948550611434786 · Cited by 660
Political Extremism Predicts Belief in Conspiracy Theories
van Prooijen, J.-W., Krouwel, A. P. M., & Pollet, T. V. (2015) · Social Psychological and Personality Science · doi:10.1177/1948550614567356 · Cited by 626
Metadata
- Authors
- Clarke, S.
- Venue
- Philosophy of the Social Sciences
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2002-06
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 131-150
- ISSN
- 0048-3931 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7441
- OpenAlex
- W2078484068
- Cited by
- 275
- References
- 5
- FWCI
- 1.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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