Injustice Without Evidence: The Unique Role of Conspiracy Theories in Social Justice Research.
Conspiracy theories are widespread and have a profound impact on society. The present contribution proposes that conspiracy theories are explanatory narratives that necessarily contain justice judgments, as they include attributions of blame and accusations of unethical or criminal conduct. Conspira...
| Publicado en: | Social Justice Research Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 88 - 107 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Mar2022
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=155380572&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 155380572 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 08857466 4LL jtl: Social Justice Research issn: 08857466 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2022 vid: 35 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 155380572 10.1007/s11211-021-00376-x ppf: 88 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 590KB tig: atl: Injustice Without Evidence: The Unique Role of Conspiracy Theories in Social Justice Research. aug: au: van Prooijen, Jan-Willem affil: Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, VU Amsterdam, van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081BT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands The Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands su: Conspiracy theories Social justice Legal judgments Set theory sug: subj: Conspiracy theories Social justice Legal judgments Set theory keyword: Evidence Existential threat Group allegiances Evidence Existential threat Group allegiances ab: Conspiracy theories are widespread and have a profound impact on society. The present contribution proposes that conspiracy theories are explanatory narratives that necessarily contain justice judgments, as they include attributions of blame and accusations of unethical or criminal conduct. Conspiratorial narratives also are mental simulations, however, and may elicit genuine feelings of injustice also without evidence of actual malpractice. Indeed, conspiracy theories sometimes describe unfair events that are unlikely to have occurred, unethical authorities that might not actually exist, and so on. Here I propose two complementary processes that stimulate belief in evidence-free conspiracy theories: (1) Existential threats instigate biased mental processing and motivated reasoning, that jointly promote an alternative perception of reality; and (2) group allegiances shape how people perceive, interpret, and remember facts to highlight the immoral qualities of competing outgroups. Due to these processes, conspiracy theories elicit a set of distinct reactions such as poor health choices and rejection of science. Moreover, evidence-free conspiracy theories require interventions beyond traditional approaches to install justice principles, such as debunking falsehoods and reducing polarized intergroup distinctions. I conclude that the scientific study of conspiracy theories is part of, and has a unique place in, social justice research. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|