Bojana Većkalov

University of Amsterdam | UVA · Department of Psychology

Factors that contribute to the well-established ideology gap in climate change beliefs (i.e., conservatives’ scepticism about climate change and its severity) remain underexplored. In the present research, we propose that there are differences in the consideration of future consequences, as well as the perception of climate change in time, between...

This article presents and tests psychological distance to science (PSYDISC) as a domain-general predictor of science skepticism. Drawing on the concept of psychological distance, PSYDISC reflects the extent to which individuals perceive science as a tangible undertaking conducted by people similar to oneself ( social), with effects in the here ( sp...

This work examines worldview predictors of attitudes toward nanotechnology, human gene editing (HGE), and artificial intelligence. By simultaneously assessing the relative predictive value of various worldview variables in two Dutch samples (total N = 614), we obtained evidence for spirituality as a key predictor of skepticism across domains. Relig...

A pervading global narrative suggests that political polarisation is increasing in the US and around the world. Beliefs in increased polarisation impact individual and group behaviours regardless of whether they are accurate or not. One driver of polarisation are beliefs about how members of the out-group perceive us, known as group meta-perception...

We review recent work on the relationship between science rejection and conspiracy beliefs. We distinguish between conspiracy beliefs about science specifically and the link between general conspiracist worldviews and science rejection. The first imply the scientific community as the center of a conspiratorial endeavor to misrepresent scientific fi...

Communicating the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is real increases climate change beliefs, worry and support for public action in the United States. In this preregistered experiment, we tested two scientific consensus messages, a classic message on the reality of human-caused climate change and an updated message additionally...

Trust in climate scientists is critical for public awareness and engagement in mitigating climate change. Previous research has shown that right-wing political ideology is associated with lower trust in climate scientists, yet the predominant focus on Western countries raises questions about the universality of this relationship. Addressing this ga...

Scientific evidence regularly guides policy decisions¹, with behavioural science increasingly part of this process². In April 2020, an influential paper³ proposed 19 policy recommendations (‘claims’) detailing how evidence from behavioural science could contribute to efforts to reduce impacts and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we assess 747 pandem...

Communicating the scientific consensus that climate change is real increases climate change beliefs, worry, and support for public action in the US. Recent science goes beyond the mere reality of climate change—there is now broad agreement that climate change is a crisis. In this preregistered 27-country experiment (N = 10,527), we tested two scien...

This work examines worldview predictors of attitudes towards nanotechnology, human genetic editing (HGE) and artificial intelligence (AI). By simultaneously assessing the relative predictive value of various worldview variables in two Dutch samples (total N = 614), we obtained evidence for spirituality as a key predictor of skepticism across domain...

Accumulating evidence points to spirituality as a belief system that contributes to low trust in science, with self‐identified spiritual individuals reporting high levels of unwarranted scepticism towards science in general and vaccination specifically. We investigated whether self‐identified spirituality also predicts intentions to engage with Cov...

Classic findings from psychology and the behavioural sciences are increasingly being revisited. Methodological and technological advances provide opportunities to replicate studies across a wide range of countries and settings to investigate whether these findings are universally applicable, limited to specific countries, or vary in magnitude depen...

We present evidence for a theory-informed and causal antecedent of science scepticism: psychological distance to science. We presented participants with brief newspaper-like advertisements describing gene editing (N = 586) and nanotechnology (N = 465). We manipulated the advertisements content, such that the information was either psychologically c...

Vaccine scepticism poses a significant global health risk, which has again become clear during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Previous research has identified spirituality as an important contributor to general vaccine scepticism. In the present manuscript, we assessed whether self-identified spirituality similarly contributes to scepticism towards...

Social and behavioral science research proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the substantial increase in influence of behavioral science in public health and public policy more broadly. This review presents a comprehensive assessment of 742 scientific articles on human behavior during COVID-19. Two independent teams evaluated 19 sub...

Vaccine scepticism poses a significant global health risk, which has again become clear during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Previous research has identified spirituality as an important contributor to general vaccine scepticism. In the present manuscript, we assessed whether spirituality similarly contributes to scepticism towards Covid-19 vaccin...

Economic inequality is associated with preferences for smaller, immediate gains over larger, delayed ones. Such temporal discounting may feed into rising global inequality, yet it is unclear whether it is a function of choice preferences or norms, or rather the absence of sufficient resources for immediate needs. It is also not clear whether these...

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries...

We review recent work on the relationship between science rejection and conspiracy beliefs. We distinguish between conspiracy beliefs about science specifically and the link between general conspiracist worldviews and science rejection. The first imply the scientific community as the center of a conspiratorial endeavor to misrepresent scientific fi...

The current paper presents and tests psychological distance to science (PSYDISC) as a domain-general predictor of science skepticism. Drawing on the concept of psychological distance, PSYDISC reflects the extent to which individuals perceive science as a tangible undertaking conducted by people similar to oneself (social), with effects in the here...

Van Stekelenburg and colleagues (2021) show that boosting understanding of scientific consensus reduces false beliefs about genetically modified foods (GMOs). Specifically, demonstrating the value of scientific consensus and providing information about scientific consensus on GMOs helps to correct misperceptions about GMOs being harmful. However, t...

Van Stekelenburg and colleagues (2021) show that boosting understanding of scientific consensus reduces false beliefs about genetically modified foods (GMOs). Specifically, demonstrating the value of scientific consensus and providing information about scientific consensus on GMOs helps to correct misperceptions about GMOs being harmful. However, t...

Economic inequality is associated with extreme preferences for smaller, immediate gains over larger, delayed ones. This pattern, known as temporal discounting, may feed into rising global inequality, yet it is unclear if it is a function of choice preferences or norms, or rather the absence of sufficient resources to meet immediate needs. It is als...

Pervading global narratives suggest that political polarization is increasing, yet the accuracy of such group meta-perceptions has been drawn into question. A recent US study suggests that these beliefs are inaccurate and drive polarized beliefs about out-groups. However, it also found that informing people of inaccuracies reduces those negative be...

Empirical research on the impact of linguistic labels on social perceptions is scarce, especially in the context of ethnic groups. Across three studies (N = 1185), we investigated the impact of labels on perceptions of the Romani ethnic group by non-Romani participants in Serbia. In Study 1 (N = 244), we found some evidence that the Romani elicit m...

Prospect theory is among the most influential frameworks in behavioural science, specifically in research on decision-making under risk. Kahneman and Tversky’s 1979 study tested financial choices under risk, concluding that such judgements deviate significantly from the assumptions of expected utility theory, which had remarkable impacts on science...

Kahneman and Tversky’s 1979 article proposing Prospect Theory is one of the most influential papers across all of the behavioural sciences. Their manuscript tested a series of binary financial choices with risk, ultimately concluding that behaviours deviate significantly from those presumed by prevailing theory at the time. In the forty years since...

Belief in conspiracy theories (CTs) can be related to more general cognitive constructs, such as cognitive style. While some studies found a negative relation with analytical and positive with intuitive cognitive style, others failed to replicate both but found an only positive relation with intuitive. We sought to gather more evidence on this with...