Robbie M Sutton

University of Kent | KENT · School of Psychology

The second edition of this popular textbook encapsulates the excitement of the fascinating and fast-moving field of social psychology. A comprehensive and lively guide, it covers general principles, classic studies and cutting-edge research. Innovative features such as 'student projects' and 'exploring further' exercises place the student experienc...

Our relationships with other animals are governed by how we view their capacity for sentience and suffering. However, there is currently little agreement as to whether people's beliefs about animal minds are largely accurate or inaccurate. We used an innovative task to examine how people update their beliefs in response to noisy but informative clu...

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...

Some theoretical perspectives suggest people overestimate animals' mental capacities (anthropomorphism), while others suggest the reverse (mind-denial). However, studies have generally not employed objective criteria against which the accuracy or appropriateness of people's judgments about animals can be tested. We employed memory paradigms, in whi...

In six studies, we examined the accuracy and underpinnings of the damaging stereotype that feminists harbor negative attitudes toward men. In Study 1 (n=1,664), feminist and nonfeminist women displayed similarly positive attitudes toward men. Study 2 (n=3,892) replicated these results in non-WEIRD countries and among male participants. Study 3 (n=1...

According to the just world hypothesis, people need to believe that they deserve what they get and get what they deserve. This belief in a just world (BJW) seems to be related to antisocial behavior. However, the mechanisms that underlie this relationship have not been fully explored. This study aimed to investigate the relationships between BJW fo...

Objective We investigated the relationship between personal relative deprivation (PRD)—resentment from the belief that one is worse off than people who are similar to oneself—and locus of control. Background Research has yet to comprehensively investigate whether PRD is associated with a tendency to favor external (vs. internal) explanations for s...

Although perceptions of wealth are shaped by people’s social environment and ideological beliefs, few studies integrate these two perspectives. We address this oversight by examining the association between participants’ actual and estimated average neighborhood household income and whether political orientation moderates this relationship. Using a...

Conspiracy theories abound in social and political discourse, believed by millions of people around the world. In this article, we highlight when it is important to engage with people who believe in conspiracy theories and review recent literature highlighting how best to do so. We first summarise research on the potentially damaging consequences o...

Women’s reproductive autonomy is an ideologically divisive issue, and this divisiveness goes beyond just attitudes toward abortion to include other outcomes such as miscarriage. Previous research has established that hostile sexism is positively associated with punitive attitudes toward pregnant women who flout conventional pregnancy proscriptions....

In this research spotlight, we respond to Nera’s (2024, this issue) critique of the conspiracy mentality. We agree that the concept of the conspiracy mentality – and its relation to belief in conspiracy theories – requires further clarification. We also agree that the causal relationship between conspiracy mentality and belief in conspiracy theorie...

Four pre-registered studies examined the semantic and causal relation between conspiracy mentality and belief in conspiracy theories. Study 1 (N = 251) confirmed important differences between these two constructs. Participants perceived conspiracy mentality propositions as general rules and conspiracy theories as specific examples. This perception...

Virus mitigation behavior has been and still is a powerful means to fight the COVID-19 pandemic irrespective of the availability of pharmaceutical means (e.g., vaccines). We drew on health behavior theories to predict health-protective (coping-specific) responses and hope (coping non-specific response) from health-related cognitions (vulnerability,...

Background Warmth has been shown to disproportionately affect how we perceive women socially, resulting in different standards for men and women in authority roles that emphasize competence. Methods We conducted two studies to determine whether warmth-related traits play a more central role in the evaluations of female lecturers than in their male...

QAnon has emerged as the defining conspiracy group of our times, and its far-right conspiracies are extraordinary for their breadth and extremity. Bringing together scholars from psychology, sociology, communications, and political science, this cutting-edge volume uses social science theory to investigate aspects of QAnon. Following an introductio...

The Enlightenment idea of historical moral progress asserts that civil societies become more moral over time. This is often understood as an expanding moral circle and is argued to be tightly linked with language use, with some suggesting that shifts in how we express concern for others can be considered an important indicator of moral progress. Ou...

Psychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing - explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups - has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make...

Psychologicalresearchonthepredictorsofconspiracytheorizing—explainingimpor-tant social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolentgroups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examinedonly a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national con-texts. Such approaches make it difficult...

In recent years, researchers have begun to study the social consequences of conspiracy beliefs. However, little research has investigated the impact of conspiracy beliefs on interpersonal relationships. In this review, we draw attention to this issue by summarizing available empirical evidence and proposing potential social-psychological mechanisms...

Some public officials have expressed concern that policies mandating collective public health behaviors (e.g., national/regional “lockdown”) may result in behavioral fatigue that ultimately renders such policies ineffective. Boredom, specifically, has been singled out as one potential risk factor for noncompliance. We examined whether there was emp...

Conspiracy theories are widely viewed as stigmatized beliefs, and it is often assumed that sharing them will therefore have negative reputational consequences for individuals. In six experiments (two pre-registered), we examined how sharing conspiracy theories can have important consequences for both impression-management and impression-formation....

Libertarianism enshrines individual autonomy as its central political principle, but it has been criticized for applying this principle selectively. Reproductive decisions can stress the concept of individual autonomy by placing into conflict the claimed rights of each biological parent to choose. Two studies (N1 = 296; N2 = 580) show that among U....

Thinking about justice can enhance or impede forgiveness of others. In this study, we show that these effects crucially depend on tendencies to believe in justice. We assessed beliefs about distributive and procedural justice for self and others among university students from the Midwestern United States. We then primed participants to think about...

There is mounting anecdotal evidence that some individuals fall into conspiracy ‘rabbit holes’ causing harms ranging from social isolation to violence. We propose a hypothetical Rabbit Hole Syndrome in which some individuals’ subscription to conspiracy beliefs is initially inadvertent, accelerates recursively, then becomes difficult to escape. This...

Polling data indicate that in the USA, Republicans, compared to Democrats, have been less inclined to take preventive measures against coronavirus. In three studies (Ns = 380, 430, and 393), we sought to find evidence for partisan motivations and to illuminate how they translate into attitudes, behavioral intentions and actual behaviors. Results re...

Speciesism, like other forms of prejudice, is thought to be underpinned by biased patterns of language use. Thus far, however, psychological science has primarily focused on how speciesism is reflected in individuals' thoughts as opposed to wider collective systems of meaning such as language. We present a large‐scale quantitative test of speciesis...

The belief in a just world (BJW) is the belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. The theory and research findings suggest that believing the world is fair to “me” (personal BJW or PBJW) is associated with positive psychological functioning, whereas believing that the world is fair to people in general (general BJW or GBJW...

Anxiety associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and home confinement has been associated with adverse health behaviors, such as unhealthy eating, smoking, and drinking. However, most studies have been limited by regional sampling, which precludes the examination of behavioral consequences associated with the pandemic at a global level. Further, few s...

In the current systematic review and meta-analyses, we aimed to synthesise the relationships between psychological motives and conspiracy beliefs. We focused on epistemic concerns for understanding and knowledge (k = 114, Nobv = 361; Nparticipants = 48,697), existential threats to security (k = 121, Nobv = 414; Nparticipants = 51,517.30), and socia...

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale ... portrays a theocracy that has been installed on the heels of a catastrophic collapse in human fertility.... Women who remain fertile are highly prized. They are also kidnapped, enslaved as ‘Handmaids’, and ritually raped in order to produce offspring for the leaders of the revolution. The re...

The present paper examines longitudinally how subjective perceptions about COVID-19, one’s community, and the government predict adherence to public health measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Using an international survey ( N = 3040), we test how infection risk perception, trust in the governmental response and communications about COVID-19...

People differ in their general tendency to endorse conspiracy theories (that is, conspiracy mentality). Previous research yielded inconsistent findings on the relationship between conspiracy mentality and political orientation, showing a greater conspiracy mentality either among the political right (a linear relation) or amongst both the left and r...

Despite being a defining issue in the culture war, the political psychology of abortion attitudes remains poorly understood. We address this oversight by reviewing existing literature and integrating new analyses of several large‐scale, cross‐sectional, and longitudinal datasets to identify the demographic and ideological correlates of abortion att...

Before vaccines for COVID-19 became available, a set of infection prevention behaviors constituted the primary means to mitigate the virus spread. Our study aimed to identify important predictors of this set of behaviors. Whereas social and health psychological theories suggest a limited set of predictors, machine learning analyses can identify cor...

Anxiety associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and home confinement has been associated with adverse health behaviors, such as unhealthy eating, smoking, and drinking. However, most studies have been limited by regional sampling, which precludes the examination of behavioral consequences associated with the pandemic at a global level. Further, few s...

Understanding the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake is important to inform policy decisions and plan vaccination campaigns. The aims of this research were to: (1) explore the individual- and country-level determinants of intentions to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, and (2) examine worldwide variation in vaccination intentions. This cross-s...

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Animal minds are of central importance to debates about their rights and welfare. Remaining ignorant of evidence that animals have minds is therefore likely to facilitate their mistreatment. Studying samples of adults and students from the UK and US we found that, consistent with motivational perspectives on meat consumption, those who were more (v...

Animal minds are of central importance to debates about their rights and welfare. Remaining ignorant of evidence that animals have minds is therefore likely to facilitate their mistreatment. Studying samples of adults and students from the UK and US we found that, consistent with motivational perspectives on meat consumption, those who were more (v...

Using the label “conspiracy theory” is widely perceived to be a way of discrediting wild ideas and unsubstantiated claims. However, prior research suggests that labelling statements as conspiracy theories does not reduce people’s belief in them. In four studies, we probed this effect further, and tested the alternative hypothesis that the label “co...

Tightening social norms is thought to be adaptive for dealing with collective threat yet it may have negative consequences for increasing prejudice. The present research investigated the role of desire for cultural tightness, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in increasing negative attitudes towards immigrants. We used participant-level data from...

During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. conservative politicians and the media downplayed the risk of both contracting COVID-19 and the effectiveness of recommended health behaviors. Health behavior theories suggest perceived vulnerability to a health threat and perceived effectiveness of recommended health-protective behaviors dete...

During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. conservative politicians and the media downplayed the risk of both contracting COVID-19 and the effectiveness of recommended health behaviors. Health behavior theories suggest perceived vulnerability to a health threat and perceived effectiveness of recommended health-protective behaviors dete...

Recent empirical and theoretical developments suggest that endorsement of conspiracy theories can arise from the frustration of social motives. Taking this further, the current review integrates theorising on processes relating to three selves—the individual, relational, and collective self and outlines their associations with conspiracy beliefs. I...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an ideal breeding ground for conspiracy theories. Yet, different beliefs could have different implications for individuals’ emotional responses, which in turn could relate to different behaviours and specifically to either a greater or lesser compliance with social distancing and health protective measures. In the pre...

This research examined the link between conspiracy beliefs and political decisions in the context of the 2016 European Union referendum in the United Kingdom. In a longitudinal study, we surveyed British participants at two-time points (one week before the referendum vs. immediately after the referendum). At both time points, participants (n = 334)...

People typically extend limited moral standing to animals reared for food. Prominent perspectives in the literature on animal-human relations characterize this phenomenon as an outcome of moral disengagement: in other words, a strategy that protects people from moral self-condemnation. To provide a direct test of this hypothesis, we exposed people...

This paper examines whether compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures is motivated by wanting to save lives or save the economy (or both), and which implications this carries to fight the pandemic. National representative samples were collected from 24 countries (N = 25,435). The main predictors were (1) perceived risk to contract coronavirus, (...

The Enlightenment idea of historical moral progress asserts that civil societies become more moral over time. We tested this by examining how collective linguistic representations of people, animals, and the environment have changed over the 19th and 20th centuries. Specifically, we applied machine-learning methods (word embeddings) to archives of...

Speciesism refers to the different moral standing given to species, and includes human supremacy over animals, and differentiations between animals, where companion animals are given higher moral standing than other species. Although it is clear that speciesism is culturally encoded, psychological science has revealed more about manifestations of s...

Efforts to understand and remedy the rejection of science are impeded by lack of insight into how it varies in degree and in kind around the world. The current work investigates science skepticism in 24 countries ( N = 5,973). Results show that while some countries stand out as generally high or low in skepticism, predictors of science skepticism a...

Research suggests that belief in conspiracy theories (CT) stems from basic psychological mechanisms and is linked to other belief systems (e.g. religious beliefs). While previous research has extensively examined individual and contextual variables associated with CT beliefs, it has not yet investigated the role of culture. In the current research,...

The Coronavirus is highly infectious and potentially deadly. In the absence of a cure or a vaccine, the infection prevention behaviors recommended by the World Health Organization constitute the only measure that is presently available to combat the pandemic. The unprecedented impact of this pandemic calls for swift identification of factors most i...

In this work, we study how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. We draw on cross-national data, collected across four time points between mid-March until early May 2020. We situate our work within the public debate on these issues and discuss to what extent the public...

According to health behavior theories, perceived vulnerability to a health threat and perceived effectiveness of recommended health-protective behaviors determine motivation to follow these recommendations. Because the U.S. President Trump and U.S. conservative politicians downplayed the risk and seriousness of contracting COVID-19 and the effectiv...

The PsyCorona collaboration is a research project to examine processes involved in the COVID-19 pandemic, such as behavior that curbs virus transmission, which may implicate social norms, cooperation, and self-regulation. The study also examines psychosocial consequences of physical distancing strategies and societal lockdown, such as frustration o...

Research suggests that belief in conspiracy theories (CT) stems from basic psychological mechanisms and is linked to other belief systems (e.g. religious beliefs). While previous research has extensively examined individual and contextual variables associated with CT beliefs, it has not yet investigated the role of culture. In the current research,...

Research suggests that animals’ capacity for agency, experience, and benevolence predict beliefs about their moral treatment. Four studies built on this work by examining how fine-grained information about animals’ traits and behaviours (e.g., can store food for later vs. can use tools) shifted moral beliefs about eating and harming animals. The in...

Mapping the Moods of COVID-19: Global Study Uses Data Visualization to Track Psychological Responses, Identify Targets for Intervention

Agreeing to disagree: Reports of the popularity of Covid-19 conspiracy theories are greatly exaggerated - Robbie M. Sutton, Karen M. Douglas

This paper examines whether compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures is motivated by wanting to save lives or save the economy (or both), and which implications this carries to fight the pandemic. National representative samples were collected from 24 countries (N=25,435). The main predictors were (i) perceived risk to contract coronavirus, (ii...

We consider the significance of belief in conspiracy theories for political ideologies. Although there is no marked ideological asymmetry in conspiracy belief, research indicates that conspiracy theories may play a powerful role in ideological processes. In particular, they are associated with ideological extremism, distrust of rival ideological ca...

Much theorizing in social psychology, economics, and related disciplines has emphasized the role of ideology, self-interest, or other motivational factors in determining how individuals respond to economic inequality. In the present chapter, we outline a complimentary, “bottom-up” approach focusing instead on the role of environmental structure – t...

Increasing economic inequality adversely affects groups with low socioeconomic status (low-SES). However, many people are opposed to wealth redistribution policies. In this context, we examined whether dehumanization of low-SES groups has a role in this opposition. In the first study (N = 303), opposition to wealth redistribution was related to den...

In this chapter, we consider the factors that attract people toward conspiracy theories and also consider whether or not belief in conspiracy theories is a sign of gullibility. We first review the framework of Douglas, Sutton, and Cichocka (2017), which explains that belief in conspiracy theories is driven by epistemic, existential, and social moti...

Scholarly efforts to understand conspiracy theories have grown significantly in recent years, and there is now a broad and interdisciplinary literature. In reviewing this body of work, we ask three specific questions. First, what factors are associated with conspiracy beliefs? Our review of the literature shows that conspiracy beliefs result from a...

*** In press---Advances in Political Psychology *** Scholarly efforts to understand conspiracy theories have grown significantly in recent years, and there is now a broad and interdisciplinary literature. In reviewing this body of work, we ask three specific questions. First, what factors are associated with conspiracy beliefs? Our review of the l...

Although conspiracy theories have arguably always been an important feature of social life, they have only attracted the attention of social psychologists in recent years. The last decade, however, has seen an increase in social psychological research on this topic that has yielded many insights into the causes and consequences of conspiracy thinki...

Perceptions of warmth play a central role in social cognition. Seven studies employ observational, correlational, and experimental methods to examine its role in concealing the functions of benevolent sexism. Together, Studies 1 (n = 297), 2 (n = 252) and 3 (n = 219) indicated that although women recall experiencing benevolent (vs. hostile) sexism...

Science is valued for its basic and applied functions: producing knowledge and contributing to the common good. Much of the time, these are perceived to work in harmony. However, science is sometimes seen as capable of subverting the common good, by facilitating dangerous technologies (e.g., weapons of mass destruction) or exerting a malign influen...

The expression of personal belief in a just world (PBJW) has been discussed as a criterion of excellence in social judgments. In four experimental studies we hypothesized and found that targets who express high versus low PBJW are judged as more: 1) deserving of success and 2) suited to socio‐organizational expectations. The four studies show that...

Previous research indicates that conspiracy thinking is informed by the psychological imposition of order and meaning on the environment, including the perception of causal relations between random events. Four studies indicate that conspiracy belief is driven by readiness to draw implausible causal connections even when events are not random, but...

Many topics that scientists investigate speak to people's ideological worldviews. We report three studies—including an analysis of large-scale survey data— in which we systematically investigate the ideological antecedents of general faith in science and willingness to support science, as well as of science skepticism of climate change, vaccination...

This is a database of the current academic literature on conspiracy theories, and literature on other closely-related topics. Its production was supported by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (ESRC Award: ES/N009614/1). We intend to keep it up to date and re-post it every three months. If you have any updates that you would l...

As science continues to progress, attitudes towards science seem to become ever more polarized. Whereas some put their faith in science, others routinely reject and dismiss scientific evidence. The current chapter provides an integration of recent research on how people evaluate science. We organize our chapter along three research topics that are...