Sylvain Delouvée

Sylvain Delouvée
Université de Rennes 2 | UR2 · Department of Psychology

PhD in Social Psychology, MCF - HDR

About

174
Publications
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2,115
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Introduction
Social Psychologist (Associate Professor - Maître de conférences HDR) at Rennes 2 University. My research topics are focused on collective beliefs and social thought. I am particularly interested in behaviours and conduct known as irrational through conspiracy theories and rumours, collective memory and social representations, collective fears and social identity, common sense and lay knowledge. http://sylvaindelouvee.info/

Publications

Publications (174)
Article
Conspiracy theories and rumors, as forms manifesting “social thought” (Rouquette, 1973), share processes and functions. The few studies dealing specifically with the question of belief in rumors questioned the link between adhesion and transmission (Allport & Lepkin 1943; Rosnow, 1991; Guerin & Miyazaki, 2006). The aim here will be to question the...
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Despite the scientific consensus about the anthropogenic nature of climate change, there are still obstacles hindering society from acknowledging the severity of the situation. Notably, previous research suggests that climate change threats can cause people to display ethnocentric reaction to preserve the ingroup’s interests. In this research, we i...
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The identification-prejudice link describes the defensive stance toward immigrants held by strong national identifiers. Recent research refined this relationship by suggesting that defensive national identification (operationalized through national narcissism), but not secure national identification, was associated with prejudice. While previous re...
Book
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Sujet d'actualité incontournable, les « théories du complot » font l'objet de nombre d'analyses et de commentaires. Ces récits alternatifs aux opinions communément admises et aux explications fournies par les autorités postulent l'existence de forces malfaisantes responsables de machinations secrètement élaborées : des complots. Mais pourquoi et co...
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Climate change is currently one of humanity’s greatest threats. To help scholars understand the psychology of climate change, we conducted an online quasi-experimental survey on 59,508 participants from 63 countries (collected between July 2022 and July 2023). In a between-subjects design, we tested 11 interventions designed to promote climate chan...
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Conspiracy beliefs are prevalent among members of disadvantaged groups. Adopting a social identity perspective, we hypothesized that these beliefs would reduce the endorsement of internal attributions for inequalities that could negatively affect the image of disadvantaged ingroups. In Study 1 ( n = 1,104), conspiracy mentality was negatively assoc...
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(1) Background: This study investigates the influence of social networks on young adults, focusing on both positive and negative impacts. It considers problematic social networking site use (PSNSU), emotional intelligence, empathy, and the phenomenon of Fear of Missing Out (FoMO). (2) Methods: A comprehensive online survey was conducted with 442 pa...
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Conspiracy beliefs are prevalent among members of disadvantaged groups. Adopting a social identity perspective, we hypothesized that these beliefs would reduce the endorsement of internal attributions for inequalities that could negatively affect the image of disadvantaged ingroups. In Study 1 (n = 1104), conspiracy mentality was negatively associa...
Article
Conspiracy beliefs entail a scapegoating function by attributing the consequences of crises, such as economic downturns, to the secret action of outgroups. While conspiracy beliefs have been described as reactions to economic threats, we argue that this factor alone is not sufficient. Rather, perceiving one's ingroup as unfairly deprived compared t...
Article
Context: Assistive technologies have been identified by researchers and public policies of the Western world to be promising tools to face the challenge of maintaining quality of life of older people, and especially for nursing home habitants. Independence, autonomy, and participation are major determinants of quality of life of nursing homes habi...
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Despite the proven effectiveness of COVID-19 preventive measures (social distancing, frequent hand washing, vaccination, etc.), these remain inoperative if individuals do not adopt them. In this research, we sought to investigate the effectiveness of a novel type of intervention to foster compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures. Drawing upon t...
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Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low pub...
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Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and a...
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Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment may challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science society nexus across different cultural contexts,...
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Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public...
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Full-text available
The present manuscript examines the way young Europeans represent Europe’s history. A study conducted in 11 European countries (N = 1406 students in social sciences) shows that the characters considered most important in the history of Europe are mostly men linked either to WW2, authoritarianism, or conquests and empires. Although these appear late...
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Effectively reducing climate change requires dramatic, global behavior change. Yet it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an e...
Article
Full-text available
Research over the past decade has shown that endorsement of conspiracy theories (CTs) is shaped by motivated cognition processes. Accordingly, CTs are theorized to stem from compensatory processes, as individuals attempt to cope with existential threats (i.e., uncertainty, loss of control). Based on the meaning maintenance model, we investigated wh...
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Research over the past decade has shown that endorsement of conspiracy theories (CTs) are shaped by motivated cognition processes. Accordingly, CTs are theorized to stem from compensatory processes, as individuals attempt to cope with existential threats (i.e., uncertainty, loss of control). Based on the Meaning Maintenance Model, we investigated w...
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Introduction: Conspiracy believers often claim that they believe in conspiracy theories not on irrational grounds, as scholars often argue, but because of the real scandals and real conspiracies that have occurred in history. Methods: We tested whether reminding people of real scandals in the political, economic, or scientific domain and exposition...
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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public...
Preprint
To measure conspiracism, researchers have created various scales. Generally, these scales aim to measure the adherence to more or less specific conspiracy beliefs or the presence of a conspiracy mentality among the respondents. The information from the studies carried out in terms of understanding of the conspiracy phenomenon (fundamental research)...
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Background: The emergence and spread of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a major threat to global public health. There is strong evidence that the general public plays a role in the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance. Objective: In this study, the impact of attitudes, knowledge, and risk perception of antimicrobial resistance on...
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Conspiracy theories arise during important societal and political events, with negative consequences. Yet, conspiracy theories remain to be investigated in the context of sporting tournaments, in spite of the importance of such events in contemporary societies. During the 2018 FIFA World Cup, conspiracy theories alleging that the newly introduced v...
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1) Background: Climate change is a major threat to human health and new research is highlighting its effects on physical health. However, there is still little research on the psychological effects, particularly on young people, who seem to be disproportionately affected. (2) Objectives: In this context, we conducted a study focusing on the young a...
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At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied ma...
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Research on conspiracy theories tends to frame conspiracy believers as isolated individuals falling prey to irrational beliefs caused by a variety of pathological traits and cognitive shortcomings. But evidence is accumulating that conspiracy theory believers are also linked together in social movements capable of effectively coordinated collective...
Preprint
Research on conspiracy theories tends to frame conspiracy believers as isolated individuals falling prey to irrational beliefs caused by a variety of pathological traits and cognitive shortcomings. But evidence is accumulating that conspiracy theory believers are also linked together in social movements capable of effectively coordinated collective...
Article
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A large body of research has found mixed evidence that people who are quick to dismiss randomness as a potential cause for an event are also more likely to believe conspiracy theories. To clarify the relationship between randomness dismissal and conspiracist ideation, we conducted a high-powered preregistered replication of an influential study in...
Preprint
A large body of research has found mixed evidence that people who are quick to dismiss randomness as a potential cause for an event are also more likely to believe conspiracy theories. To clarify the relationship between randomness dismissal and conspiracist ideation, we conducted a high-powered preregistered replication of an influential study in...
Preprint
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behavior change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public h...
Article
Based on a taxonomy of collective fears, the objective of the study (N = 1,144) was to analyse how the original reasons attributed to an object of fear play a role in collective angst and to study how these attributions are linked to differentiated social representations of the object. The results show that the underlying reasons (human vs. non-hum...
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Despite the proven effectiveness of COVID-19 preventive measures, these remain inoperative if individuals do not adopt them. We sought out to investigate the effectiveness of a novel type of intervention to foster compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures. Drawing upon the model of action phases and evidence linking social motives to compliance...
Article
Objective: To draw up an inventory of health behaviors and knowledge of the French population regarding antibiotic resistance. Results: Overall, 44% of participants properly defined antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic abuse was identified as the main cause of antibiotic resistance, and 66% believed that an antibiotic-resistant infection can be fat...
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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...
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Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and str...
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(1) Background: We focus on the psychological factors that influence pig farmers’ antibiotic use, which is not exclusively determined by the technical, health and structural factors of livestock farming. (2) Methods: We visited farming sites and asked 91 pig farmers about various psychosocial dimensions that could be considered relevant in explaini...
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Objective: The objective of this research was to describe and analyze the role of psychological and behavioral factors on perceptions of COVID-19 in France and Quebec at three different times during the pandemic. Design: We conducted three qualitative and quantitative studies (Study 1 N = 255, Study 2 N = 230, Study 3 N = 143). Participants were...
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Many conspiracy theories appeared along with the Zika outbreak. While the virus is still circulating, motives underlying Zika conspiracy beliefs remain underexplored. National narcissism has been shown to be a robust social motive predicting conspiracy beliefs about other public health crises. This relationship has been interpreted as conspiracy be...
Article
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Since the 1970s, there has been a growing interest in how individuals appropriate scientific knowledge, which has recently been reinforced by societal issues such as vaccine releases and skepticism about global warming. Faced with the health and social consequences of the mistrust of scientific knowledge, there is an urgent need for tools to measur...
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A few studies have examined endorsement of conspiracy beliefs in cohorts of future teachers. We aimed to compare endorsement of conspiracy beliefs in future teachers, as well as the teachers’ beliefs about their students’ conspiracy beliefs in three countries. We recruited 1118 students in England, Greece and France, trained to become middle school...
Article
Full-text available
Despite the scientific consensus about the anthropogenic nature of climate change, there are still obstacles hindering society from acknowledging the severity of the situation. Notably, previous research suggests that climate change threats can cause people to display ethnocentric reactions to preserve the ingroup's interests. In this research, we...
Article
Full-text available
(1) Background: Studying social representations as lay theories allows for a better understanding of the common sense knowledge constructed around mosquito-borne diseases and the impact this may have on attitudes and behaviors. (2) Methods: A hierarchical evocation questionnaire was circulated through an Australian academic community and analyzed b...
Article
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Background: Social distancing and mass quarantines were implemented worldwide in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Prior research has shown that such measures bear negative consequences for population mental health and well-being. Conversely, a growing body of evidence suggests that feeling positively identified with a group is associated...
Article
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic (between 26 March and 2 April 2020), we analysed ( n = 1144) the social representations of the coronavirus and the differentiated perceptions according to the origins attributed to the appearance of the virus (Human vs Non-Human and Intentional vs Unintentional) in a French population. The results show that the...
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The present study was carried out in December, 2018 and aimed at exploring the “Yellow Vests” movement when the revolts were in full swing. It involved 260 French participants (Mage = 42.9 years, SDage 14.6, Min = 18 to Max = 88). Results confirmed our hypotheses. The people who most identified with the “Yellow Vests” are those who perceive the sys...
Preprint
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In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic (between 26 March and 2 April 2020), we analysed (n=1144) the social representations of the coronavirus and the differentiated perceptions according to the origins attributed to the appearance of the virus (Human vs Non-Human and Intentional vs. Unintentional) in a French population. The results show that the s...
Article
Full-text available
Identification with all humanity measured as an individual characteristic is an important factor related to social and international relations, such as concern for global issues and human rights, prosocial attitudes, intergroup forgiveness, attitudes toward immigrants, solving global problems, reactions to hate crimes and dehumanisation. We examine...
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Critical thinking is of paramount importance in our society. People regularly assume that critical thinking is a way to reduce conspiracy belief, although the relationship between critical thinking and conspiracy belief has never been tested. We conducted two studies (Study 1, N = 86; Study 2, N = 252), in which we found that critical thinking abil...
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Critical thinking is of paramount importance in our society. People regularly assume that critical thinking is a way to reduce conspiracy belief, although the relationship between critical thinking and conspiracy belief has never been tested. We conducted two studies (Study 1, N = 86; Study 2, N = 252), in which we found that critical thinking abil...
Article
Full-text available
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,...
Article
Full-text available
A few taxonomies have been proposed to categorize the cues consumers use to assess the quality of a given product. However, these taxonomies do not take into account the possible hierarchy that may exist among these cues. Through three studies we tested a taxonomy based on the structural approach to social representations. This framework proposes a...
Preprint
Full-text available
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,...
Article
Full-text available
Many conspiracy theories appeared along with the COVID-19 pandemic. Since it is documented that conspiracy theories negatively affect vaccination intentions, these beliefs might become a crucial matter in the near future. We conducted two cross-sectional studies examining the relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, vaccine attitudes, and...
Preprint
Full-text available
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a devastating global health crisis. Without a vaccine or effective medication, the best hope for mitigating virus transmission is collective behavior change and support for public health interventions (e.g., physical distancing, physical hygiene, and endorsement of health policies). In a large-scale international co...
Preprint
Full-text available
Social distancing and mass quarantines were implemented worldwide in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Prior research on the effects of social isolation has shown that such measures bear negative consequences for population health and well-being. Conversely, a growing body of evidence suggests that feeling positively identified with a grou...
Article
Full-text available
The heavy reliance on antibiotics in livestock farming has con- tributed to the development of antimicrobial resistance. To tackle this phenomenon, it is important to know the determinants of their use. Thus, this study investigated the way in which French pig farm- ers perceive antibiotics and biosecurity depending on their farm’s department and A...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract Objectives. This research examined how conspiracy mentality may affect compliance with preventive health measures necessary to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, and the underlying motivations to comply. Design and Method. We conducted two cross-sectional studies (Study 1 N = 762, Study 2 N = 229) on a French population, measuring conspiracy me...
Preprint
Objectives. This research examined how conspiracy mentality may affect compliance with preventive health measures necessary to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, and the underlying motivations to comply. Design and Method. We conducted two cross-sectional studies (Study 1 N = 762, Study 2 N = 229) on a French population, measuring conspiracy mentality, c...
Preprint
Full-text available
Many conspiracy theories appeared along with the COVID-19 pandemic. Since it is documented that conspiracy theories negatively affect vaccination intentions, these beliefs might become a crucial matter in the near future. We conducted two cross-sectional studies examining the relations between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, vaccine attitudes and inte...
Preprint
Troisième numéro de la Revue électronique de Psychologie Sociale qui se veut une revue de vulgarisation scientifique de la psychologie sociale en langue française. Elle se donne pour objectif de rendre les savoirs scientifiques compréhensibles et accessibles pour un large public sans pour autant renoncer à la rigueur scientifique.
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La Revue électronique de Psychologie Sociale se veut une revue de vulgarisation scientifique de la psychologie sociale en langue française. Elle se donne pour objectif de rendre les savoirs scientifiques compréhensibles et accessibles pour un large public sans pour autant renoncer à la rigueur scientifique. La Revue électronique de Psychologie Soci...
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Premier numéro de la Revue électronique de Psychologie Sociale qui se voulait une revue de vulgarisation scientifique de la psychologie sociale en langue française.
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Cet article vise à mettre à disposition un outil testé et validé qui permet de simplifier considérablement l’utilisation des échelles Thurstone, au moyen d’une application numérique en libre accès. Après avoir mis en évidence l’intérêt d’utiliser une telle méthode pour mesurer l’attitude, nous présentons une étude illustrative rappelant quelques rè...
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Research on conspiracy theories has long debated about the definition of conspiracy theories, and especially the demarcation between real conspiracies (i.e., that were proven to have occurred) and conspiracy theories (which are at best hypothetical). The existence of real conspiracies is often invoked as an argument to consider some conspiracy theo...
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The present study examines current social representations associated with the origins of the Great War, a major event that has profoundly affected Europe. A survey conducted in 20 European countries (N = 1906 students in social sciences) shows a high consensus: The outbreak of the war is attributed to the warring nations' leaders while the responsi...