Karen M. Douglas

Affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Kent
Research: Social psychology, conspiracy belief, misinformation

Karen M. Douglas is a social psychologist at the University of Kent specializing in the psychological factors underlying conspiracy-theory belief. Her research synthesizes decades of empirical findings on the motivational drivers (epistemic, existential, social) of conspiracy thinking and the consequences of conspiracy belief for cognition, behavior, and social relationships.

Papers in this wiki

• van Prooijen & Douglas (2018) — Belief in conspiracy theories: Basic principles of an emerging research domain (European Journal of Social Psychology) — special issue introduction proposing four foundational principles for the emerging research domain.
• Douglas, Sutton & Cichocka (2017) — The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories (Current Directions in Psychological Science) — foundational review of conspiracy-theory psychology organized around epistemic, existential, and social motives.