The Psychology of False Beliefs

Collective Delusions and Conspiracy Theories

Joseph P. Forgas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040334928
• Topic: Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This exciting book outlines the fascinating social psychology of false beliefs and tribal delusions, examining the common human tendency to create and maintain collectively shared belief systems that have no foundation in reality. Bringing together leading international researchers, contributors explore how evolutionary, biological, cognitive, and social variables shape the creation and maintenance of widely shared but obviously false belief systems. The authors review how psychological processes promote the formation and maintenance of fallacious beliefs and discuss the philosophical and epistemological criteria we can use to classify some beliefs as false, and others as true.

The chapters draw on many core areas of contemporary social life where false beliefs are of topical interest, highlighting the applied implications of this line of research. Topics include political polarisation, false narratives about group differences, pandemic conspiracy theories, fallacious theories in academia and the role of the media and the internet in creating distorted narratives.

This book is engagingly written and will be of great interest to students and researchers in social psychology and the social sciences, as well as anyone seeking to understand one of the most intriguing issues that shape human social life.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Part 1 The Nature and Origins of False Beliefs
• Part 2 False Beliefs and Consensual Delusions
• Part 3 False Beliefs in Academia
• Part 4 False Beliefs and Conspiracy Theories
• Index