Dr. Benjamin Dow
benjamindow.bsky.social
Dr. Benjamin Dow
@benjamindow.bsky.social
Professor who teaches awesome students and occasionally does research on conspiracy theories and/or luck perceptions.
Reposted by Dr. Benjamin Dow
Great coverage of our new inoculation against fake news study in @natureportfolio.nature.com led by the brill @rakoenmaertens.bsky.social for @cnn.com

"This psychological booster could help people resist misinformation"

edition.cnn.com/2025/03/11/h...

@jonsimons.bsky.social @lewan.bsky.social
This psychological ‘booster’ could help people resist misinformation, a new study finds | CNN
Misinformation is everywhere, and it can be hard to detect false claims. But consistent training could help people avoid fake news traps, new research shows.
edition.cnn.com
March 11, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Reposted by Dr. Benjamin Dow
New meta-analysis shows media literacy & psychological inoculation interventions signifcantly & substantially improve (a) misinformation resilience (d = 0.60), (b) misinformation discernment (d = 0.76) and decrease sharing (d = 1.04).

Great news for science!

journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
January 18, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Reposted by Dr. Benjamin Dow
If universities want to retain female faculty they need to deal with the people who create hostile workplaces.

That means actually dealing with sexual harassers, assholes, bullies, and every else who scores high on the dark triad.

If not, you will lose your best people over and over again.
December 24, 2024 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Dr. Benjamin Dow
There are lots of people aspiring to riches, success, and happiness & gurus who promise to take them there

But “manifestors” are not more likely to be rich or successful. Success takes more than simply vibrating ones desires to the universe www.beautifulminds-newsletter.com/p/are-manife...
Are "Manifestors" Actually More Rich and Successful?
The data is in.
www.beautifulminds-newsletter.com
December 15, 2024 at 9:18 PM
Reposted by Dr. Benjamin Dow
Our new paper examines how parasocial contact with transgender influencers on TikTok can reduce transgender conspiracy theory beliefs.

Published in the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology as part of a special issue on intergroup contact.

Read: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
December 4, 2024 at 10:41 AM
I think our findings here are interesting and useful. In layman's terms, (unsurprisingly) people who believe in vaccine conspiracy theories are less likely to get vaccinated. But inducing them to think about their relationships with others made them much more likely to get vaccinated.
<em>British Journal of Social Psychology</em> | Wiley Online Library
Infectious diseases pose significant challenges to public health, leading to illness and even death. Vaccinations are vital for protecting society, yet beliefs in conspiracy theories related to infec...
dx.doi.org
December 10, 2024 at 6:49 PM
Conspiratorial thinking is not a left-right thing. Anyone can go down these rabbit holes under the right conditions.

www.politifact.com/factchecks/2...
Elon Musk’s Starlink didn’t rig 2024 election for Trump
Some social media users claim to have found an explanation for Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 election loss. They sa
www.politifact.com
November 12, 2024 at 5:49 PM