Anticipating and defusing the role of conspiracy beliefs in shaping opposition to wind farms

Larson, E. et al. Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts Report (Princeton University, 2021).

Bundesregierung (Federal Government). Koalitionsvertrag 2021 (Coalition Agreement 2021) https://www.bundesregierung.de/resource/blob/974430/1990812/04221173eef9a6720059cc353d759a2b/2021-12-10-koav2021-data.pdf (2021).

Enevoldsen, P. & Sovacool, B. K. Examining the social acceptance of wind energy: practical guidelines for onshore wind project development in France. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 53, 178–184 (2016).

Article  Google Scholar 

Crichton, F., Chapman, S., Cundy, T. & Petrie, K. J. The link between health complaints and wind turbines: support for the nocebo expectations hypothesis. Front. Public Health 2, 220 (2014).

Article  Google Scholar 

Chapman, S., St. George, A., Waller, K. & Cakic, V. The pattern of complaints about Australian wind farms does not match the establishment and distribution of turbines: support for the psychogenic, ‘communicated disease’ hypothesis. PLoS ONE 8, e76584 (2013).

Article  Google Scholar 

Kahan, D. M., Braman, D., Slovic, P., Gastil, J. & Cohen, G. Cultural cognition of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology. Nat. Nanotechnol. 4, 87–90 (2009).

Article  Google Scholar 

Kahan, D. M. Fixing the communications failure. Nature 463, 296–297 (2010).

Article  Google Scholar 

Kahan, D. M. et al. The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Nat. Clim. Change 2, 732–735 (2012).

Article  Google Scholar 

Lewandowsky, S., Gignac, G. E. & Vaughan, S. The pivotal role of perceived scientific consensus in acceptance of science. Nat. Clim. Change 3, 399–404 (2013).

Article  Google Scholar 

Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M. & Cichocka, A. The psychology of conspiracy theories. Curr. Directions Psychol. Sci. 26, 538–542 (2017).

Article  Google Scholar 

Goertzel, T. Belief in conspiracy theories. Polit. Psychol. 15, 731–742 (1994).

Article  Google Scholar 

Imhoff, R. & Bruder, M. Speaking (un-)truth to power: conspiracy mentality as a generalised political attitude. Eur. J. Pers. 28, 25–43 (2014).

Article  Google Scholar 

Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A. & Fielding, K. S. The psychological roots of anti-vaccination attitudes: a 24-nation investigation. Health Psychol. 37, 307–315 (2018).

Article  Google Scholar 

Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A. & Fielding, K. S. Relationships among conspiratorial beliefs, conservatism and climate scepticism across nations. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 614–620 (2018).

Article  Google Scholar 

Imhoff, R., Bertlich, T. & Frenken, M. Tearing apart the ‘evil’ twins: a general conspiracy mentality is not the same as specific conspiracy beliefs. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 46, 101349 (2022).

Article  Google Scholar 

McCunney, R. J. et al. Wind turbines and health: a critical review of the scientific literature. J. Occup. Environ. Med. 56, e108–e130 (2014).

Article  Google Scholar 

Knopper, L. D. & Ollson, C. A. Health effects and wind turbines: a review of the literature. Environ. Health 10, 78 (2011).

Article  Google Scholar 

Bump, Philip. Trump claims that wind farms cause cancer for very Trumpian reasons. Washington Post (3 April 2019).

Hall, N., Ashworth, P. & Devine-Wright, P. Societal acceptance of wind farms: analysis of four common themes across Australian case studies. Energy Policy 58, 200–208 (2013).

Article  Google Scholar 

Liu, L., Bouman, T., Perlaviciute, G. & Steg, L. Effects of competence- and integrity-based trust on public acceptability of renewable energy projects in China and the Netherlands. J. Environ. Psychol. 67, 101390 (2020).

Article  Google Scholar 

Wolsink, M. Wind power implementation: the nature of public attitudes: equity and fairness instead of ‘backyard motives’. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 11, 1188–1207 (2007).

Article  Google Scholar 

Lamberty, P. & Imhoff, R. Powerful pharma and its marginalized alternatives? Effects of individual differences in conspiracy mentality on attitudes toward medical approaches. Soc. Psychol. 49, 255–270 (2018).

Article  Google Scholar 

Pummerer, L. Belief in conspiracy theories and non-normative behavior. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 47, 101394 (2022).

Article  Google Scholar 

Lantian, A., Muller, D., Nurra, C. & Douglas, K. M. ‘I know things they don’t know!’ The role of need for uniqueness in belief in conspiracy theories. Soc. Psychol. 48, 160–173 (2017).

Article  Google Scholar 

Renewable energy. BMWK https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Dossier/renewable-energy.html (2022).

Lebedys, A. et al. Renewable Energy Statistics 2022 (IRENA, 2022); https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Jul/IRENA_Renewable_energy_statistics_2022.pdf

Federal Minister Robert Habeck says Easter package is accelerator for renewable energy as the Federal Cabinet adopts key amendment to accelerate the expansion of renewables. BMWK https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/EN/Pressemitteilungen/2022/04/20220406-federal-minister-robert-habeck-says-easter-package-is-accelerator-for-renewable-energy.html (2022).

Arifi, B. & Winkel, G. Wind energy counter-conducts in Germany: understanding a new wave of socio-environmental grassroots protest. Environ. Polit. 30, 811–832 (2021).

Article  Google Scholar 

Liebe, U. & Dobers, G. M. Decomposing public support for energy policy: what drives acceptance of and intentions to protest against renewable energy expansion in Germany? Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 47, 247–260 (2019).

Article  Google Scholar 

MacGillis, Alec. Can Germany show us how to leave coal behind? New Yorker (31 January 2022).

Imhoff, R. et al. Conspiracy mentality and political orientation across 26 countries. Nat. Hum. Behav. 6, 392–403 (2022).

Article  Google Scholar 

Walker, B. J. A., Wiersma, B. & Bailey, E. Community benefits, framing and the social acceptance of offshore wind farms: an experimental study in England. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 3, 46–54 (2014).

Article  Google Scholar 

Imhoff, R., Lamberty, P. & Klein, O. Using power as a negative cue: how conspiracy mentality affects epistemic trust in sources of historical knowledge. Personality Soc. Psychol. Bull. 44, 1364–1379 (2018).

Article  Google Scholar 

Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L. & Kelley, H. H. Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change (Yale Univ. Press, 1953).

Crowley, A. E. & Hoyer, W. D. An integrative framework for understanding two-sided persuasion. J. Consum. Res. 20, 561–574 (1994).

Article  Google Scholar 

McCright, A. M., Charters, M., Dentzman, K. & Dietz, T. Examining the effectiveness of climate change frames in the face of a climate change denial counter-frame. Top Cognit. Sci. 8, 76–97 (2016).

Article  Google Scholar 

Oleksy, T. et al. Barriers and facilitators of willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19: role of prosociality, authoritarianism and conspiracy mentality. A four-wave longitudinal study. Personality Individual Differ. 190, 111524 (2022).

Article  Google Scholar 

Bierwiaczonek, K., Kunst, J. R. & Pich, O. Belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories reduces social distancing over time. Appl. Psychol. Health Well Being 12, 1270–1285 (2020).

Article  Google Scholar 

Pummerer, L. et al. Conspiracy theories and their societal effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Soc. Psychol. Personality Sci. 13, 49–59 (2022).

Article  Google Scholar 

Sutton, R. M. & Douglas, K. M. Conspiracy theories and the conspiracy mindset: implications for political ideology. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. 34, 118–122 (2020).

Article  Google Scholar 

Winter, K., Pummerer, L., Hornsey, M. J. & Sassenberg, K. Pro-vaccination subjective norms moderate the relationship between conspiracy mentality and vaccination intentions. Br. J. Health Psychol. 27, 390–405 (2022).

Article  Google Scholar 

Wolske, K. S., Gillingham, K. T. & Schultz, P. W. Peer influence on household energy behaviours. Nat. Energy 5, 202–212 (2020).

Article  Google Scholar 

Hart, P. S. & Nisbet, E. C. Boomerang effects in science communication: how motivated reasoning and identity cues amplify opinion polarization about climate mitigation policies. Commun. Res. 39, 701–723 (2012).

Article  Google Scholar 

Nyhan, B. & Reifler, J. When corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptions. Polit. Behav. 32, 303–330 (2010).

Article  Google Scholar 

Hornsey, M. J. in Together Apart: The Psychology of COVID-19 (eds Jetten, J. et al.) 41–46 (SAGE Publishing, 2020).

Krekó, P. in Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories (eds Butter, M. & Knight, P.) 242–256 (Routledge, 2020).

Lewandowsky, S. & van der Linden, S. Countering misinformation and fake news through inoculation and prebunking. Eur. Rev. Soc. Psychol. 32, 348–384 (2021).

Article  Google Scholar 

Ecker, U. K. H. et al. The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction. Nat. Rev. Psychol. 1, 13–29 (2022).

Article  Google Scholar 

Pummerer, L., Winter, K. & Sassenberg, K. Addressing COVID-19 vaccination conspiracy theories and vaccination intentions. Eur. J. Health Commun. 3, 1–12 (2022).

Article  Google Scholar 

Jolley, D. & Douglas, K. M. Prevention is better than cure: addressing anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 47, 459–469 (2017).

Article  Google Scholar 

Curran, P. J. & Hussong, A. M. Integrative data analysis: the simultaneous analysis of multiple data sets. Psychol. Methods 14, 81–100 (2009).

Article  Google Scholar 

Aiken, L. S. & West, S. G. Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions (Sage, 1991).

Winter, K., Hornsey, M. J., Pummerer, L. & Sassenberg, K. Dataset for: Anticipating and defusing the role of conspiracy beliefs in shaping opposition to wind farms. PsychArchives https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.8253 (2022).