Author Archives: Isobel

Are COVID-19 conspiracies a threat to public health?

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A collaboration between Dr Marie Juanchich, Dr Miroslav Sirota, and PhD researcher Daniel Jolles from the University of Essex and Dr Lilith A. Whiley from Birkbeck, University of London explores conspiracy theorists’ responses to public health recommendations.

Picture of a crowd with anti-vaxx posters.

Pandemics are a fertile backdrop for conspiracy theories.

As COVID-19 spread in early 2020 and uncertainty around the origins and transmission of the virus grew, conspiracy theories filled in the gaps. Social media was rife with claims that COVID-19 was an artificially created bioweapon, a plot by pharmaceutical companies to profit from vaccines – even that it was being spread across the 5G network!

At the height of the pandemic’s first wave, conspiracy-related content received greater engagement than content from sources such as the World Health Organisation and our National Health Services – a very worrisome fact.

What are the implications of this for public health?

Together with colleagues from the University of Essex Department of Psychology, I sought to understand whether this ‘infodemic’ of conspiracy theory content posed a threat to public health initiatives such as mask wearing, social distancing and take-up of the COVID-19 vaccination.

What is a conspiracy theorist?

A conspiracy theorist is someone who believes in powerful, malevolent individuals, and has low trust in government and science.

Individuals with a ‘conspiracy mindset’ have in common some general beliefs that predispose them to believe in conspiracy theories. These include:

  • Governments are evil
  • Small, secret and powerful organisations control the world order
  • These organisations cover-up the existence of extra-terrestrial life, threaten people’s health and freedom and control the flow of information

At the heart of these beliefs is the notion that ill-intentioned groups are acting behind the scenes, so trust is a key factor in conspiracy beliefs.

Some cognitive attributes might also make people more vulnerable to conspiracy beliefs. People who engage in analytical thinking, which involves a more in-depth evaluation of the information, are less likely to fall prey to misinformation.

Did conspiracy theorists follow public health initiatives in the COVID-19 pandemic?

Prior research suggests that conspiracy beliefs could prevent people from complying with public health guidance during a pandemic. For example, Oliver and Wood (2014) discovered that people who believe in HIV conspiracy theories are less likely to attend regular medical check-ups.

Previous studies also suggest that there is a negative relationship between conspiratorial beliefs and support for government COVID-19 health guidelines. However, the evidence does not provide a consistent picture. In a study by Briddlestone et al. (2020), for example, conspiracy beliefs were negatively related to social distancing, but not to hand hygiene.

We carried out three complementary studies to further understanding on the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and health protective behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic. In some of the previous work that has been in this area, researchers investigated conspiracy theories where the virus was presented as a hoax or where its severity was exaggerated – in those cases, we could expect negative relationships with any type of health care protective behaviours. In our studies, we focused only on conspiracy theories that recognised the virus and accepted that it was ‘real’. In a series of surveys conducted at the height of the UK’s first wave, we examined to what extent participants agreed with COVID-19 conspiracy theories and how this compared to their mindset, trust in government, social characteristics, and health protective behaviours.

Key findings were:

  • A conspiracy mindset was associated with believing in COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
  • Individuals with low trust in authority and intuitive (rather than analytical) thinking styles held stronger conspiracy beliefs.
  • Individuals who were more educated or who held a conservative ideology also had stronger conspiracy beliefs.
  • People from ethnic minority groups and those who were employed as frontline workers were more likely to have conspiracy beliefs.
  • Conspiracy theory believers reported following health guidelines, such as hand washing and social distancing, as much as others, but were less likely to agree to get tested or vaccinated against the virus and more likely to share misinformation online.

The fact that conspiracy theorists comply with public health guidelines around COVID-19 but are unwilling to be tested or vaccinated for the virus, appears contradictory.

What is interesting, however, is that all the behaviours that conspiracy believers performed as much or more than other people provide autonomy and control, for example hand washing or wearing a mask. Getting tested or vaccinated, on the other hand, requires trust in others. Our results confirmed that conspiracy theory believers were reluctant to undertake actions in which they had lower levels of personal control, viewing these actions as more risky and less beneficial.

What are the implications of these findings when tackling the COVID-19 pandemic?

While conspiracy believers are frequently presented as risk takers who refuse to follow official health recommendations, our findings show that this is not the case. Conspiracy believers adhere as much, or even more, to the protective behaviours that give them a sense of personal control.

However, hesitancy around getting tested and vaccinated against COVID-19 due to a lack of trust is a cause for concern. The increased prevalence of conspiracy theories in frontline workers and individuals from ethnic minorities may explain the greater hesitancy to be vaccinated against COVID-19 observed in both of those groups.

We suggest the following recommendations that could support the uptake of public health initiatives:

  • Design communications around testing and vaccination for COVID-19 in a way that is also inclusive of conspiracy believers, for example, clearly communicating the risks and
  • Health messages to be delivered by trusted sources.
  • Promote health advice that is supportive of individual autonomy, for example, when inviting healthcare professionals for a flu vaccine.
  • Ensure transparency from pharmaceutical companies in their data sharing to increase trust.
  • Include prompts for fostering analytical thinking in COVID-19 communications to prevent the spread of false information.

Blog post written by Isobel Edwards and Dr Lilith A. Whiley.

Further Information

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Introducing the Centre for Neurodiversity at Work

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Accessible Summary

The Centre researchers are Almuth McDowall and Nancy Doyle. They found that science has ignored lots of important questions about neurodifferences. The found most research looked at children not adults or work. It didn’t think about race or gender or sexuality. They wanted to help.

They are working with a board who have different backgrounds. The board are neurodiverse. The Centre wants to make sure that people who are being studied are part of decisions. The Centre wants to help employers get better at including. The Centre wants to help neurodifferent people reach their potential.

Visual Summary

Infographic showing some of the key statistics shared in this blog.

What is the Centre for?

The Centre for Neurodiversity Research at Work (C4NRAW) is spearheaded by the Department of Organizational Psychology in the School of Business, Economics and Informatics at Birkbeck, University of London and Genius Within, a social enterprise focusing on HR and inclusion services. We’d like to introduce ourselves and our research priorities.

How it started

The Centre is Co-Directed by founders Professor Almuth McDowall and Dr Nancy Doyle, both Organizational Psychologists known widely for their expertise in Neurodiversity and organizational psychology. This brings a holistic perspective for this important topic. They met when Almuth supervised Nancy’s PhD, which was an evaluation of coaching as a disability intervention for Dyslexic adults. The PhD included a review of neurodiversity research, in which we discovered that hardly any research is focused on adults. The small amount of funding and publications is not in balance with how many adults there are with different neurotypes. For example:

  • Even though there are almost as many people with Tourette Syndrome as Autistic people, there is almost 50 times as much research about Autistic people as Tourettes.
  • There is also 50 times more Autism research than Dyspraxia research, even though there are 5 times as many Dyspraxic people as Autistic people.
  • Around 63% of ADHD research is aimed at children.
  • 94% of Dyslexia research is aimed at children and literacy.
  • Adults have different concerns compared to children, like memory, organization, and time management skills.

We also noticed that there were very few studies looking at intersectional exclusion, by that we mean the added layers of bias and discrimination faced by those who are female, belong to the Global Ethnic Majority or LGBTQ+ communities. Autism research tended towards white cishet[1] males, frequently from privileged backgrounds. Most of the dyslexia research (60%) involved scanning the brains of kids to find the bits that are “broken!”

There were only a handful of papers related to ND[2] strengths, though we quickly summarized these and set about publishing them. We started evaluating what “works” so that we could inspire employers to provide the right support.

Our Mission

Our ongoing mission is to focus on addressing the missing research and linking it into employment practice. We want more employers to feel confident in operating neuroinclusive practices so that we can bust through the disability employment gap for invisible disability. Employers often have misconceptions about what neurodiversity means. For example, it is often assumed that dyslexia is difficulty with reading and writing, whereas it can manifest as difficulty with memory, time management, organisation and wellbeing.

Around 22% of the entire population are neurodivergent, but in the UK, just 53.6% of disabled people are currently in work, compared to 81.7% of those who are not disabled. Many more disabled people could succeed in the workplace if they were given access to reasonable adjustments.

Neurodiverse people bring unique qualities to the workplace, including creativity, focus, strategic thinking, innovation and problem-solving. We want neurodivergent adults to work at their best, more of the time. We want to reduce unnecessary barriers to work, and in work see more neurodiverse career progression.

We recently published a paper called “Diamond in the Rough” in which we set out all these research priorities and how we would like to tackle them. Please feel free to click through to our research page if you would like to learn more about what we’ve already achieved.

Centre Membership

Our ambition is for the Centre to be staffed and led by a neurodiverse team: that is a balance of generalists and specialists complementing each other. Nancy is an ADHDer, and we have an Advisory Board which is comprised of researchers, practitioners and those with lived experience. We are currently seeking representation from the LGBTQ+ community, do feel free to reach out, the Board meet twice a year to review research priorities and advise the Directors on ethics and sharing results.

We have several ND PhD and professional doctorate students who are part of the Centre by virtue of studying a Neurodiversity or Disability (including neurodiversity) focused PhD at Birkbeck[3]. They are Uzma Waseem, Charlie Ekton, Jessica Dark, Greg Swaysland and Ben Morris.

We’ll be using this blog to communicate our research findings in an accessible format and start conversations with our wider community. We’ll post calls for research participants and would like to work with our donor team on corporate funding for specific projects. Do feel free to reach out and to join our mailing list if you haven’t already!

We are working towards a world where neurominorities equal specialism rather than exclusion and work is neuroinclusive. We are pioneering the design, evaluation, and practical implementation of Universal Design for Human Resources. We are walking our own talk and making sure that there is “nothing about us without us” in ND research at work. And we are super excited to only just be getting started!

Further Information

[1] “Cis” meaning not transgender and “het” meaning heterosexual.

[2] We’re going to use ND as an abbreviation for neurodifferent / neurodivergent / neurodiverse as we know all three of these can be preferred. We also use Neurominorities as an umbrella term for ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, Tourettes and more.

[3] Birkbeck was established with the sole purpose of educating working people through flexible education scheduled so that people who are in work can take part. Therefore social justice has always been at the heart of Birkbeck’s mission.

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Can Corporate Social Responsibility save firms from negative customer feedback?

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New research by Birkbeck’s Dr Benedetta Crisafulli and co-authors Dr Paolo Antonetti and Professor Stan Maklan adds insight to the relationship between company failure, CSR and customer response.

Picture the scene: you’re at a restaurant and your order is taking longer than expected to arrive. The waiter has been steadfastly ignoring your gaze since you sat down and when you finally do manage to flag him down, he is rude and unapologetic.

How would you respond?

Anger, frustration and a desire to tell your friends never to dine in that restaurant are all common responses. At the same time, you might feel a desire for reconciliation – to receive an apology and be offered a discount on your bill.

Would your reaction be different if you knew the restaurant was committed to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)? Would the fact that the restaurant is a morally responsible business excuse them from your harshest criticism?

This is the question that researchers from Birkbeck’s Department of Management, NEOMA Business School and Cranfield University sought to answer in their latest study on the relationship between company failures, CSR and consumer response.

CSR and consumer behaviour: what we know so far

Prior research suggests that CSR acts as a reservoir of goodwill that companies can draw on following a crisis. If we believe that a company is caring and well-intentioned, we are more willing to give it the benefit of the doubt in the event of a brand failure such as poor product performance.

However, existing evidence from research is less clear on whether CSR does indeed mitigate the negative impact of failed service delivery.

How does CSR impact consumer reactions to failed service delivery?

The results from an online experiment showed that the nature of the failed service is key in determining consumer response:

  • when competence-based, CSR is an effective service recovery strategy
  • when integrity-based, CSR is unable to inoculate the negative effect of poor service performance

In the case of a competence failure, a company’s CSR generated impressions of warmth , which softened the negative impact of the failure.

In the case of an integrity failure, the service failure contradicted the impression of warmth conveyed by CSR; as a result, CSR fails to save the company from consumers’ retaliation.

Does a consumer’s relationship with a company matter?

Of course, not all consumers are alike. The researchers found that the nature of the relationship between consumer and company has an impact on consumer response to CSR.

Consumers with high communal orientation, that is those who are concerned for others’ interests and benefits and value a company that is caring are less likely to feel betrayed by the company and CSR would reinforce the positive relationship. A less positive effect would be felt for consumers with an exchange orientation, who are concerned about individual gains from the relationship.

What does this mean for managers?

For managers looking to mitigate the impact of service failures, it is essential to monitor the types of service failures in their organisation to assess the likely impact of CSR initiatives.

When it comes to communicating CSR activities, firms are advised to focus on communicating the altruistic objectives of their CSR initiatives.

In the event of a competence failure, CSR can buffer negative effects, Explanations and apologies should focus on reassuring customers that the company did not intentionally cause the failure.

It would also be helpful for companies to capture consumers’ level of communal orientation as part of their market research and to target CSR messaging to the segments aspiring to a communal relationship.

Further information:

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Why are social networking sites so reluctant to ban hateful users?

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The right to free speech is not an excuse for turning a blind eye to online aggression.

Picture of Donald Trump giving a speech

Social networking sites have been both the heroes and villains of the COVID-19 pandemic, connecting loved ones across Tiers and time zones while simultaneously providing a safe haven for fake news and hate speech.

This latter is perhaps best illustrated by none other than the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, whose tweets following the presidential election have been widely condemned for inciting the January Capitol riot, which led to the deaths of five people.

While Trump is the most eminent figure to have been banned by the social media giant, he is by no means the first. In November 2018, the Canadian journalist Meghan Murphy was banned permanently from Twitter for hateful speech towards transgender people. Murphy’s response was to launch a legal dispute contesting her right to free speech.

When right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins suffered a similar fate in June 2020, BBC News drew comparisons between Hopkins and Trump, but commented that ‘leaving such tweets up in the public interest is an exception Twitter makes for world leaders – other accounts like Ms Hopkins’ risk being suspended when they break Twitter’s rules.’

Is the right to free speech, even if it constitutes hateful abuse, really in the public interest? And, if so, will it always take a riot to prompt social media giants to act?

Social media – a censorship free zone?

We have no problem identifying aggression or unacceptable conduct in real life. When it comes to social networking sites, however, the boundaries seem more blurred.

A lack of clarity and universality when it comes to bans is certainly not helping, as more than 70% of Americans, and more than 80% of Republican-leaning voters, believe that social networking sites intentionally censure opinions they do not agree with. Even scholars in Law and Ethics disagree on what constitutes harmful speech and whether such forms of speech should be restricted.

When Meghan Murphy accused Twitter of stifling her right to free speech, she tapped into the heart of the issue that is tying Twitter’s hands. Does permanently removing an individual from a social media platform stifle necessary debate? In the interests of avoiding a repeat of Capitol Hill, it is essential that we clarify the boundaries between free speech and hate speech and/or the processes necessary to define acceptable speech.

Consensus and consistency

One concern for social networking sites is the public backlash they might receive for ‘no-platforming’ controversial speakers. In the first study to model the factors that influence the acceptance of restrictions on free speech by social media sites, we find that users closely scrutinize how social networking sites handle controversies arising from political debates. Findings from our research show that observers of online aggression make trade-offs between free speech and the desire to punish aggression. Our findings show that, while observers of social media interactions dislike aggression and are willing to see it punished, the rhetoric of free speech is systematically employed to justify aggression that come from the observer’s own political side. In other words, free speech concerns are leveraged to foster partisan interests. .

The importance of preserving public trust means that social media sites should evaluate each banning case cautiously. In circumstances where banning an individual is inevitable because of high levels of online aggression, it is essential that the sites justify their decision to observing users and explain why the ban should not be interpreted as a limitation to users’ right to free speech.

The controversy that currently surrounds social media bans highlights the need for wider and more transparent discussions on what kind of speech should be restricted on social media, especially when it comes to political debates. Embedding rules against online aggression into public policy, rather than relying on the discretion of tech giants, would be one way to ensure a consistent approach to banning decisions. A clear policy, with buy-in from users, could prevent scepticism around bans that emerges from inconsistently and unfounded application of censorship.

We have seen the deadly consequences that can result from online aggression. Policy makers must exercise their power to make sure there are no safe spaces for hate speech.

Professor Paolo Antonetti, Professor in Marketing at NEOMA Business School and Dr Benedetta Crisafulli, Senior Lecturer in Birkbeck’s Department of Management are co-authors of the paper “I will defend your right to free speech, provided I agree with you”: How social media  users react (or not) to online out-group aggression recently published by Psychology & Marketing.

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