Today's post is by Ben Tappin , graduate student in psychology at Royal Holloway at the University of London. In the post he introduces the paper "Do the folk actually hold folk-economic beliefs?" that he has co-authored with Robert Ross and Ryan McKay . Ben Tappin (above) Robert Ross (above) Ryan McKay (above) How do individuals arrive at their beliefs about the economic impact of immigration? More specifically, what are the psychological processes that underpin seemingly widespread beliefs like “immigrants steal jobs” or “immigrants abuse the welfare system?” Just how typical are these (and related) beliefs, and does their prevalence have implications for theorizing about the psychological processes that give rise to them? In the current political climate of Western Europe and the US, these questions seem as relevant now as any time before. Recently, psychologists Pascal Boyer and Michael Bang Peterse n suggested that negative beliefs abo
A blog at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and mental health