All across the world, the Coronavirus pandemic is an
important topic right now. Everyone is talking about it. Pandemic means:
the virus is spreading all over the world. There are many conspiracy
theories because of the pandemic. Many people believe in conspiracy
theories. A conspiracy theory is used to explain: Why does the
Coronavirus exist? Where does it come from? Or. Does the virus even
exist? Conspiracy theories want to find simple explanations. About the
Coronavirus pandemic there is this conspiracy theory, for example: Bill
Gates wants to force everyone to get vaccinated. Or: The virus has been
invented on purpose. It’s about power and money. This talk is about
these conspiracy theories. And about the findings of scientists. In
2020, the annual theme of the Kunsthalle Osnabrück is Disappointment,
that’s why the talk asks: Why do so many people believe in conspiracy
theories? Are they disappointed by politics? Is that the reason?
Julia Becker (1978 in Wipperfürth, Germany) lives and works in
Osnabrück. She studied psychology at the university of Marburg and did a
doctorate on women’s internalization of sexism: predictors and antidotes.
After her doctorate, she carried out researches at universities in
Pennsylvania (Pennstate, USA), Vancouver (Simon Fraser University,
Canada) and St Andrews (Scotland). She is a professor for social
psychology at the University of Osnabrück since 2013. Her research
interests concern themselves with intergroup processes and the stability
versus variability of social hierarchies. Concretely, she researches
social inequality, prejudices, ideologies, identity-processes and
manners of protest.