Stephan Lewandowsky
| Stephan Lewandowsky | |
|---|---|
| Born | 3 June 1958 (age 55) |
| Citizenship | Australian |
| Fields | Psychology |
| Institutions | University of Bristol, University of Western Australia |
| Alma mater | Washington College, University of Toronto |
| Thesis | Priming in recognition memory for categorised lists (1985) |
| Doctoral advisor | Bennet Murdock |
| Known for | Research into the public's acceptance of science and belief in conspiracy theories |
| Notable awards | Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award |
| Spouse | Yes |
Stephan Lewandowsky (born 3 June 1958) is an Australian psychologist. He has worked in both the United States and Australia, and is currently based at the University of Bristol, UK, where he is the chair in cognitive psychology at the School of Experimental Psychology. His research, which originally pertained to computer simulations of people's decision-making processes, has recently focused on the public's understanding of science and why people often embrace beliefs that are sharply at odds with the scientific evidence.
Lewandowsky received his bachelor's degree from Washington College in 1980, followed by an M.A. in 1981 and a PhD in 1985, both from the University of Toronto. He served as an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oklahoma from 1990 to 1994, and as associate professor for one year after that. In 1995, he joined the University of Western Australia, where he became the Winthrop Professor of Psychology in 2000. He remained there until April 2013, when he joined the University of Bristol. In 2014, he was named the first Digital Content Editor at the Psychonomic Society.
In 2015, Lewandowsky was elected a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Lewandowsky has published a number of studies examining people's belief in misinformation. In 2005, he was the lead author of a study which investigated people's beliefs in assertions about the Iraq War that had actually been retracted, and which examined people's beliefs about these assertions in Australia, the United States, and Germany. He and his co-authors found that American participants in the study persisted in believing the assertions even after being informed that they had been retracted. Lewandowsky told the Wall Street Journal that the original misinformation had already become a part of the Americans' mental worldview by the time it was retracted. He also noted that "People who were not suspicious of the motives behind the war continued to rely on misinformation." In 2012, Lewandowsky published an article in Psychological Science in the Public Interest which examined the literature on misinformation and efforts to correct it. He found a considerable amount of speculation but little concrete research into the area.
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