Conspiracy theories – which posit that secret groups cooperate to pursue malevolent goals – are a prominent feature in social and political discourse. Psychological research on conspiracy theories has boomed in the past 20 years, generating insights to the correlates and consequences of conspiracy beliefs. However, the literature suffers some limitations; the current editorial identifies five that constrain this relatively young field of research and recommends that future research (1) consider different forms of conspiracy beliefs and their distinct correlates and effects, (2) rely more on experiments to allow for conclusions about causality, (3) conduct more research that is high in external validity, (4) dedicate more attention to the cognitive processes underlying conspiracy beliefs, and (5) study methods for potential interventions. The current Virtual Special Issue highlights cutting-edge research that addresses some of these limitations. In particular, they highlight the importance of experimental methods in advancing this growing research field.

阴谋论——假设秘密团体合作追求恶意目标——是社会和政治话语中的一个突出特征。在过去的 20 年里，对阴谋论的心理学研究蓬勃发展，对阴谋论信念的相关性和后果产生了深刻的见解。但是，文献存在一些局限性；当前的社论确定了五个限制这个相对年轻的研究领域的因素，并建议未来的研究（1）考虑不同形式的阴谋论信念及其不同的相关性和影响，（2）更多地依赖实验来得出因果关系的结论，（3 ) 进行更多具有高外部有效性的研究，(4) 更加关注阴谋信念背后的认知过程，以及 (5) 研究潜在干预的方法。当前的虚拟特刊重点介绍了解决其中一些局限性的前沿研究。他们特别强调了实验方法在推进这一不断发展的研究领域中的重要性。