ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an overview of recent social psychological theorizing and research that examines how belief systems influence perceptions of reality. It focuses on how system justification impacts on perceptions of reality. It highlights the specific influence of system-level motivations on biased information production and consumption. The book provides an overview of research on how ideology shapes perceptions of social and economic inequality. and discusses perceptions of reality in the context of suffering. It also examines how political ideology can direct the processes that produce scientific facts, by influencing what topic should be studied, how to study them, and by shunning researchers and ideas that conflict with the scientists’ own political values. The book further investigates how essentialist beliefs affect the interpretation of scientific work in genetics, more specifically how it impacts people’s understanding of race, gender, and criminality, among other things.
