William J. McGuire

William J. McGuire (1925–2007) was an American social psychologist, trained under Carl Hovland in the Yale Communication and Attitude Change program, who formalized inoculation theory in two 1961 experiments — the finding that a belief can be made resistant to persuasion by pre-exposure to a weakened form of the counter-argument, analogous to a vaccine. He later popularized the idea for a general audience under the title "Vaccine for brainwash" (Psychology Today, 1970), and did foundational work on attitude structure and the psychology of persuasion.

In this vault McGuire is the historical anchor of the inoculation / prebunking cluster: modern misinformation-resistance research (claim-conspiracy-belief-was-the-paradigm-case-of-evidence-immunity, claim-llm-conspiracy-persuasion-is-dual-use) rests an 80-year "prevention-beats-cure" arc on his 1961 bet, which makes the exact wording and dating of his own texts load-bearing to the vault rather than incidental.

References

• claim-vaccine-for-brainwash-is-mcguires-1970-title-not-1961 — "vaccine for brainwash" is his 1970 popular title, not the 1961 origin wording.
• claim-mcguire-1970-frames-belief-resistance-as-weak-dose-inoculation — his weak-dose inoculation mechanism, in his own 1970 words.
• claim-mcguire-called-unchallenged-truisms-germ-free-aseptic — his "aseptic"/"germ-free" framing of never-attacked cultural truisms.
• claim-mcguire-1961-traces-inoculation-theory-to-korean-war-pow-brainwashing — his 1961 papers trace the theory to the Korean War POW controversy and reject the official "more supportive facts" diagnosis.
• claim-conspiracy-belief-was-the-paradigm-case-of-evidence-immunity — the downstream prebunking program his theory seeded.
• claim-llm-conspiracy-persuasion-is-dual-use — the modern inversion of his prevention-beats-cure bet.
• question-verify-mcguire-1961-inoculation-theory-primary-source — open verification: direct read of his primary 1961/1970 texts still owed.