Paranoid people may be more susceptible to believing conspiracy theories
Embargoed until:
Publicly released:
2022-01-26 11:01
People who are paranoid are more likely than others to believe conspiracy theories, including antivax beliefs, according to UK scientists. They surveyed 1,000 people online, and found people who scored highly for paranoia were more likely to believe any conspiracy theories they were presented with, particularly in the case of theories that suggest sinister forces are intentionally causing harm to society or to the individual in question. And believing in one conspiracy theory meant people were more likely to believe others. Overall, taking the whole group of respondents into account, people were more likely to believe theories that suggested harm caused was accidental rather than intentional, and that the harms affected society as a whole, rather than just that particular person.
Journal/conference: Royal Society Open Science
Research: Paper
Organisation/s: University College London, UK
Funder: A.G.G. is supported by the Royal Society. N.R. is supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship
and the Leverhulme Trust.
Media release
From: The Royal Society
Factors affecting conspiracy theory endorsement in paranoia
Paranoia and conspiracy thinking are known to be distinct but correlated constructs, but it is unknown whether certain types of conspiracy thinking are more common in paranoia than others. We ran a large online study to examine how different components of conspiracy thinking relate to paranoia. We found that belief in conspiracy theories that describe intentional harm, and those that centre on the believer rather than society as a whole, were more strongly endorsed by people scoring higher in paranoia.
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