Researchers find that conspiracy theorists are not necessarily paranoid

Eric W. Dolan
Psy Post
Sat, 12 May 2018 23:57 UTC

A new study from psychologists Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz helps to untangle the relationship between belief in conspiracy theories and paranoia.

The researchers found that conspiracy theorists are not necessarily paranoid. While paranoid people believe that almost everybody is out to get them, conspiracist believe that a few powerful people are out to get everybody. Their findings were published in the European Journal of Social Psychology.

"I have been studying conspiracy mentality for almost ten years now and although there is fantastic scholarly work out there, something bugged me about the way conspiracy scholars talk about conspiracy 'believers'. Too often, there is a slight pathologizing tone and a certain arrogance towards the 'crazy' conspiracy believers," explained study author Roland Imhoff, professor of social and legal psychology.

"On the one hand, I can see where this comes from, also because several colleagues have really negative interactions with people who endorsed conspiracy theories," he told PsyPost. "On the other hand, I have always tried to not take a normative stand but merely describe what correlates, antecedent and consequences of belief in conspiracy theories are without claiming that having such beliefs is either correct or incorrect, normal or paranoid.

"In this study, we wanted to counter the impression that belief in conspiracy theories is just a symptom of a paranoid delusion."

An initial meta-analysis of 11 previously published studies, with a combined total of 2,006 participants, found there was a significant correlation between conspiracy beliefs and paranoia.

The researchers then conducted two studies, with 209 German and 400 American participants in total, to better understand the overlap and differences between conspiracy beliefs and paranoia.

The conspiracy mentality of the participants was measured by asking them how much they agreed or disagreed with statements like "There are certain political circles with secret agendas that are very influential." Paranoid, on the other hand, was measured with statements like "I need to be on my guard against others."

They found that conspiracy beliefs were associated with socio-political factors like decreased trust in the government, but paranoia was more indicative of a person's personality traits. Beliefs in conspiracy theories were also strongly associated with assigning blame to a few powerful people, while paranoia was associated with assigning blame to humanity in general.

"I think our findings are best encapsulated in the notion that while there is a certain overlap of subclinical paranoia and conspiracy beliefs, the two markedly differ in their scope of both the threat and the target: Whereas paranoid people believe that virtually everyone is after specifically them, conspiracy believer think that a few powerful people are after virtually everyone," Imhoff explained.

The researchers said the findings also suggest that belief in conspiracy theories is more of a political attitude than a symptom of a psychopathological issue. However, the study has some limitations.

"We looked at variations within non-selected samples, not at cases of clinical paranoia," Imhoff said. "Also, we explored existing inter-individual differences at a certain point in time, but we have no longitudinal data to follow whether one of the two typically precedes the other."

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The study, "How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Towards a more fine‐grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories", was authored by Roland Imhoff and Pia Lamberty.

Comment:

Reader Comments

smackman · 2018-05-13T02:09:15Z

It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you.

Rowan Cocoan · 2018-05-13T02:23:43Z

Duh. Most they claim are 'delusional', 'paranoid' (with an obligatory thrown-in 'schizophrenia' thrown in, although that is typically a condition that appears shortly post puberty.')

All too often (indeed, I'd guess from experience of friends/clients it's nowadays the majority of times), these days, I would bet is not that the patient after 40 years of a normal life has documentable evidence of being followed, etc., is that:

1) The doctors will NOT look at that evidence; AND,

2) The DOCTORS are TOO CLOSE MINDED and/or scared of the government behind the 'followers'.

R.C.

viligeidiot · 2018-05-13T03:37:57Z

I'm sick to death of the term 'conspiracy theory'... make plans to go out for dinner with friends? that's a conspiracy... organizing to strike at work? also a conspiracy... any time two or more people make ANY type of plan it's a fukcing CONSPIRACY! The only reason the term 'conspiracy theory' has been used to demonize people is to shut down any argument that just might lead to facts differing from the people in control's agenda and the fact that they USE it? guess what... that's a conspiracy too...

Woodsman · 2018-05-13T09:20:21Z

I'm sick to death of the term 'conspiracy theory'... make plans to go out for dinner with friends? that's a conspiracy... organizing to strike at work? also a conspiracy... any time two or more people make ANY type of plan it's a fukcing CONSPIRACY! The only reason the term 'conspiracy theory' has been used to demonize people is to shut down any argument that just might lead to facts differing from the people in control's agenda and the fact that they USE it? guess what... that's a conspiracy too...

There's nothing to be done about it.

I use it these days to determine if a person is a sheep-person or a person-person.

You can't train people to react differently to that frightening word, I don't think. Not really. So if they cringe and shut down, you know they're just silly bunnies. Feed them and take care of them, watch your back if they gather in large numbers. I think, like flocks of sheep, if you maintain eye contact and don't lose your cool, one person-person can make a small to medium-sized flock of sheep-people back down. They can sense and indeed, fear, confidence and competence. They can only rip into you if they work themselves up into a lather in large enough numbers first and keep their eyes mostly shut.

Know your farm animals.