How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Towards a more fine‐grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories
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Across one meta-analysis and two novel studies, we provided a more fine-grained perspective on the association between paranoid and belief in conspiracy theories. First, we established comprehensive evidence for a moderate correlation between .29 (latent correlation in Study 2) and .38 (meta-analytic estimate and latent correlation in Study 3), while also establishing discriminant validity with a multitrait- multi-method approach in Studies 2 and 3. Thus, there is an association between the two but they are not identical.
More importantly, they also have markedly different associates. Although both belief in conspiracy theories and paranoia have been associated with attributional biases, low trust and control deprivation, our studies suggest that these seemingly impressive commonalities might conceal more than they reveal, as it has to be specified who is the relevant target of attributional biases, low trust and in which domain control deprivation is experienced. Specifically, conspiracy beliefs were associated with an attribution of all evil to powerful people, whereas paranoia predicted attribution to people in general. Likewise, conspiracy beliefs were associated with decreased trust in the government but not so much in people in general, and vice versa for paranoia. In line with the characterization of paranoia as "self-relevant suspicious and distrustful beliefs" (Van Prooijen & van Lange, 2014; p. 240; emphasis added), it was reliably associated with perceived lack of control particularly in the personal and interpersonal domain. In marked contrast, people who endorse conspiracy theories particularly feel that they cannot influence or control what is happening on a societal level (as here, a sinister group of conspirators makes the calls), but may have no such or less perceived deficiencies in controlling their personal immediate environment.
In light of this distinction, it seems worthwhile to reassess what actually constitutes a conspirational mindset. As one of the most robust findings in the psychology of conspiracy beliefs, there seems to be a coherent tendency to either believe or disbelieve conspiracy theories of various kinds, a monological belief system (Goertzel, 1994), conspiracy mentality (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014; Moscovici, 1987), a conspiracist ideation (Swami et al., 2011). We would argue that our results are in line with the notion of conspiracy mentality as a generalized political attitude (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014), a set of convictions about the state of the political arena, not an expression of some underlying psychopathology.
De-pathologizing conspiracy beliefs by understanding them as a political attitude rather than a delusional ideation does – of course – not imply veracity of any, let alone all kinds of conspiracy theories. At the same time, it implies leaving the convenient position of labelling any kind of assertion untrue as soon as it implies a conspiracy. Clearly, in the political, social and economic realms, many important decisions are being made behind closed curtains, sometimes by secret coordination.
