Suthaharan Praveen, Reed Erin J, Leptourgos Pantelis, Kenney Joshua, Uddenberg Stefan, Mathys Christoph D, Litman Leib, Robinson Jonathan, Moss Aaron J, Taylor Jane R, Groman Stephanie M, Corlett Philip R
Department of Psychiatry, Connecticut Mental Health Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
Res Sq. 2021 Jan 18:rs.3.rs-145987. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-145987/v1.
The 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has made the world seem unpredictable. During such crises we can experience concerns that others might be against us, culminating perhaps in paranoid conspiracy theories. Here, we investigate paranoia and belief updating in an online sample (N=1,010) in the United States of America (U.S.A). We demonstrate the pandemic increased individuals' self-rated paranoia and rendered their task-based belief updating more erratic. Local lockdown and reopening policies, as well as culture more broadly, markedly influenced participants' belief-updating: an early and sustained lockdown rendered people's belief updating less capricious. Masks are clearly an effective public health measure against COVID-19. However, state-mandated mask wearing increased paranoia and induced more erratic behaviour. Remarkably, this was most evident in those states where adherence to mask wearing rules was poor but where rule following is typically more common. This paranoia may explain the lack of compliance with this simple and effective countermeasure. Computational analyses of participant behaviour suggested that people with higher paranoia expected the task to be more unstable, but at the same time predicted more rewards. In a follow-up study we found people who were more paranoid endorsed conspiracies about mask-wearing and potential vaccines - again, mask attitude and conspiratorial beliefs were associated with erratic task behaviour and changed priors. Future public health responses to the pandemic might leverage these observations, mollifying paranoia and increasing adherence by tempering people's expectations of other's behaviour, and the environment more broadly, and reinforcing compliance.
2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行让世界变得似乎不可预测。在这样的危机期间，我们可能会担心其他人会与我们作对，最终可能会产生偏执的阴谋论。在此，我们在美国的一个在线样本（N = 1010）中调查偏执和信念更新情况。我们证明，大流行增加了个体的自评偏执程度，并使他们基于任务的信念更新变得更加不稳定。地方封锁和重新开放政策，以及更广泛意义上的文化，显著影响了参与者的信念更新：早期且持续的封锁使人们的信念更新不那么反复无常。口罩显然是预防COVID-19的一项有效公共卫生措施。然而，政府强制要求佩戴口罩增加了偏执情绪，并引发了更多不稳定行为。值得注意的是，这在那些口罩佩戴规定遵守情况较差但通常更普遍遵守规则的州最为明显。这种偏执可能解释了对这一简单而有效对策缺乏遵守的原因。对参与者行为的计算分析表明，偏执程度较高的人预计任务会更不稳定，但同时预测会有更多回报。在一项后续研究中，我们发现偏执程度较高的人认可关于戴口罩和潜在疫苗的阴谋论——同样，对口罩的态度和阴谋论信念与不稳定的任务行为以及先验信念的改变有关。未来针对大流行的公共卫生应对措施可能会利用这些观察结果，通过缓和人们对他人行为以及更广泛环境的期望，并加强遵守情况，来减轻偏执情绪并提高依从性。
