Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Sci Rep. 2023 Apr 13;13(1):6084. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-33305-w.
Paranoia is the belief that others intend you harm. It is related to conspiracy theories, wherein those others represent an organized faction, coordinating the harm against self and others, and violating societal norms. Current psychological studies of paranoid conspiracy theorizing focus either on the individual or their broader social network. Likewise, theories of belief formation and updating often contain individual level processes as well as broader interpersonal and organizational factors. Here we examine paranoia and conspiracy theorizing in terms of individual behavioral predictors (performance on a probabilistic reversal learning task which assays belief updating) as well as social sensing: we ask participants to report the features of their social network, including whether their friends and acquaintances share their paranoid conspiratorial beliefs. We find that people who believe paranoid conspiracy theories expect more volatility during the task. They also assume that members of their social network share their paranoid beliefs. Critically, those participants with larger social networks and greater assumed shared belief tend to harbor their conspiratorial beliefs with less emotional distress and expect less volatility in the task. This is evidence that, like political and religious beliefs, conspiracy theories may flourish under a sacred canopy of belief consensus. These data suggest that friends and acquaintances may serve as sources of credulity and moving between them may sustain conspiracy beliefs when there is detraction. This hybrid individual/social account may shed light on clinical paranoia and persecutory delusion, wherein disability is defined normatively, and social supports are fewer.
偏执狂是指认为他人有意伤害自己的信念。它与阴谋论有关，在阴谋论中，那些他人代表着一个有组织的派别，协调对自己和他人的伤害，并违反社会规范。当前对偏执狂阴谋论的心理学研究要么关注个体，要么关注他们更广泛的社交网络。同样，信仰形成和更新的理论通常包含个体层面的过程以及更广泛的人际和组织因素。在这里，我们根据个体行为预测因子（在评估信念更新的概率反转学习任务中的表现）以及社会感知来研究偏执狂和阴谋论：我们要求参与者报告他们社交网络的特征，包括他们的朋友和熟人是否分享他们的偏执阴谋论信仰。我们发现，相信偏执阴谋论的人在任务中预期会有更大的波动性。他们还假设他们的社交网络成员也持有偏执的信念。关键是，那些拥有更大社交网络和更多假设共同信念的参与者，在持有阴谋论信仰时，情绪困扰较少，并且在任务中预期的波动性较小。这表明，与政治和宗教信仰一样，阴谋论可能在信仰共识的神圣掩护下蓬勃发展。这些数据表明，朋友和熟人可能是轻信的来源，当出现分歧时，在他们之间转移可能会维持阴谋论信仰。这种混合的个体/社会解释可能有助于阐明临床上的偏执狂和迫害妄想，其中残疾是根据规范来定义的，社会支持较少。
