The DOI matches its Crossref record; 71 of the 71 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Toward a more fine-grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories
Abstract
Public discourse and scholarly literature often make a strong connection between paranoid thought and belief in conspiracy theories. We report one meta‐analysis and two correlational studies across two distinct cultural contexts (total N = 578) to provide an estimate for their association but also evidence for their distinctiveness via a multi‐trait‐multi‐method approach. Whereas the meta‐analysis (k = 11 studies) provided support for a reliable association between paranoia and conspiracy beliefs, the two additional studies provide direct evidence for their distinctiveness and divergent associations with other constructs. Although both assume sinister intentions of others, beliefs in conspiracy theories are more specific in who these others are (powerful groups) than paranoia (everyone). In contrast, paranoia was more restricted in terms of who the target of the negative intentions is (the self) than conspiracy theorizing (society as a whole). In light of this and distinct associations of conspiracy beliefs with political control and trust but not (inter‐)personal control and trust (like paranoia), we propose to treat the two as distinct (albeit correlated) constructs with conspiracy beliefs reflecting a political attitude compared to paranoia as a self‐relevant belief.
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From The dark side of social movements: social identity, non-conformity, and the lure of conspiracy theories (2020) · cites this paper as [36]
In the citing paper
“studies found that stronger uniqueness needs were linked to stronger conspiracy theory beliefs [31,32,36].”
From The dark side of social movements: social identity, non-conformity, and the lure of conspiracy theories (2020) · cites this paper as [36]
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“А з іншого - теорії змови можуть спонукати людей до політичної активності (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014; Imhoff & Lamberty, 2018).”
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“One recently discussed explanation is that conspiracy beliefs serve as a coping strategy to manage uncertainty by simplifying complex realities into more manageable schemas and narratives [6, 7].”
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Conspiracy Theories and Belief in Conspiracy Theories
Harris, K. R. (2026) · Philosophy Compass · doi:10.1111/phc3.70137
“…of outlandish conspiracy theories to be correlated with, for some examples, illusory pattern perception (van Prooijen et al. 2018), paranoia (Imhoff and Lamberty 2018), dark tetrad traits (Doš-enović and Dinić 2024), feelings of ostracism (Poon et al. 2020), and so on (Stasielowicz 2022).”
Epistemic trust, mentalizing and extremist attitudes in a German community sample
Hauschild, S., Berning, A., Heimert, K., Kasper, L., & Taubner, S. (2026) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1934135
“For example, in a recent meta-analysis (22) exploring the fi ndings of 40 studies, signi fi cant associations have been observed between conspiracy thinking and clinical traits such as narcissism and paranoia; moreover, associations were proposed to be mediated by disrupted epistemic trust (23, 24).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Imhoff, R., & Lamberty, P.
- Affiliations
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Imhoff, Roland
- Venue
- European Journal of Social Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2018-05-30
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 909-926
- ISSN
- 0046-2772 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-0992
- OpenAlex
- W2799716520
- Semantic Scholar
- 47550a1d8d5b54bb390d03c1b1d299c52887c2b9
- Cited by
- 267
- References
- 70
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 58 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 43.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- European Journal of Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Keywords
- paranoia, conspiracy beliefs, conspiracy theories, paranoid thinking, political control, trust, interpersonal control, self-relevance, construct distinctiveness
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