Associations between schizotypy and belief in conspiracist ideation

Abstract

a b s t r a c tPrevious studies have reported associations between conspiracist ideation and domain-level facets of schizotypy, but less is known about associations with lower-order facets. In the present study, 447 adults completed measures of conspiracist ideation and the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ), consisting of nine subscales grouped into four domains. Results of a multiple regression showed that two domains of the SPQ significantly predicted conspiracist ideation, but multicollinearity was a limiting factor. In a second regression, we found that the subscales of Odd Beliefs or Magical Thinking and Ideas of Reference significantly predicted conspiracist ideation, without any multicollinearity constraints. We interpret these results as implicating two specific lower-order facets of schizotypy in belief in conspiracy theories. We further contrast the present results with previous studies indicating associations between conspiracist ideation and paranormal beliefs.

Associations between belief in conspiracy theories and the maladaptive personality traits of the personality inventory for DSM-5

“…Our results showed that belief in conspiracy theories was most strongly associated with the Unusual Beliefs and Experiences facet of the PID-5. In broad outline, this finding is consistent with previous work showing that facets of schizotypy closely associated with odd beliefs and magical thinking are most strongly predictive of belief in conspiracy theories (Barron et al, 2014). While it is clear that there is some shared space occupied by facets of the PID-5 and measures of schizotypy (Ashton, Lee, de Vries, Hendrickse, & Born, 2012), we believe our findings point to a broader picture of maladaptive personality traits that influence anomalous beliefs, including belief in conspiracy theories.…”

“…Here, we found that the facet of Suspiciousness emerged as a significant predictor of belief in conspiracy theories, although it explained only a small proportion of shared variance. In previous work, however, Barron et al (2014) reported that a schizotypy-based measure of Paranoid Ideation/Suspiciousness did not predict belief in conspiracy theories once the effects of odd beliefs had been accounted for. It would seem, therefore, that suspiciousness is only weakly associated with belief in conspiracy theories.…”

“…First, where facets of schizotypy have been examined, it appears that traits associated with odd CONSPIRACY THEORIES 5 beliefs and magical thinking -the traits most closely associated with belief in the paranormal -are predictive of belief in conspiracy theories, whereas other schizotypal facets show weaker or non-significant associations (Barron, Morgan, Towell, Altemeyer, & Swami, 2014). Second, it has been reported that it is delusional traits, rather than schizotypy per se, that may lead to greater acceptance of conspiracy theories (Dagnall, Drinkwater, Parker, Denovan, & Parton, 2015).…”

“…Of the 25 facets proposed in the DSM-5 dimensional trait model (see Table 1), those associated with the Psychotism domain would seem most likely to be associated with belief in conspiracy theories. These facets tap those constructs that have been identified as predictors of conspiracist ideation in previous studies (Barron et al, 2014;Dagnall et al, 2015), but offer broader coverage of maladaptive personality traits. In addition, the facet of Suspiciousness (subsumed within the domain of Negative Affectivity) would appear to be another potential candidate, given commentary about distrust of others in conspiracist ideation (Drinkwater et al, 2011).…”

The Conspiratorial Style in Lay Economic Thinking

“…Numerous personality factors, emotional states and social political attitudes have been found to correlate with support for CTs, including anomia (broadly: distrust towards authorities, feelings of powerlessness, and feelings of dissatisfaction about one's life; [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], personal and social (i.e., feeling of insecurity) anxiety [29][30][31], negative self-esteem [19,22,26,32], paranoia and schizotypy [16,21,26,28,[33][34][35][36][37], Right-Wing Authoritarianism [19,28,32,38]; but only marginally in [39], and irrationality or paranormal beliefs [16,21,24,26,28,30,35,[40][41][42][43][44]. Motivational processes have also been underlined.…”