Healing Space | Are ‘they’ really against ‘us’? How conspiracy thinking gets you

While people who are paranoid fear personal attacks, people who hold conspiracy thinking feel targeted because they are part of a particular group. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Note to readers: Healing Space is a weekly series that helps you dive into your mental health and take charge of your wellbeing through practical DIY self-care methods.

Is everyone really against ‘us’? And who constitutes ‘us’ versus ‘them’? We loosely use the term ‘paranoia’ when we feel attacked, but it is more an extreme presentation of anxiety that it represents. The more appropriate psychological term for a commonly held belief of being socially persecuted is ‘conspiracy thinking’ or ‘collective anxiety’.

Research* shows this form of social anxiety presents through the widely held belief that we are oppressed, we are victims and will face isolation if we do not counter a common ‘enemy’ that often presents as a coordinated group. While people who are paranoid fear personal attacks, people who hold conspiracy thinking feel targeted because they are part of a particular group.

Conspiracy thinking is signified by factors such as ‘jumping to conclusions’ and collecting ‘evidence’ that supports our bias. We see evidence of agents who behave with malicious intention and detect patterns in their actions that work against our best interests. We believe this will result in bodily harm to us and our loved ones, or that it will deprive us of opportunity, push us to a position of lack, poverty, oppression.

In any population, there is a mix of those who are suspicious of others’ intentions and those who are firmly convinced of extreme paranoid views. It is rarely homogenous.

Conspiracy thinking is often tied to social and political issues such as low trust in government, lack of control over events, and fanning by news media.

Whether what we believe is based in fact or fear, it can leave us feeling helpless, out of control, isolated. We may feel lonely, feel an  overwhelming need to escape or have an escape option, and begin to avoid people or specific groups. It can impact work and personal relationships, have physiological repercussions such as insomnia, and lead to panic attacks, and degrees of anxiety and depression.

Internalising widely held conspiracy theories is more than just idle doom-scrolling; it affects how we live, work and relate. While it is natural to feel upset in turbulent times, it is these feelings of valid fear, anxiety, uncertainty that are fanned by conspiracy thinking. There are a number of reasons why a wide group of people adopt these easily circulated theories. Sometimes, it is the answer that most easily fits.

However, that does not always make it valid. It looks like flooding on a road due to heavy rains, but underlying causes range from high tides, bad governance, poor construction of the road, cloudburst, to illegal real estate development, and a host of other factors that are not apparent on the surface. The obvious is not always the only answer. However, groups often seek some one cause to blame. Justice, or the correct sequence and hierarchy of blame is often much harder to arrive at, is time-consuming, and takes resources and wisdom. Public sentiment prefers an immediate and visible scapegoat. Further, since conspiracy thinking feeds into existing fears, people who buy into them genuinely believe they are being kept safe or protected by the theory. It also allows people in an insecure environment to band into groups. This provides a perception of safety in numbers. Since conspiracy thinking is linked to the attributes of the group, it paradoxically also depersonalizes the attack. This allows you to hang on to the friends who belong to the identity you believe is against you, while still retaining the belief that it’s ‘them’ versus ‘us’.

Conspiracy thinking also feeds personal pride. It makes you feel like you are privy to information or connections others don’t have, or don’t see. This means you are smarter. Hence, conspiracy thinking appeals to either people who are less educated, or who are insecure about their educational qualifications. This is also found to reduce with training in analytical thinking (commensurate with higher education practices). It also reduces with the ability and confidence to influence and control one’s social and political environment.

The way to counter conspiracy thinking is to build public trust. The more control people feel they have over society through instruments such as governance feedback mechanisms and voting rights, i.e. the more powerful people feel in a society, the less likely they are to feel unheard, dismissed or lean upon conspiracy thinking as fact.

*References:

• Paranoia & Conspiracy Thinking, Anna Greenburgh et al, Elsevier, 28 May 2022
• Why Education Predicts Decreased Belief in Conspiracy Theories, Jan-Willem van Projien, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28 November 2016
• Swami & Colleagues, Analytical Thinking reduces belief in conspiracy thinking, Cognition, 6 August 2014
• Mirowsky, J., & Ross, C. E. (2003). Education, social status, and health. NJ: Aldine
• Karen M. Douglas et al, The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories, Curr Dir Psychol Sci. December 2017.