Scientific studies, data and specialists opinion suggest that more stressful life events, increased anxiety, uncertainty, fear and pandemics mental health consequences may lead to increased belief in conspiracy theories
More stressful life events predicted belief in conspiracy theories
Greater perceived stress predicted belief in conspiracy theories
Date: 2016
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886916303440
Source: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-40379-014
In recent years it’s been suggested that stress plays its part in leading people to fringe beliefs, too. Professor Viren Swami, from Anglia Ruskin University, performed studies in 2016 that took 400 participants between 20 and 78 and asked whether they believed the 1969 moon landings had been faked.
Professor Swami also polled subjects as to whether they believed that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated by the American government. He then assessed subjects’ stress levels—most significantly, stressful situations that might have occurred within their lives in the last six months.
The results showed that the more stressed a person was, the more likely they were to believe in conspiracy.
“Stressful situations increase the tendency to think less analytically,” says Professor Swami. “An individual experiencing a stressful life event may begin to engage in a particular way of thinking, such as seeing patterns that don’t exist.”
“In the aftermath of distressing events,” he continued, “it is possible that some individuals may seek out conspiracist explanations that reinstall a sense of order or control.”
One of the most significant of these, reported by Psychology Today in April 2017, involved mining data from one of the largest surveys of mental health ever carried out: the US National Comorbidity Survey-Replication conducted between 2001 and 2003.
Subjects were asked the consider the statement; “I’m convinced there’s a conspiracy behind many things in the world.” More than a quarter of subjects believed that to be true.
Digging into the data, there were a number of commonalities. Those who agreed with that statement tended to be male, unmarried, with above-average levels of social disadvantages, such as having relatively low income and education levels. They were more likely to be from an ethnic minority. They were more likely to carry a weapon. And they tended to report lower levels of physical and psychological wellbeing. Many had considered suicide.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15297905/
Source: https://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/wmh/publishedpaper_kessler_design.pdf
“We’ve faced pandemics before,” said Graham Brookie, who directs the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “We haven’t faced a pandemic at a time when humans are as connected and have as much access to information as they do now.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/world/europe/coronavirus-conspiracy-theories.html
Daniel Jolley, a psychologist and conspiracy theory researcher, discussed with the Trauma and Mental Health Report (TMHR) why people turn to conspiracy theories in times of crisis:
“Conspiracy theories bloom in periods of uncertainty and threat, where we seek to make sense of a chaotic world. They often provide a simple answer to a complex problem, and blame a group of conspirators for a problem in society, which can make them very appealing. The “official” answer does not always meet this need, is usually more complex, and is often provided by the government, a group that some people do not find trustworthy. People would prefer to focus on explanations provided by the underdog.”
Research shows that conspiracy theories satisfy unmet psychological needs and provide security of knowledge in a time of uncertainty. When increased anxiety and powerlessness are present, conspiracy theories provide answers to complex questions and help relieve these unpleasant feelings. Additionally, some research has linked belief in conspiracy theories to the need for uniqueness. In other words, people want to feel powerful and special; as though they are in possession of important information that other people don’t have.
Karen Douglas, a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom who researches conspiracy theories, spoke with the TMHR and explained:
“People are looking for knowledge in a time of great uncertainty, especially when information keeps unfolding rapidly. People are naturally confused. Conspiracy theories may therefore satisfy the need for accuracy and knowledge. They may also help people come to terms with existential threats as they can help them understand the threatening situation they are in. In addition, this might fulfill the social need to maintain a positive image of the self.”
Conspiracy theories often have a significant negative impact on the people who believe them and those around them. They can increase feelings of mistrust and lead to disengagement from society including reduced intention to vaccinate, less engagement in climate science, and a higher likelihood to participate in low-level crime.
“There’s good evidence that conspiracy theories flourish during times of crisis,” says Joseph Pierre, psychiatrist and researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “When we feel insecure, we often look for information that provides an explanation for chaotic events.”
“Most people who believe in conspiracy theories don’t trust the informational sources the rest of us rely on,” Pierre says, “which thwarts attempts at counterargument.”
In the present study, we hypothesised that greater analytic thinking would be directly associated with greater compliance with mandated requirements for social-distancing that were in place in the United Kingdom in early April 2020, as well as indirectly via the rejection of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. The results of our mediation analysis supported our hypotheses: in a nationally representative sample of adults in the United Kingdom, we found evidence of significant direct and indirect associations between analytic thinking and compliance. Put differently, our results suggest that individuals who, in the parlance of dualprocess theory (e.g., Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Evans & Stanovich, 2013), utilise System 2 processes to a greater extent – characterised by deliberative, cognitively-demanding, and slow cognitive styles – were more likely to comply with social-distancing mandates, but were also more likely to reject COVID-19 conspiracy theories, which in turn was associated with greater compliance. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a significant association between analytic thinking and compliance with social-distancing mandates.
More about the link between stress, fear anxiety, mental health issues and cosnpiracy theories:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6396711/
(date: 2019)
Analytical thiniking, links to prefrontal cortex and toxic stress
Higher cortisol (highest tertile vs middle tertile) was associated with worse memory and visual perception, as well as lower total cerebral brain and occipital and frontal lobar gray matter volumes. Higher cortisol was associated with multiple areas of microstructural changes (decreased regional FA), especially in the splenium of corpus callosum and the posterior corona radiata. The association of cortisol with total cerebral brain volume varied by sex (p for interaction = 0.048); higher cortisol was inversely associated with cerebral brain volume in women (p = 0.001) but not in men (p = 0.717). There was no effect modification by the APOE4 genotype of the relations of cortisol and cognition or imaging traits.
Date: 2018
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30355700/
Source: https://n.neurology.org/content/91/21/e1961
Finally, by comparing our results to meta-analyses of mentalising, we obtain evidence for common engagement of the ventromedial and anterior dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in both metacognition and mentalising, suggesting that these regions may support second-order representations for thinking about the thoughts of oneself and others.
Date: 2018
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6238228/
More on this: https://www.heartmath.com/blog/performance/how-stress-interferes-with-critical-thinking/
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/executive-function/