Putting the stress on conspiracy theories: Examining associations between psychological stress, anxiety, and belief in conspiracy theories

Personality and Individual Differences

Volumn 99, Issue , 2016, Pages 72-76

  Swami, Viren ^a,b   Furnham, Adrian ^c   Smyth, Nina ^d   Weis, Laura ^c   Lay, Alixe ^e   Clow, Angela ^d  

^a ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b HELP UNIVERSITY   (Malaysia)

^c UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^d UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER   (United Kingdom)

^e University of Bath   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Anxiety; Conspiracy theories; Perceived stress; Stress

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ANXIETY; CLINICAL STUDY; GENETIC POLYMORPHISM; HUMAN; HUMAN TISSUE; LIFE EVENT; MENTAL STRESS; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; SOCIAL STATUS;

EID: 84964983965     PISSN: 01918869     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2016.04.084     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Abalakina-Paap M., Stephan W.G., Craig T., Gregory W.L. Beliefs in conspiracies. Political Psychology 1999, 20:637-647. 10.1111/0162-895X.00160.
2. Adler N.E., Epel E.S., Castellazzo G., Ickovics J.R. Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy White women. Health Psychology 2000, 19:586-592. 10.1037/0278-6133.19.6.586.
3. Baker F., Denniston M., Zabora J., Polland A., Dudley W.N. A POMS short form for cancer patients: Psychometric and structural evaluation. Psycho-Oncology 2002, 11:273-281. 10.1002/pon.564.
4. Barron D., Morgan K., Towell T., Altemeyer B., Swami V. Associations between schizotypy and belief in conspiracist ideation. Personality and Individual Differences 2014, 70:156-159. 10.1016/j.paid.2014.06.040.
5. Bijleveld E., Scheepers D., Ellemers N. The cortisol response to anticipated intergroup interactions predicts self-reported prejudice. PloS One 2012, 7. 10.1371/journal.pone.0033681.
6. Blair C. Stress and the development of self-regulation in context. Child Development Perspectives 2010, 4:181-188. 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2010.00145.x.
7. Brotherton R., French C.C. Belief in conspiracy theories and susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy. Applied Cognitive Psychology 2014, 28:238-248. 10.1002/acp.2995.
8. Brotherton R., French C.C., Pickering A.D. Measuring belief in conspiracy theories: The generic conspiracist beliefs scale. Frontiers in Psychology 2013, 4:279. 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00279.
9. Brugha T.S., Cragg D. The list of threatening experiences: The reliability and validity of a brief life events questionnaire. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 1990, 82:77-81. 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1990.tb01360.x.
10. Brugha T., Bebbington P.E., Tennant C., Hurry J. The List of Threatening Experiences: A subset of 12 life event categories with considerable long-term contextual threat. Psychological Medicine 1985, 15:189-194. 10.1017/S003329170002105X.
11. Buhrmester M., Kwang T., Gosling S.D. Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data?. Perspectives on Psychological Science 2011, 6:3-5. 10.1177/1745691610393980.
12. Cohen S., Kamarck T., Mermelstein R. A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behaviour 1983, 24:385-396.
13. Douglas K.M., Sutton R.M., Jolley D., Wood M.J. The social, political, environmental, and health-related consequences of conspiracy theories. The psychology of conspiracy 2016, Taylor and Francis, Abingdon, UK, (in press). M. Bilewicz, A. Cichocka, W. Soral (Eds.).
14. Everly G. A clinical guide to the treatment of the human stress response 1990, Plenum, New York, NY.
15. Goenjian A.K., Steinberg A.M., Najarian L.M., Fairbanks L.A., Tashjian M., Pynoos R.S. Prospective study of posttraumatic stress, anxiety, and depressive reactions after earthquake and political violence. American Journal of Psychiatry 2000, 157:911-916.
16. Goodman J.K., Cryder C.E., Cheema A. Data collection in a flat world: The strengths and weaknesses of Mechanical Turk samples. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 2013, 26:213-224. 10.1002/bdm.1753.
17. Grzesiak-Feldman M. Conspiracy thinking and state-trait anxiety in young Polish adults. Psychological Reports 2007, 100:199-202.
18. Grzesiak-Feldman M. The effect of high-anxiety situations on conspiracy thinking. Current Psychology 2013, 32:100-118. 10.1007/s12144-013-9165-6.
19. Hofstadter R. The paranoid style in American politics. The paranoid style in American politics and other essays 1966, 3-40. Knopf, New York, NY. R. Hofstader (Ed.).
20. Kirschbaum C., Pirke K.M., Hellhammer D.H. The Trier Social Stress Test: A tool for investigating psychobiological stress responses in a laboratory setting. Neuropsychobiology 1993, 28:76-81. 10.1159/000119004.
21. Lee E.-H. Review of the psychometric evidence of the Perceived Stress Scale. Asian Nursing Research 2012, 6:121-127. 10.1016/j.anr.2012.08.004.
22. Nefes T.S. Scrutinizing impacts of conspiracy theories on readers' political views: a rational choice perspective on anti-semitic rhetoric in Turkey. British Journal of Sociology 2015, 66:557-575. 10.1111/1468-4446.12137.
23. Oliver J.E., Wood T.J. Conspiracy theories and the paranoid style(s) of mass opinion. American Journal of Political Science 2014, 58:952-966. 10.1111/ajps.12084.
24. Radnitz S., Underwood P. Is belief in conspiracy theories pathological? A survey on the cognitive roots of extreme suspicion. British Journal of Political Science 2015, (in press). 10.1017/S0007123414000556.
25. Robins R.S., Post J.M. Political paranoia 1997, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
26. Shacham S. A shortened version of the Profile of Mood States. Journal of Personality Assessment 1983, 47:305-306. 10.1207/s15327752jpa4703_14.
27. Spielberger C.D., Gorsuch R.L., Lushene R. STAI manual 1970, Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA.
28. Spielberger C.D., Reheiser E.C. Measuring anxiety, anger, depression, and curiosity as emotional states and personality traits with the STAI, STAXI, and STPI. Comprehensive handbook of psychological assessment, Volume 2: Personality assessment 2004, 74-80. Wiley, New York, NY. M. Hersen, D.L. Segal, M. Hilsenroth (Eds.).
29. Spielberger C.D., Gorsuch R.L., Lushene R., Vagg P.R., Jacobs G.A. Manual for the state-trait anxiety inventory 1983, Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA.
30. Starcke K., Brand M. Decision making under stress: A selective review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 2012, 36:1228-1248. 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2012.02.003.
31. Sullivan D., Landau M.J., Rothschild Z.K. An existential function of enemyship: Evidence that people attribute influence to personal and political enemies to compensate for threats to control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2010, 98:434-449. 10.1037/a0017457.
32. Swami V., Furnham A. Political paranoia and conspiracy theories. Power, politics, and paranoia: Why people are suspicious of their leaders 2014, 218-236. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. J.-P. Prooijen, P.A.M. van Lange (Eds.).
33. Swami V., Chamorro-Premuzic T., Furnham A. Unanswered questions: A preliminary investigation of personality and individual difference predictors of 9/11 conspiracist beliefs. Applied Cognitive Psychology 2010, 24:749-761. 10.1002/acp.1583.
34. Swami V., Coles R., Stieger S., Pietschnig J., Furnham A., Rehim S., et al. Conspiracist ideation in Britain and Austria: Evidence of a monological belief system and associations between individual psychological differences and real-world and fictitious conspiracy theories. British Journal of Psychology 2011, 102:443-463. 10.1111/j.2044-8295.2010.02004.x.
35. Swami V., Voracek M., Stieger S., Tran U.S., Furnham A. Analytic thinking reduces belief in conspiracy theories. Cognition 2014, 133:572-585. 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.08.006.
36. Swami V., Weis L., Lay A., Barron S., Furnham A. Associations between belief in conspiracy theories and the maladaptive personality traits of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. Psychiatry Research 2016, 236:86-90. 10.1016/j.psychres.2015.12.027.
37. Tull E.S., Sheu Y.-T., Butler C., Cornelious K. Relationships between perceived stress, coping behavior, and cortisol secretion in women with high and low levels of internalized racism. Journal of the National Medical Association 2005, 97:206-212.
38. van Prooijen J.-W., Acker M. The influence of control on belief in conspiracy theories: Conceptual and applied extensions. Applied Cognitive Psychology 2015, 29:753-761. 10.1002/acp.3161.
39. van Prooijen J.-W., Jostmann N.B. Belief in conspiracy theories: The influence of uncertainty and perceived morality. European Journal of Social Psychology 2013, 43:109-115. (10.1002.ejsp.1922).
40. Whitson J.A., Galinsky A.D. Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception. Science 2008, 322:115-117. 10.1126/science.1159845.
41. Wood M.J., Douglas, Sutton R.M. Dead and alive: Beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories. Social Psychological and Personality Science 2012, 3:6567-6773. 10.1177/1948550611434786.