For studies in psychiatry, psychology, and behavioral sciences about conspirativism, click here or scroll down.

 

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A personality disorder is a dysfunction of the mind related to the ability to understand the surrounding environment. Dorland's Medical Dictionary (Ed.28) describes the concept of personality disorders as "a category of mental disorders characterized by inflexible and maladaptive traits that are self-perpetuating, generate subjective distress, and result in significant impairments in social functioning". Another description we can find in the DSM5 recently published: "Personality disorders are associated with ways of thinking and feeling about oneself, and others that significantly and adversely affect how an individual functions in many aspects of life."

 

The 'Conspirative Personality Disorder' (CPD) is not a recognized disorder yet, but a suggestion to a new classification of a specific group of people opposing reality, as a group and not as individuals. Emerging knowledge regarding some difficulties of certain people to comprehend reality, while inventing group-supported alternative reality stories and rejecting every contradicting claim or evidence, drives the conclusion that in some cases, it is not just a misunderstanding of reality but a real disturbance in a deeper layer of one's personality.

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This knowledge center was established a year after the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in light of the worldwide resistance of groups to the vaccine, virus denial, pandemic denial, and other claims. Those claims delayed the worldwide efforts to defeat the virus, encouraged fake news, public fear and distress, and even led to violence and threats against medical staff.

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Over the centuries, hundreds of conspiracy theories have been developed, some disappeared, but some survived to this day. Conspirative claims against the Freemasons, moon-landing, modern medicine, death of famous honored or notorious historical figures, the shape of the Earth, governmental policies on certain issues, imaginary alien movements, imaginative involvement of intelligence agencies, and so on, spread worldwide via stories, printed tabloids and in recent years, the Internet. These ideas intrigued people to investigate if there are some real issues in them or if they are pure misinterpretations of facts that led to a misunderstanding of reality. 

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The phenomenon of adopting conspiracy theories, and their acceptance as truth, harms all sectors of the population and may be expressed in violence and even cost human life. At the same time and in contrast to other psychiatric disorders, it seems that a new phenomenon can be defined here since we have not been able to adapt this issue to any familiar personality disorder. Our impression is that not all conspirators face mental/psychological issues, but only a small percentage.

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After some twenty years of debating on the Internet and countless live conversations with such people, we managed to define a group of behavioral characteristics that increases the likelihood of CPD. The following text was written in relation to the COVID19 vaccines as an example.

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First, we must separate the conspiracy-believers community into two subgroups, 'Source' and 'Undecided'. 

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The 'Undecided' - a group of people who do not reject science/reality in principle but want to establish their consent to an idea presented to them on the knowledge they do not have. Their lack of knowledge and flaws in critical thinking prevent them from making immediate decisions or accepting conventions. These people are persuaded by the first person who convinces them with plausible explanations (even if falsified), but without the "maintenance" of the first concept, they will tend to accept the opposite concept. For example, a hesitant who refuses to vaccinate may agree to be vaccinated after a vaccinated friend's rationalization or a negative experience with him or a family member's illness. It seems that the Undecided is the larger group of the two.

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The 'Sources' - The people who invent or promote the conspirative ideas and usually state that they have "read and reach their own conclusions, which are the real truth." We can divide this group into two sub-groups:

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1. Materialistic Gain Group (MtG) – Those with materialistic interest, something useful to gain from the spreading of conspirative ideas, e.g. money or equivalent, reputation, popularity, political gain, new clients for a provided service, and so on. Members of this group might drop the idea or their solidarity with it, once the authorities and law kicks-in due to certain violations. It’s a simple, calculated Risk/Profit balance.

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2. Mental Gain Group (MnG) – subconsciously, gain behavioral justifications, stress relief, extroversion of paranoidal thoughts. Members in this group might perceive themselves as heroes or saviors, leaders-of-the-masses, and, as law kicks in, as victims, martyrs prosecuted by the evil regime. The MnG group includes people who are characterized by a stable yet militant line of thinking. In most cases, they do not know the matter more than the average person and sometimes even less. They also reject any new knowledge, even if most basic. Their tendency to judge information is paradoxical: on the one hand, they read genuine clinical documents and look for data that justify their position, and on the other hand, they claim that the studies are falsified by their makers and should not be relied upon. They react with ridicule and aggression to any rational explanation, clinging to their initial assumptions and understandings and unable to update when new findings arise.

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Mutual support and increased use of non-original information, rumors and "friend experience" (a powerful marketing tool) are evident widely and both MtG and MnG support each other ideologically. Their primary perception of reality is pretty simple: everyone lies, hides information, and has hidden interests, except those on their side. Hubris is a basic attitude with these people, as is the tendency to preach to everyone and to assume that no one in the general public knows what is going on except them, and they are the ones who will reveal the truth to everyone and expose the horrific conspiracy. This way of thinking causes them to be perceived by others as delusional (to say the least), which increases their Self-perception of uniqueness. They are very self-confident that they are indeed holding the hidden truth, and their self-esteem rises if they feel that someone is trying to silence them. Some of them present this attitude toward various scientific fields simultaneously - those who oppose vaccines might also oppose 5G mobile technology and other public technologies or scientific inventions that they do not understand.

Sometimes they will reinforce their perception with the help of values ​​such as human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, privacy rights and other laws, even though there is a very poor or no link at all to these laws and their claims.

They have no idea what these laws mean and what their legal limitations are, so the consequence is that they perceived the laws as an absolute concept, and on a fairly superficial level, e.g., "there are human rights in the US, so I am allowed to do everything under any circumstances."

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These are the key behavioral characteristics of CPD:

• A pattern of thinking, characterized by uncompromising determination and rejection of contradictory evidence, as opposed to a typical pattern of thinking of curiosity, skepticism, and the search for evidence while researching/understanding processes and variables.

• Delusions of persecution - surveillance, concealed technological means in the body or the environment.

• Suspicion and hostility towards academic, economic, and government institutions: While a reasonable concern stems from a lack of familiarity with the way the institution works, the CPD aspect comes from stating that "if I do not get the answers I want, or they do not agree with my ideas, they are probably hiding information about their actions." The suspicions are towards the institute's announcements, recommendations, and actions towards the public.

• Pride in "intelligent and rational thinking" without a substantive, professional basis or experience to justify it. 

• Manipulative and blunt writing and expressions, e.g., cherry-picking comparisons to the war actions, Nazis, and the holocaust. Disproportionate reactions to other opinions.

• Dunning-Kruger effect appears with experts from a distant scientific field, e.g., a physicist who considers himself an expert in vaccines without a real professional background, but only because he is an academic.

• Religious-like approach to the subject. The CPD will reject all evidence to preserve his faith in the conspiracy.

• Reality testing disorder: CPD will constantly search for "subtext" in messages from the government or prominent institutes against which suspicion is directed, including a "physical subtext" in the form of a "hidden use" of buildings and equipment, e.g., the claim that antennas for controlling street lighting (a real technology) are In fact antennas for mind control in the masses, and are only shown as used to control street lighting.

• Social amplification: Unlike other disorders that are personal and have "internal feeding" of a sort, the CPD feeds from other CPD patients and constantly seeks ideological support with other CPDs.

• Inversed-Trust: As in the old camera film negatives, when white is black and black is white, in the mind of the CPD, the (professional) expert is unreliable while the (unprofessional) ignorant is reliable.

• Non-CPDs that try to reason with CPDs will feel that they are condescended by the CPD and that "something is wrong with this guy" in the early stages of the conversation. 

• Preference for esoteric, anecdotal and strange sources of information, which do not align with the accumulated scientific knowledge and statistical information

• Projection of the self: the CPD patient claims that the non-CPDs are conspirative, delusional, blind-believer, unable to comprehend reality, and so on. Usually, they "copy-cast" the expressions against them even if the meaning (of the word) is not fit the behavior of those non-CPD.

• Denial of group affiliation: the moment that the CPD patient is defined as such by his "rival" the non-CPD, a defense mechanism kicks in, characterized by typical statements such as "I do believe in vaccines, but not this one". The cause of this is the CPD's hurt self-esteem now that he feels differentiated from the general public, tagged as an odd person.

• Mockery: some CPD patients use mockery and cynicism toward the non-CPD person or claims as they don't have a way to defend their conspirative perceptions and settle the cognitive dissonance.

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Differential Diagnosis:

The physician should distinguish the CPD patients from people in a known condition such as anxiety, paranoia, extreme religious beliefs, people who support or embrace a "natural" way of life without science and technology intervention, people from non-technological cultures.

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Treatment:

We see educational and personal support as the most beneficial therapy available. Though it's unlikely that the CPDs or their followers to seek treatment, as they often see the professionals as their foes and, in most cases, deny the problem, it is their immediate social environment's responsibility to try and cope with the situation, accompanied with professional guidance. The educational therapy offered includes the following subjects:

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• Enhance critical thinking skills

• Explain about qualities of various sources of information

• Teach how to think with the mind, not with the heart

• Provide tools to correct decision making

• Listen to their fears and concerns. Some might be true, but some are erroneous

• Be patient with your responses. Avoid cynicism, mockery, and other antagonism-inducing responses.

 

 

Coping with CPD is beneficial to society as a whole, especially in science promotion and health/medical issues, which can sometimes prolong the life expectancy of CPDs and their followers. Remember that most CPD patients are followers, not inducers, and it wouldn't take long to show them the path to real knowledge.

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(Last updated Feb.2.2022)

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Here are some studies related to conspirative thinking. Click on the pictures to open the articles. Some are required registration and payment to access.

(Last update Sep.17.2022)