"By promoting conspiracy theories, narcissistic leaders can cause significant societal harm—be it discouraging political engagement, encouraging unhealthy beliefs and behaviors (e.g., the anti-vaccination movement), discrimination, or acts of violence."

submitted by [deleted] from psychologytoday.com

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[–]Insider 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The writers of that article wrote an opinionated review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X22001051

Based on past studies, the authors associated paranoia with believing in conspiracies. They also associate paranoia with vulnerable narcissism. However, there's a logical fallacy with this logic:

For instance, say all vulnerable narcissists are paranoid, but not all paranoids are narcissists. Meaning you can have 50% of paranoid conspiracy believers being non-narcissists and 50% being narcissists. The narcissists are the ones more likely to believe everything based off of their own bias, but what about the other 50%?

Furthermore, it's natural for people with paranoia to be skeptical. Why don't they relate conspiracy believers with skepticism? Because that's the main driver, not paranoia. You can be skeptical without being paranoid.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Why don't they relate conspiracy believers with skepticism?

The only explanation is the obvious one. This is intended to be insulting in order to discourage conspiracy theories. It is simply propaganda.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's more than that. In the Orwellian world of 2030, if your mind harbors "non-mainstream thoughts", studies such as these might be used to warrant putting you on strong psychiatric medications. It will come to that, if we let it. I promise.