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Anxiety and Depression Disorders Breed Paranoia and Conspiracy Thinking

Anxiety and depression disorders often fuel paranoia and conspiracy thinking because they distort threat perception, control beliefs, and trust in others. Anxiety amplifies the brain’s threat-detection systems and produces interpretation bias—the tendency to see ambiguous situations as dangerous or intentional—making conspiratorial narratives appear more credible (Freeman et al., 2005, British Journal of Psychiatry).

Depression, meanwhile, reduces perceived control and increases the need to find meaning or external causes for one’s suffering, leading some individuals to adopt conspiracy explanations that restore a false sense of order or blame (van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017, European Journal of Social Psychology). Both disorders weaken emotional regulation and heighten social mistrust—core predictors of paranoid ideation (Lincoln et al., 2010, Journal of Abnormal Psychology).

Empirical studies confirm that psychological distress, including anxiety and depression, correlates with stronger endorsement of conspiratorial beliefs (Grzesiak-Feldman, 2013, Psychological Reports; Swami et al., 2016, Psychiatry Research). Mechanistically, these effects operate through three pathways: (1) hypervigilant threat perception, (2) reduced sense of agency, and (3) interpersonal mistrust. Together, these cognitive-emotional distortions make conspiracy thinking emotionally rewarding and psychologically self-protective, even when it contradicts factual evidence—revealing how mental distress can transform uncertainty into suspicion.

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