Paranoia predicts outgroup prejudice: preliminary experimental data
Date
2015-09-01
Authors
Lopes, Barbara
Jaspal, Rusi
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Routledge: Taylor and Francis
Peer reviewed
Yes
Abstract
This article examines the relationships between exposure to terrorism news and state social paranoia, death anxiety and Islamophobia. In two experiments we show that, contrary to previous research in this area, the terrorism news condition did not significantly increase state social paranoia, death anxiety and prejudice towards Muslims, but that paranoid thinking was the sole predictor of Islamophobia. Trait paranoia is associated with both poor well-being and with negative perceptions of Muslim competitive players – a form of interrelationalprejudice. Results indicated that the frequency of paranoid thoughts mediates therelationship between death anxiety and anti-Muslim prejudice and trait paranoia is the main predictor of the negative perceptions of a Muslim competing player. This study elucidatesnew pathways to understanding terror management theory, by including paranoia as a typeof thinking that predisposes individuals to be suspicious of salient out-groups.
Description
Keywords
Islamophobia, prejudice, paranoia, death anxiety, social psychology, clinical
Citation
Lopes, B and Jaspal, R. (2015) Paranoia predicts out-group prejudice: preliminary experimental data, Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 18 (5), pp. 380-395
Research Institute
Media Discourse Centre (MDC)
Mary Seacole Research Centre
Mary Seacole Research Centre