Bullying and Conspiracy Theories
Experiences of Workplace Bullying and the Tendency to Engage in Conspiracy Theorizing
Abstract
Abstract. Experiences of bullying in the workplace can increase anxiety, paranoia, and hypervigilance to threat in victims. Such factors are also associated with conspiracy beliefs. Two preregistered studies (cross-sectional and experimental) tested whether bullying experiences may be linked to the development of conspiracy beliefs. Study 1 (n = 273) demonstrated that experiences of workplace bullying were positively associated with conspiracy beliefs, an effect that could be explained by paranoia. In Study 2 (n = 206), participants who imagined being bullied (vs. supported) reported increased belief in conspiracy theories. Our research uncovers another antecedent of conspiracy beliefs: workplace bullying. Future research should endeavor to explore how best to support victims and avert the link between being bullied and conspiracy theorizing emerging.
References
1999). Beliefs in conspiracies. Political Psychology, 20(3), 637–647. 10.1111/0162-895X.00160
(2022). Why conspiracy theorists are not always paranoid: Conspiracy theories and paranoia form separate factors with distinct psychological predictors. PLoS ONE, 17(4), e0259053. 10.1371/journal.pone.0259053
(2021). Changing Faces: ChildWise survey 2021. https://anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/all-about-bullying/at-risk-groups/appearance-targeted-bullying
. (2021). 'Why Me?' The role of perceived victimhood in American politics. Political Behaviour, 1–27. Advance online publication. 10.1007/s11109-020-09662-x
(2011). Workplace bullying: An integrative literature review. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 13(1), 69–84. 10.1177/1523422311410651
(2011). Bullying at school as a predictor of delinquency, violence and other anti-social behaviour in adulthood. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 21(2), 99–106. 10.1002/cbm.799
(2015). Hypervigilance in college students: Associations with betrayal and dissociation and psychometric properties in a Brief Hypervigilance Scale. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 7(5), 448–455. 10.1037/tra0000070
(2006). Workplace harassment from the victim’s perspective: A theoretical model and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(5), 998–1012. 10.1037/0021-9010.91.5.998
(2013). Measuring belief in conspiracy theories: The generic conspiracist beliefs scale. Frontiers in Psychology, 4(1), Article 279. 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00279
(2013). Neutralizing workplace bullying: The buffering effects of contextual factors. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28(4), 384–407. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1108/JMP-12-2012-0399
(2021). COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 24(2), 270–275. 10.1177/1368430220982068
(2017). Suspicion in the workplace: Organisational conspiracy theories and work-related outcomes. British Journal of Psychology, 108(3), 486–506. 10.1111/bjop.12212
(2017). The psychology of conspiracy theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538–542. 10.1177/0963721417718261
(2019). Understanding conspiracy theories. Political Psychology, 40(1), 3–35. 10.1111/pops.12568
(1994). Bullying and harassment at work and their relationships to work environment quality. An exploratory study. The European Work and Organisational Psychologist, 4(4), 381–401. 10.1080/13594329408410497
(1992). Paranoia and self-consciousness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(1), 129–138. 10.1037/0022-3514.62.1.129
(2008). The development and validation of the Workplace Ostracism Scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(6), 1348–1366. 10.1037/a0012743
(2012). Anxiety and negative self-schemas mediate the association between childhood maltreatment and paranoia. Psychiatry Research, 196(2-3), 323–324. 10.1016/j.psychres.2011.12.004
(2017). Beyond “monologicality”? Exploring conspiracist worldviews. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(1), 861. 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00861
(2007). A measure of state persecutory ideation for experimental studies. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 195(9), 781–784. 10.1097/NMD.0b013e318145a0a9
(2018). Ostracism in the workplace. In P. D’CruzE. NoronhaL. KeashlyS. Tye-Williams (Eds.), Special topics and particular occupations, professions and sectors (pp. 1–30). Springer Nature
(2013). The effect of high-anxiety situations on conspiracy thinking. Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues, 32(1), 100–118. 10.1007/s12144-013-9165-6
(2008). Paranoia and conspiracy thinking of Jews, Arabs, Germans, and Russians in a Polish sample. Psychological Reports, 102(3), 884–886. 10.2466/pr0.102.3.884-886
(2000). Twenty years’ research on peer victimisation and psychosocial maladjustment: A meta-analytic review of cross-sectional studies. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 41(4), 441–455. 10.1111/1469-7610.00629
(2018). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach (2nd ed.). Guilford Press
(2018). Bullying at work: Cognitive appraisal of negative acts, coping, wellbeing, and performance. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 23(1), 71–84. 10.1037/ocp0000064
(2018). How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Toward a more fine-grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48(7), 909–926. 10.1002/ejsp.2494
(2018). Childhood bullying, paranoid thinking and the misappraisal of social threat: Trouble at school. School Mental Health, 10(1), 26–34. 10.1007/s12310-017-9238-z
(2014). The social consequences of conspiracism: Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and to reduce one’s carbon footprint. British Journal of Psychology, 105(1), 35–56. 10.1111/bjop.12018
(2019). Belief in conspiracy theories and intentions to engage in everyday crime. British Journal of Social Psychology, 58(3), 534–549. 10.1111/bjso.12311
(2021). Measuring adolescents’ beliefs in conspiracy theories: Development and validation of the Adolescent Conspiracy Beliefs Questionnaire (ACBQ). British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 39(3), 499–520. 10.1111/bjdp.12368
(2020). Discrimination, HIV conspiracy theories and pre-exposure prophylaxis acceptability in gay men. Sexual Health, 17(6), 525–533. 10.1071/SH20154
(2022). Shining a spotlight on the dangerous consequences of conspiracy theories. Current Opinion in Psychology. 47(1), 101363. 10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101363
(2020). Pylons ablaze: Examining the role of 5G COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and support for violence. British Journal of Social Psychology, 59(3), 628–640. 10.1111/bjso.12394
(2014). Mediation and moderation. In H. ReisC. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (2nd ed., pp. 653–676). Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511996481.030
(2021). Aversion amplification in the emerging COVID-19 pandemic: The impact of political trust and subjective uncertainty on perceived threat. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 31(2), 213–222. 10.1002/casp.2490
(2018). Powerful pharma and its marginalised alternatives? Effects of individual differences in conspiracy mentality on attitudes toward medical approaches. Social Psychology, 49(5), 255–270. 10.1027/1864-9335/a000347
(2022). Data, materials, and preregistration for “Bullying and conspiracy theories.” https://osf.io/4t6bp/
(2007). A major event has a major cause: Evidence for the role of heuristics in reasoning about conspiracy theories. Social Psychological Review, 9(2), 18–28. 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00378
(1996). The content and development of mobbing at work. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 5(2), 165–184. 10.1080/13594329608414853
(2014). Unruly, ill-mannered observations can ruin your analysis. In H. T. ReisC. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (2nd ed., pp. 608–626). Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/cbo9780511996481.028
(2019). How workplace bullying jeopardizes employees' life satisfaction: The roles of job anxiety and insomnia. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(1), 2292. 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02292
(2011). Measuring exposure to workplace bullying. In S. EinarsenH. HoelD. ZapfC. L. Cooper (Eds.), Bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace developments in theory, research and practice. CRC Press.
(2019). Measuring bullying at work with the Short-Negative Acts Questionnaire: Identification of targets and criterion validity. Work & Stress, 33(1), 58–75. 10.1080/02678373.2018.1457736
(2014). Conspiracy theories and the paranoid style (s) of mass opinion. American Journal of Political Science, 58(4), 952–966. 10.1111/ajps.12084
(2022). Historia est magistra vitae”? The impact of historical victimhood on current conspiracy beliefs. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 25(2), 581–601. 10.1177/1368430220968898
(2020). Beliefs in conspiracy theories following ostracism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(8), 1234–1246. 10.1177/0146167219898944
(2003). Ways of explaining workplace bullying: A review of enabling, motivating and precipitating structures and processes in the work environment. Human Relations, 56(10), 1213–1232. 10.1177/00187267035610003
(2013). At what sample size do correlations stabilise? Journal of Research in Personality, 47(5), 609–612. 10.1016/j.jrp.2013.05.009
(2013). Bullying and victimization among children. Advances in Pediatrics, 60(1), 33–51. 10.1016/j.yapd.2013.04.004
(2017). Concurrent and longitudinal contribution of exposure to bullying in childhood to mental health: The role of vulnerability and resilience. JAMA Psychiatry, 74(11), 1112–1119. 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.2678
(2021). Social exclusion reduces happiness by creating expectations of future rejection. Self and Identity, 20(1), 116–125. 10.1080/15298868.2020.1779119
(2003). The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Health Quality Life Outcomes, 1(1), 29. 10.1186/1477-7525-1-29
(2007). Update on bullying at school: Science forgotten?. Developmental Review, 27(1), 90–126. 10.1016/j.dr.2006.08.002
(2017). Conspiracy theories as part of history: The role of societal crisis situations. Memory Studies, 10(3), 323–333. 10.1177/1750698017701615
(2013). Belief in conspiracy theories: The influence of uncertainty and perceived morality. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43(1), 109–115. 10.1002/ejsp.1922
(2007). A systematic review of school-based interventions to prevent bullying. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 161(1), 78–88. 10.1001/archpedi.161.1.78
(2018). New recommendations for testing indirect effects in mediational models: The need to report and test component paths. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(6), 929–943. 10.1037/pspa0000132
(