Creation of Paranoia in Society
The same motivations that exist for creation of paranoia among individuals exist for the creation of paranoia among groups. Because individuals identify with groups, they will react to attacks on their group the way they would react to an attack on themselves. One of the causes for individuals creating paranoia is in response to a threat. The same mechanism exists among groups. Let's say our group has in the past exploited another group, and an individual in our group makes a speech and points that out to us. Those of us who identify with our group may find that speech threatening, and we may create the paranoid belief that the person giving that speech has bad intentions. In this way, we can keep our minds comfortably closed to unpleasant facts. A likely uncomfortable consequence of our closed minds is conflict between our group and the other group.
During election campaigns, the left and right wing parties try and create as much paranoia as possible towards their opponents among the general population. This is an example of creating paranoia to defeat competition. One motive to create paranoia is to motivate others to remove obstacles that stand in the way of one's ambitions. Another motivation for creating paranoia that I mentioned before was as a way to protect and restore self-esteem in response to rejection.
