Tinfoil hat
Humorists have created the term tinfoil hat to describe headgear lined with aluminium foil, worn by eccentrics to keep out imagined mind-controlling radiation.This draws on the stereotypical image of belief in mind control by ESP, microwave radiation or other technological means as part of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.
Other stereotypical paranoid concepts include:
- inflated self-importance (delusion of grandeur);
- ideas of reference that link seemingly unrelated news events into a larger, typically conspiratorial plan;
- Black helicopters and other mass surveillance;
- Persecution from powerful adversaries such as UFOs, the Men in Black, secret societies or demons;
- conspiracy theories;
- fear of adulterated food (e.g., aspartame) or water (e.g., fluoridation) as part of some sort of secret plot.
