Centre for Forensic and Family Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Centre for Forensic and Family Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2016 Mar;62(2):123-32. doi: 10.1177/0020764015599998. Epub 2015 Aug 19.
Paranoid thinking is prevalent in the non-clinical population and cognitive mechanisms of heuristic reasoning and jumping to conclusions bias contributes to its formation and maintenance.
This study investigated the degree to which paranoia, perceived environmental risk, heuristic reasoning and jumping to conclusions bias (measured with the beads task) contribute to misinterpretation of neutral stimuli, and whether this informed judgements regarding vulnerability to threat and crime. It is also investigated whether impulsiveness is a confounding factor on the beads task.
Two hundred participants were recruited using a snowball-sampling method for a quantitative cross-sectional study. Participants reported demographic information, three psychometric questionnaires and two experimental tasks via an online paradigm hosted by the Bristol Online Survey tool.
Participants with high paranoia scores perceived their environment to be more dangerous than those with low scores. Participants with high paranoia scores also overestimated threat in neutral stimuli and had high expectations of future victimisation. Jumping to conclusions on the beads task did not predict fear of crime outcomes, but was predicted by impulsivity.
Participants who demonstrated paranoid thinking were more likely to reside in perceived dangerous neighbourhoods and overestimate threat. While this could indicate a paranoid heuristic, it is a potentially rational response to prior experiences of crime and victimisation. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
偏执思维在非临床人群中很普遍，启发式推理和仓促下结论的认知机制促成了其形成和维持。
本研究旨在调查偏执、感知环境风险、启发式推理和仓促下结论偏差（通过珠子任务衡量）在多大程度上导致对中性刺激的误解，以及这是否会影响对威胁和犯罪的易感性的判断。还研究了冲动是否是珠子任务的混杂因素。
采用滚雪球抽样法招募了 200 名参与者，进行了一项定量横断面研究。参与者通过布里斯托在线调查工具（Bristol Online Survey tool）在线报告人口统计学信息、三个心理计量学问卷和两个实验任务。
偏执得分高的参与者认为他们的环境比得分低的参与者更危险。偏执得分高的参与者也高估了中性刺激中的威胁，并且对未来受害的期望很高。珠子任务上仓促下结论并不能预测对犯罪的恐惧结果，但可以由冲动来预测。
表现出偏执思维的参与者更有可能居住在感知危险的社区，并高估威胁。虽然这可能表明存在偏执启发式，但这也是对先前犯罪和受害经历的一种潜在合理反应。讨论了其影响和对未来研究的建议。
