Reasoning, delusion proneness and stress: an experimental investigation

Abstract

Previous studies have been inconsistent in demonstrating a relationship between delusion proneness and induced stress on reasoning biases. The present study was an experimental investigation of the role of stress in the form of feeling rushed, which has previously been shown to be related to the jumping-to-conclusions reasoning bias for delusion-prone individuals, on the reasoning of delusion-prone individuals. University students (n = 133) completed a measure of delusion proneness and were randomly assigned to either receive or not receive a stress induction in the form of a speeded subtraction task. All participants engaged in four trials of a probabilistic reasoning task. Delusion-prone and not delusion-prone participants performed similarly when there was no stress induction, but delusion-prone individuals demonstrated reasoning biases relative to not delusion-prone individuals when stress was induced. The reasoning of delusion-prone individuals may be particularly vulnerable when they feel rushed and in stressful conditions.

Healthy people with delusional ideation change their mind with conviction

“…However, it appears likely that the increased JTC was observed because of the increased paranoia. In healthy people, some found that inducing anxiety significantly increases the JTC bias and the levels of state paranoia in high scorers on the CAPE, a psychotic experiences questionnaire (Lincoln et al, 2010a(Lincoln et al, , 2010b) whilst others did not find effect of induced anxiety on the JTC bias (Keefe and Warman, 2011). Given the lack of strong rationale behind an association between JTC and depression or anxiety, we hypothesise that delusions are independently related to JTC and emotions.…”

When does jumping-to-conclusions reach its peak? The interaction of vulnerability and situation-characteristics in social reasoning

“…Several studies even found delusions or delusion proneness only to be associated with reasoning biases when the stimulus material was more emotional (Warman & Martin, 2006), self-referent (Warman et al, 2007) or based on visual or auditory material (Colbert, Peters, & Garety, 2010;Ziegler et al, 2008). In addition, several recent studies in clinical and non-clinical populations have shown that JTC increases under emotional arousal (Ellett, Freeman, & Garety, 2008;Keefe & Warman, 2010;Lincoln, Lange, Burau, Exner, & Moritz, 2010;Moritz et al, in press). Although these findings indicate that the JTC bias might become stronger the more emotionally salient or self-referent a situation is, no study has directly investigated whether it becomes more pronounced when persons have to deal with delusion-relevant situations.…”

Investigating the ‘Jumping to Conclusions’ Bias in People with Anorexia Nervosa

“…The JTC bias has been well-researched since its initial identification. Research suggests the JTC bias is evident in people with delusions or delusion proneness when material is more emotional (Warman & Martin, 2006), is self-referent (Warman, Lysaker, Martin, Davis, & Haudenschield, 2007), increases under emotional arousal (Keefe & Warman, 2011) and is delusion specific rather than schizophrenia specific (Lincoln, Ziegler, Mehl, & Rief, 2010).…”