Selective attention to threatening stimuli and field independence as factors in the etiology of paranoid behavior.

Abstract

To test a theory that selective attention to threatening stimuli induces paranoia, an attempt was made to manipulate attention to threatening and nonthreatening statements among college students and examine the effects on three indices of paranoia. Although manipulation checks indicated that attention was varied in the desired manner, hypothesized results in which selective attention to threatening statements would lead to greater scores on the paranoia measures were not found. However, a measure of field independence snowed a predicted positive correlation with the indices of paranoia for subjects who were manipulated to attend selectively to threatening statements. These same correlations tended to be negative or zero among subjects manipulated to attend to nonthreat and among unbiased attenders. These data suggest that susceptibility to development of paranoid behavior through selective attention to threat cues may increase as a function of field independence.A theory proposed by Ullmann and Krasner (1969) for the etiology of paranoia has found substantial empirical validation. This theory asserts that learned selective attention to threatening stimuli may be a causative agent in the development of persecutory delusions. Biased perceptual input due to the selective attention purportedly leads an individual to form conclusions about his environment which appear as delusions to others not engaging in the "abnormal" attentional behavior. The often noted normal' or even superior intelligence of the pure paranoiac allows him to form logically sound generalizations from the data he perceives, but the biased selection of data from which he is generalizing can only lead him to form conclusions about his environment which are false. Furthermore, his inability to find fault with his logic makes him rigid in his views.In support of this theory, a number of studies have found unusual attentional behavior in paranoid schizophrenics: They seemed

Attentional bias to emotional stimuli is altered during moderate- but not high-intensity exercise.

“…Accumulating evidence over the past several decades suggests that information processing is limited in the human visual system when individuals are faced with the task of attending to multiple objects at the same time (Kastner & Ungerleider, 2000). Studies have shown that multiple stimuli can either integrate or compete when they are displayed in the same visual field at a given time (Blum & Barbour, 1979; Fox, 1993; Locascio & Snyder, 1975). Some stimuli are preferentially processed because the brain presumably has been designed to process salient stimuli more so than nonsalient stimuli.…”

Learned helplessness and the occurrence of depressive-like and paranoid-like responses: The role of attentional focus.

“…In support of this view, some theorists have claimed that selective focus on threatening stimuli can contribute to the development of paranoid-like responses (e.g., Cameron, 1967; Colby, 1981; Kramer, 1994; Meissner, 1978). Although these studies tell nothing about the direction of causality, Locascio and Snyder (1975) found that normal participants whose attention was directed to threatening statements made more paranoid-like responses in the laboratory than participants whose attention was not directed to these statements. Finally, Fenigstein and Vanable (1992) found that paranoid-like cognitions are related to excessive consciousness of the way others perceive, think about, and behave toward the person (public self-consciousness).…”

Paranoia and emotion perception across the continuum

“…Most of the social‐cognitive findings in the literature on paranoia have suggested the operation of a paranoid schema or information‐processing bias, which may be sensitive to ambiguous social stimuli and influence the processing of threatening stimuli (Brennan & Hemsley, 1984; Freeman et al , 2002; Locascio & Synder, 1975; Magaro, 1981; Miller & Karoni, 1996; Phillips et al , 2000). Information‐processing biases have been discussed as important factors in the both the development and maintenance of persecutory delusions (Freeman et al , 2002).…”