Questionnaire assessments of paranoia cannot rule out paranoid thoughts that are grounded in reality. Even interview methods often cannot establish the truth of the claims underlying a suspicious thought. A laboratory method of eliciting truly paranoid thoughts overcomes the problem. Two hundred members of the general public were comprehensively assessed, and then entered a virtual reality train ride populated by neutral characters. Ordinal logistic regressions (controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, education, intellectual functioning, socio-economic status, train use, playing of computer games) were used to determine predictors of paranoia. The majority agreed that the characters were neutral, or even thought they were friendly. However, a substantial minority reported paranoid concerns. Paranoia was strongly predicted by anxiety, worry, perceptual anomalies and cognitive inflexibility. --- We have demonstrated that virtual reality is a safe and acceptable method of studying paranoia in the laboratory. Computer characters can elicit paranoid reactions. Our study is the clearest demonstration yet that paranoid thinking is not confined to people with severe mental illness. This study was carried out about 1 year after the 2005 London underground bombings. bjp.rcpsych.org/content/192/4/258.full
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 06:58:49 +0000
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