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Persecutory delusion is a symptom present in different clinical conditions. In recents years, there has been a large body of research focused on the study of persecutory delusion, from a symptom-approach perspective, analyzing a number of psychological processes (cognitive, emotional, etc) associated to this type of delusional beliefs. In the present paper we present a review of empirical research that has explored the role of cognitive mechanisms in persecutory delusion. We review the empirical evidence showing cognitive biases in several domains of functioning in people with persecutory beliefs: selective attention, memory for emotional material, probabilistic and inferential reasoning processes (i.e. causal attributions), and general cognitive schemas. We finally discuss the role of these biases in the onset and maintenance of persecutory beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Selective processing of emotion-relevant information is considered a central feature in various types of psychopathology, yet the mechanisms underlying these biases are not well understood. One of the first steps in processing information is to gather data to judge the covariation or association of events. The aim of this study was to explore whether patients with persecutory delusions would show a covariation bias when processing stimuli related to social threat. Design and methods. We assessed estimations of covariation in-patients with current persecutory (CP) beliefs (N = 40), patients with past persecutory (PP) beliefs (N = 25), and a non-clinical control (NC) group (N = 36). Covariation estimations were assessed under three different experimental conditions. The first two conditions focused on neutral behaviours (Condition 1) and psychological traits (Condition 2) for two distant cultural groups, while the third condition included self-relevant material by exposing the participant to either protective social (positive) or threatening social (negative) statements about the participant or a third person. Results. Our results showed that all participants were precise in their covariation estimations. However, when judging covariation for self-relevant sentences related to social statements (Condition 3), all groups showed a significant tendency to associate positive social interaction (protection themed) sentences to the self. Yet, when using sentences related to social-threat, the CP group showed a bias consisting of overestimating the number of self-referent sentences. Conclusions. Our results showed that there was no specific covariation assessment bias related to paranoid beliefs. Both NCs and participants with persecutory beliefs showed a similar pattern of results when processing neutral or social threat-related sentences. The implications for understanding of the role of self-referent information processing biases in delusion formation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the presence of atributional cognitive biases in delusional patients is studied. Explicit (IPSAQ) and implicit (PIT) attributional measures have been used to analyze the attributional style in a sample of 40 delusional patients (19 paranoid patients and 21 non paranoid patients). The results showed the presence of attributional biases (i.e. externalizing and personalizing) independently of the delusional content when an explicit task was used. Compared to non paranoid patients, the paranoid group showed a different attributional style when it was assessed through an implicit task. Theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paranoid ideas are the most common abnormal beliefs in the schizophrenia spectrum, are also prevalent in non-clinical populations, and are highly correlated with other mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and low levels of well-being. Two previous studies with the same British population sample used confirmatory factor analysis and network analysis to show that the spectrum of paranoid beliefs is made up of four factors or dimensions (i.e., interpersonal sensitivity, mistrust, ideas of reference and ideas of persecution). The aims of this study are: 1) to explore the distribution and the structure of paranoid beliefs in a Spanish general population by applying the network approach and 2) to use network analysis to explore for the first time whether specific domains of paranoid ideation (i.e., dimensions) are specifically associated with mental health correlates such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, and well-being. We found a continuous distribution of paranoid beliefs among the 1328 individuals constituting the sample (e.g., 29,2 % did not endorse any items, 4.6 % endorsed half of the items, while 0.8 % endorsed all paranoid items). Paranoid ideas form three dimensions; interpersonal sensitivity, mistrust, and ideas of persecution (ideas of reference did not form a separate factor). The network model showed that loneliness has a pivotal role in connecting paranoid ideation with general psychopathology measures (i.e., depression, anxiety, loneliness and well-being). Research and clinical implications derived from our findings are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reasoning biases are ubiquitous and may lead to errors in daily situations. Jumping to Conclusions (JTC) is the tendency to reach decisions based on scarce data. This study examines JTC in daily life and health-related scenarios, presenting primarily positive or negative information for decision-making. Two population-based surveys containing an experimental paradigm to measure JTC were conducted in a representative sample (N = 1949) during the first month of COVID-19 confinement. JTC task presented daily and health-related scenarios, providing predominantly positive or negative decision-making information. JTC bias prevalence was significantly higher in daily life scenarios and when deciding with mostly negative information. Specifically, when mainly negative information was available, anxiety raised the JTC likelihood in health-related scenarios, while higher levels of paranoid beliefs increased JTC in daily life-related scenarios. Optimism and age increased the JTC odds in decisions where available information was predominantly positive. Findings highlight contextual and psychological characteristics influencing decision-making in health and daily life issues. • Jumping to Conclusions bias (JTC) may be related to the individual's psychological characteristics. • We analyzed JTC in daily life vs health-related scenarios regarding information valence to decide. • A representative sample answered two population-based surveys during the COVID lockdown. • Different predictors emerged influenced by the type of decision-making and information valence. • Findings identify relevant variables for the design of future JTC intervention and preventive strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the present study was to examine implicit and explicit self-esteem (SE) in patients with persecutory delusions. In samples of paranoid patients, depressed patients, and healthy controls, implicit SE was assessed using the experimental go/no-go association task, whereas explicit SE was measured using 2 self-reporting questionnaires: the self-worth subscale of the World Assumption Scale (Janoff-Bulman, 1989) and the self-acceptance subscale of the Scales of Psychological Well-Being (Ryff & Keyes, 1995). Our analysis revealed that depressed patients showed lower explicit SE than did paranoid and healthy control participants. However, participants with persecutory delusions had significantly lower implicit SE scores than did healthy controls. We interpret the discrepancies observed between overt and covert measures in the paranoid group as psychological defense mechanisms. The present study stresses the clinical and theoretical importance of the use of implicit measures in psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experimental research on the psychopathology of paranoia frequently uses verbal stimuli. Therefore, the availability of well validated databases of words specifically related to paranoid disorders would be a highly useful tool for researchers. The goal of this study was to provide such database of Spanish paranoia-related words. A second goal was to select words related to paranoia but not to depression as it is possible that words with paranoid content may have a depressive content as well (e.g., 'humiliated'). Thus, we report two different studies. In Study 1, our goal was to select a sample of words specifically related to paranoid contents but not related to depression. In Study 2, our goal was to provide two basic psycholinguistic indexes (subjective frequency of use and emotionality) for the sample of words selected in Study 1. We finally provide the lists of words empirically selected following this procedure and discuss the utility of this type of stimuli for future research on paranoid-related disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]