Abstract
Background: Paranoia refers to unfounded suspicion and mistrust that others intend to cause personal harm, existing along a continuum from general suspiciousness to persecutory delusions. Paranoia increases under acute stress. Cognitive models suggest that the Jumping to conclusions (JTC) bias contributes to paranoid thinking. However, evidence for the impact of stress on JTC is mixed, and prior studies have relied on abstract JTC tasks with limited ecological validity. This study aimed to test the effect of acute stress on JTC and paranoia using a socially relevant and ecologically valid task— The Social Beads Task.Method: Nonclinical participants (N = 106) were randomly allocated to either a stress induction or control condition. Participants were assessed on state paranoia, subjective stress and physiological stress (heart rate variability). JTC was measured using the Social Beads Task.
Results: Subjective stress and physiological responses confirmed the effectiveness of the experimental manipulation (p’s < .001). Stress significantly increased state paranoia (b = 6.40, SE = 1.48, p < .001), but had no effect on JTC (b = 0.02, SE = 0.38, p = .949).
Conclusions: The present study contributes to the growing evidence that stress increases paranoia, even in nonclinical samples. However, JTC appears to be a relatively stable reasoning bias under acute stress. Further research could validate the Social Beads Task in clinical samples and evaluate JTC under more naturalistic stress conditions.
| Date of Award | 10 Sept 2025 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Tom Barry (Supervisor) & Pamela Jacobsen (Supervisor) |
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