Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:08:00.333Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Self-Confidence and Paranoia: An Experimental Study Using an Immersive Virtual Reality Social Situation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2014

Stephanie Atherton ,
Angus Antley ,
Nicole Evans ,
Emma Cernis ,
Rachel Lister ,
Graham Dunn ,
Mel Slater  and
Daniel Freeman
Stephanie Atherton
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, UK
Angus Antley
Affiliation:
University of Oxford and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, UK
Nicole Evans
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, UK
Emma Cernis
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, UK
Rachel Lister
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, UK
Graham Dunn
Affiliation:
University of Manchester, and MRC NW Hub for Trials Methodology Research, Manchester, UK
Mel Slater
Affiliation:
University College London, UK and University of Barcelona, Spain
Daniel Freeman*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, UK
*
Reprint requests to Daniel Freeman, Oxford Cognitive Approaches to Psychosis, University Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK. E-mail: daniel.freeman@psych.ox.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background: Paranoia may build directly upon negative thoughts about the self. There have been few direct experimental tests of this hypothesis. Aims: The aim of the study was to test the immediate effects of manipulating self-esteem in individuals vulnerable to paranoia. Method: A two condition cross-over experimental test was conducted. The participants were 26 males reporting paranoid ideation in the past month. Each participant experienced a neutral immersive virtual reality (VR) social environment twice. Before VR participants received a low self-confidence manipulation or a high self-confidence manipulation. The order of manipulation type was randomized. Paranoia about the VR avatars was assessed. Results: The low self-confidence manipulation, relative to the high self-confidence manipulation, led to significantly more negative social comparison in virtual reality and higher levels of paranoia. Conclusions: Level of self-confidence affects the occurrence of paranoia in vulnerable individuals. The clinical implication is that interventions designed to improve self-confidence may reduce persecutory ideation.

Keywords

Delusionspersecutory delusionsself-esteem
Type
Research Article
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 56 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allan, S. and Gilbert, P. (1995). A social comparison scale: psychometric properties and relationship to psychopathology. Personality and Individual Differences, 19, 293–299. doi: 10.1016/0191-8869(95)00086-L Google Scholar
Armitage, P., Berry, G. and Matthews, J. N. S. (2002). Statistical Methods in Medical Research (4th edn). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bebbington, P., McBride, O., Steel, C., Kuipers, E., Radovanovic, M., Brugha, T., et al. (2013). The structure of paranoia in the general population. British Journal of Psychiatry, 202, 419–427.Google Scholar
Fowler, D., Hodgekins, J., Garety, P., Freeman, D., Kuipers, E., Dunn, G., et al. (2012). Negative cognition, depressed mood and paranoia: a longitudinal pathway analysis using structural equation modelling. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 38, 1063–1073.Google Scholar
Freeman, D., Dunn, G., Murray, R., Evans, N., Lister, R., Antley, A., et al. (2014). How cannabis causes paranoia: using the intravenous administration of ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to identify key cognitive mechanisms leading to paranoia. Schizophrenia Bulletin. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbu098 Google ScholarPubMed
Freeman, D., Evans, N., Lister, R., Antley, A., Dunn, G. and Slater, M. (2014). Height, social comparison, and paranoia: an immersive virtual reality experimental study. Psychiatry Research, 218, 348–352.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freeman, D. and Garety, P. (2014). Advances in understanding and treating persecutory delusions. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 49, 1179–1189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freeman, D., Garety, P. A., Bebbington, P. E., Smith, B., Rollinson, R., Fowler, D., et al. (2005). Psychological investigation of the structure of paranoia in a non-clinical population. British Journal of Psychiatry, 186, 427–435.Google Scholar
Freeman, D., Garety, P. A., Kuipers, E., Fowler, D. and Bebbington, P. E. (2002). A cognitive model of persecutory delusions. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 41, 331–347. doi: 10.1348/014466502760387461 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freeman, D., Pugh, K., Antley, A., Slater, M., Bebbington, P., Gittins, M., et al. (2008). A virtual reality study of paranoid thinking in the general population. British Journal of Psychiatry, 192, 258–263.Google Scholar
Freeman, D., Pugh, K., Dunn, G., Evans, N., Sheaves, B., Waite, F., et al. (2014). An early Phase II randomized controlled trial testing the effect on persecutory delusions of using CBT to reduce negative cognitions about the self: the potential benefits of enhancing self confidence. Manuscript submitted for publication.Google Scholar
Freeman, D., Pugh, K., Green, C., Valmaggia, L., Dunn, G. and Garety, P. (2007). A measure of state persecutory ideation for experimental studies. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 195, 781–784. doi: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e318145a0a9 Google Scholar
Garety, P. A. and Freeman, D. (2013). The past and future of delusions research: from the inexplicable to the treatable. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 203, 327–333. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.113.126953 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, C. E. L., Freeman, D., Kuipers, E., Bebbington, P., Fowler, D., Dunn, G., et al. (2008). Measuring ideas of persecution and social reference: the Green et al. Paranoid Thought Scales (GPTS). Psychological Medicine, 38, 101–111.Google Scholar
Kesting, M. and Lincoln, T. (2013). The relevance of self-esteem and self-schemas to persecutory delusions. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 54, 766–789.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laithwaite, H. M., Gumley, A., Benn, A., Scott, E., Downey, K., Black, K., et al. (2007). Self-esteem and psychosis: a pilot study investigating the effectiveness of a self-esteem programme on the self-esteem and positive symptomatology of mentally disordered offenders. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 35, 569–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lincoln, T. M., Hohenhaus, F. and Hartmann, M. (2013). Can paranoid thoughts be reduced by targeting negative emotions and self-esteem? An experimental investigation of a brief compassion-focused intervention. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 37, 390–402.Google Scholar
Spanlang, B. (2009). HALCA hardware accelerated library for character animation. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, EVENT Lab.Google Scholar
StataCorp (2013). Stata Statistical Software: Release 13. College Station, TX: StataCorp LP.Google Scholar
Tiernan, B., Tracey, R. and Shannon, C. (2014). Paranoia and self-concepts in psychosis. Psychiatry Research. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2014.02.003 Google Scholar
Vorontsova, N., Garety, P. and Freeman, D. (2013). Cognitive factors maintaining persecutory delusions in psychosis: the contribution of depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 122, 1121–1131.Google Scholar
Wong, K., Freeman, D. and Hughes, C. (2014). Suspicious young minds: a study of two and a half thousand 8–14 year olds in the UK and Hong Kong. British Journal of Psychiatry, 205, 221–229.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.