Paranoia and conspiracy: group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the Trust Game
Current theories argue that hyper-sensitisation of social threat perception is central to paranoia. Affected people often also report misperceptions of group cohesion (conspiracy) but little is known about the cognitive mechanisms underpinning this conspiracy thinking in live interactions. In a pre-...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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PeerJ Inc.
2019-08-01
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| Series: | PeerJ |
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| Online Access: | https://peerj.com/articles/7403.pdf |
| _version_ | 1797419477204205568 |
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| author | Anna Greenburgh Vaughan Bell Nichola Raihani |
| author_facet | Anna Greenburgh Vaughan Bell Nichola Raihani |
| author_sort | Anna Greenburgh |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Current theories argue that hyper-sensitisation of social threat perception is central to paranoia. Affected people often also report misperceptions of group cohesion (conspiracy) but little is known about the cognitive mechanisms underpinning this conspiracy thinking in live interactions. In a pre-registered experimental study, we used a large-scale game theory approach (N > 1,000) to test whether the social cohesion of an opposing group affects paranoid attributions in a mixed online and lab-based sample. Participants spanning the full population distribution of paranoia played as proposers in a modified Trust Game: they were allocated a bonus and chose how much money to send to a pair of responders which was quadrupled before reaching these responders. Responders decided how much to return to the proposers through the same process. Participants played in one of two conditions: against a cohesive group who communicated and arrived at a joint decision, or a non-cohesive group who made independent decisions. After the exchange, proposers rated the extent to which the responders’ decisions were driven by (i) self-interest and (ii) intent to harm. Although the true motives are ambiguous, cohesive responders were reliably rated by participants as being more strongly motivated by intent to harm, indicating that group cohesion affects social threat perception. Highly paranoid participants attributed harmful intent more strongly overall but were equally reactive to social cohesion as other participants. This suggests that paranoia involves a generally lowered threshold for social threat detection but with an intact sensitivity for cohesion-related group characteristics. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T06:48:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0c526e97883e494a90f4eee667f41317 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2167-8359 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T06:48:52Z |
| publishDate | 2019-08-01 |
| publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PeerJ |
| spelling | doaj.art-0c526e97883e494a90f4eee667f413172023-12-03T10:31:01ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592019-08-017e740310.7717/peerj.7403Paranoia and conspiracy: group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the Trust GameAnna Greenburgh0Vaughan Bell1Nichola Raihani2Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, United KingdomDepartment of Clinical, Education and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United KingdomDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, United KingdomCurrent theories argue that hyper-sensitisation of social threat perception is central to paranoia. Affected people often also report misperceptions of group cohesion (conspiracy) but little is known about the cognitive mechanisms underpinning this conspiracy thinking in live interactions. In a pre-registered experimental study, we used a large-scale game theory approach (N > 1,000) to test whether the social cohesion of an opposing group affects paranoid attributions in a mixed online and lab-based sample. Participants spanning the full population distribution of paranoia played as proposers in a modified Trust Game: they were allocated a bonus and chose how much money to send to a pair of responders which was quadrupled before reaching these responders. Responders decided how much to return to the proposers through the same process. Participants played in one of two conditions: against a cohesive group who communicated and arrived at a joint decision, or a non-cohesive group who made independent decisions. After the exchange, proposers rated the extent to which the responders’ decisions were driven by (i) self-interest and (ii) intent to harm. Although the true motives are ambiguous, cohesive responders were reliably rated by participants as being more strongly motivated by intent to harm, indicating that group cohesion affects social threat perception. Highly paranoid participants attributed harmful intent more strongly overall but were equally reactive to social cohesion as other participants. This suggests that paranoia involves a generally lowered threshold for social threat detection but with an intact sensitivity for cohesion-related group characteristics.https://peerj.com/articles/7403.pdfParanoiaGroup cohesionConspiracyTrust game |
| spellingShingle | Anna Greenburgh Vaughan Bell Nichola Raihani Paranoia and conspiracy: group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the Trust Game PeerJ Paranoia Group cohesion Conspiracy Trust game |
| title | Paranoia and conspiracy: group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the Trust Game |
| title_full | Paranoia and conspiracy: group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the Trust Game |
| title_fullStr | Paranoia and conspiracy: group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the Trust Game |
| title_full_unstemmed | Paranoia and conspiracy: group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the Trust Game |
| title_short | Paranoia and conspiracy: group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the Trust Game |
| title_sort | paranoia and conspiracy group cohesion increases harmful intent attribution in the trust game |
| topic | Paranoia Group cohesion Conspiracy Trust game |
| url | https://peerj.com/articles/7403.pdf |
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