Jumping to the wrong conclusions? An investigation of the mechanisms of reasoning errors in delusions

PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH

卷:219

Article

Jolley, Suzanne¹  Thompson, Claire¹  Hurley, James²  Medin, Evelina²  Butler, Lucy¹  Bebbington, Paul³  Dunn, Graham^4,5  Freeman, Daniel⁶  Fowler, David⁷  Kuipers, Elizabeth¹  Garety, Philippa¹ 

[1] Kings Coll London, Inst Psychiat, Dept Psychol, London SE5 8AF, England

[2] Univ E Anglia, Sch Med Hlth Policy & Practice, Norwich NR4 7TJ, Norfolk, England

[3] UCL, Div Psychiat, London, England

[4] Univ Manchester, Ctr Biostat, Inst Populat Hlth, Manchester, Lancs, England

[5] Manchester Acad Hlth Sci Ctr, Manchester, Lancs, England

[6] Univ Oxford, Dept Psychiat, Oxford, England

[7] Univ Sussex, Sch Psychol, Brighton, Sussex, England

关键词: Schizophrenia;    Psychosis;    Reasoning;    Cognitive therapy;    IQ;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.psychres.2014.05.051

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Understanding how people with delusions arrive at false conclusions is central to the refinement of cognitive behavioural interventions. Making hasty decisions based on limited data ('jumping to conclusions', JTC) is one potential causal mechanism, but reasoning errors may also result from other processes. In this study, we investigated the correlates of reasoning errors under differing task conditions in 204 participants with schizophrenia spectrum psychosis who completed three probabilistic reasoning tasks. Psychotic symptoms, affect, and IQ were also evaluated. We found that hasty decision makers were more likely to draw false conclusions, but only 37% of their reasoning errors were consistent with the limited data they had gathered. The remainder directly contradicted all the presented evidence. Reasoning errors showed task-dependent associations with IQ affect, and psychotic symptoms. We conclude that limited data-gathering contributes to false conclusions but is not the only mechanism involved. Delusions may also be maintained by a tendency to disregard evidence. Low IQ and emotional biases may contribute to reasoning errors in more complex situations. Cognitive strategies to reduce reasoning errors should therefore extend beyond encouragement to gather more data, and incorporate interventions focused directly on these difficulties. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

【 授权许可】

Free