Benjamin F McLean1, Ryan P Balzan2, Julie K Mattiske3. 1. College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. 2. College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: ryan.balzan@flinders.edu.au. 3. College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: A single meta-analysis has found that healthy people with higher delusion-proneness tend to gather less information (i.e., make fewer draws to decision, or DTD) on the beads task, although the findings of contributing studies were mixed, and the pooled effect size was small. However, using a new and more reliable "distractor sequences" beads task, we recently found a positive relationship between delusion-proneness and DTD in a healthy sample. In the current study, we re-tested this relationship in a new sample, and tested the possibility that the relationship is driven by participant's ability to understand and use odds or likelihood information ("odds literacy"). METHODS: Healthy participants (N = 167) completed the distractor sequences beads task, the Peters Delusions Inventory (PDI) which measures delusion-proneness, a measure of odds literacy, and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress scale. RESULTS: PDI and DTD were positively correlated, and comparing PDI quartiles on DTD confirmed a statistically significant trend of increasing DTD with PDI quartile. Odds literacy was positively rather than negatively associated with both DTD and PDI. Anxiety was positively correlated with PDI and DTD. CONCLUSIONS: We replicated our earlier finding that DTD and delusion-proneness were positively related in a non-clinical sample, but found that increased odds-literacy did not drive lower PDI and DTD, and hence did not explain their covariance. It is possible however that anxiety and co-occurring risk aversion drive increased delusion-proneness and information-gathering, potentially accounting for the positive relationship between PDI and DTD. Crown
BACKGROUND: A single meta-analysis has found that healthy people with higher delusion-proneness tend to gather less information (i.e., make fewer draws to decision, or DTD) on the beads task, although the findings of contributing studies were mixed, and the pooled effect size was small. However, using a new and more reliable "distractor sequences" beads task, we recently found a positive relationship between delusion-proneness and DTD in a healthy sample. In the current study, we re-tested this relationship in a new sample, and tested the possibility that the relationship is driven by participant's ability to understand and use odds or likelihood information ("odds literacy"). METHODS: Healthy participants (N = 167) completed the distractor sequences beads task, the Peters Delusions Inventory (PDI) which measures delusion-proneness, a measure of odds literacy, and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress scale. RESULTS: PDI and DTD were positively correlated, and comparing PDI quartiles on DTD confirmed a statistically significant trend of increasing DTD with PDI quartile. Odds literacy was positively rather than negatively associated with both DTD and PDI. Anxiety was positively correlated with PDI and DTD. CONCLUSIONS: We replicated our earlier finding that DTD and delusion-proneness were positively related in a non-clinical sample, but found that increased odds-literacy did not drive lower PDI and DTD, and hence did not explain their covariance. It is possible however that anxiety and co-occurring risk aversion drive increased delusion-proneness and information-gathering, potentially accounting for the positive relationship between PDI and DTD. Crown
Authors: Sarah Anne Kezia Kuhn; Roselind Lieb; Daniel Freeman; Christina Andreou; Thea Zander-Schellenberg Journal: Psychol Med Date: 2021-03-16 Impact factor: 7.723